Board

[Des911]

Any reason the board was off line last night and this morning ?

[Shropshiremoggie]

Who knows

[geoberni]

Not forgetting that for several hours it was, yet again, preceded by the inability to post up images.

I would have thought that with the pandemic, activity around here would have increased, since people would be limited in what other activities they could do. Yet it seems it has dried up to a fraction of what it was a year ago.
Any connection I wonder?
Are people just not bothering because of the hassle?

[les]

This is what I got earlier, General Error SQL Error. Whatever that is.
I tried to attach the page that came up but when attaching, it said —— image invalid.

[Trickydicky]

The club needs to bite the bullet and invest in a better platform. They need to be forward thinking and not just implement a short term fix. It’s been talked about for years.

[ManyMinors]

The club needs to bite the bullet and invest in a better platform. They need to be forward thinking and not just implement a short term fix. It’s been talked about for years.

I couldn't agree more. Members deserve better from a club of this stature. Those involved in the day to day running of the forum are doing their best but seem hampered by broken system

[ianmack]

Not forgetting that for several hours it was, yet again, preceded by the inability to post up images.

I would have thought that with the pandemic, activity around here would have increased, since people would be limited in what other activities they could do. Yet it seems it has dried up to a fraction of what it was a year ago.
Any connection I wonder?
Are people just not bothering because of the hassle?

I suspect that the problem with lockdown is we simply have little to discuss. I do a monthly newsletter for our local mechanical society but in the absence of subject matter it is currently quarterly at best. With no runs, car shows or even village fetes to mention unless you have a project in the shed what is left? Our cars are not getting much wear and tear to need maintenance. Roll on spring!

[jagnut66]

Are people just not bothering because of the hassle?

A site that doesn't function properly or that is regularly going down will discourage club members from using it sadly...............
So less discussion, fewer responses to questions asked and less information for those in need.
Unless remedied or replaced by something reliable, it could end up being complicit in its own demise..............
Best wishes,
Mike.

[Admin]

Time to bang the same old drum again I guess!

Criticism of the time things take to happen are entirely justified, and I know you've heard it all before. However a new board HAS been created and is sitting waiting to be used, but it would be a pointless exercise to replace something not great with something else not great so we are still making sure that we can restore backups of it properly and other redundancy options prior to letting it loose.

I do thank you for the conversations about it though - it is probably fair to say that in some quarters of MMOC central, the message board is not given the importance it deserves, so it is always handy for me to screenshot these conversations and forward them to various places to keep showing that old view isn't right any more.

[les]

Guess that was my post, if so, not trying to start a turf war, just the opposite, we all share the same interests so why not combine on occasions. When this place is down, it’s handy to get confirmation from the other forum. In fact I’m about to inform an LCV member that his request for saloon parts would be better placed on this forum. It works both ways !!

[jagnut66]

Time to bang the same old drum again I guess!

Obvious question possibly: Will all the old posts be transferred over and will they still have their pictures?
It's fair to say we want them and dip into them for information on occasion.

Plus and this may be obvious also, you will need to alert members to the new board when it is up and running, as a few seem to have already stopped using it, probably for the reasons stated above and in countless other posts on this topic.
Best wishes,
Mike.

[Admin]

New board is likely to be exactly that, a new board. The invaluable data contained in this board would be preserved either by:

• keeping this forum running for view only and removing the option for replies or new posts; or

• extracting the posts and images to a searchable pdf archive; or

• any other option that isn't the two above!

Creating a new message board is easy, can be up and running in moments. The tough bit is working out what to do with our existing content, but you can be assured that it will not be lost.

[geoberni]

I must admit to be confused as to why the content can't be transferred to a new phpBB.

Has the software behind the scenes been buggered around with so much over the years, by well intentioned amateurs, that's why...

A) we have to move to a new platform and have all this on some sort of archive

B) The ruddy things is collapsing around us....

[jagnut66]

New board is likely to be exactly that, a new board. The invaluable data contained in this board would be preserved either by:
keeping this forum running for view only and removing the option for replies or new posts; or
extracting the posts and images to a searchable pdf archive; or
any other option that isn't the two above!
Creating a new message board is easy, can be up and running in moments. The tough bit is working out what to do with our existing content, but you can be assured that it will not be lost.

Very disappointed that it won't be carried over.
Flitting between what will effectively be two sites will potentially mean allot of faffing about IMO.
Plus considering how unreliable the existing site is at present, storing it all on here is just asking for it all to be eventually lost for good.
I can see why others on here (post now deleted I note) are suggesting that members go somewhere else................
Best wishes,
Mike.

[les]

In spite of the recent post deletion I’m glad it has been noted.

[KeithL]

I got the SQL error at about 10pm last night. I have a screen dump but like Les it won't let me attach it - "The image file you tried to attach is invalid".

[simmitc]

Yesterday evening, the site went down at 18:38 and back up at 22:11 to the nearest five minutes. (I have used an availability monitoring service that checks at five minute intervals). Mike reported the site down to our IT provider and we await their comment as to the reason.

Separately, Mike commented that we are looking at options as to how to best retain the existing knowledge base. We might be able to import it into the new board, or it might be in some other form. If the current board is closed to new posts and we can discover what allowed it to come back yesterday evening, then it could be that it remains a viable and stable option to keep it as reference. There is a lot of work going on behind the scenes and we are striving for the best solution; so please don't dismiss ideas out of hand, and bear with us whilst we explore the options, some of which depend in getting access to the tables of posts, that we do not currently have.

[Admin]

New board is likely to be exactly that, a new board. The invaluable data contained in this board would be preserved either by:
keeping this forum running for view only and removing the option for replies or new posts; or
extracting the posts and images to a searchable pdf archive; or
any other option that isn't the two above!
Creating a new message board is easy, can be up and running in moments. The tough bit is working out what to do with our existing content, but you can be assured that it will not be lost.

Very disappointed that it won't be carried over.
Flitting between what will effectively be two sites will potentially mean allot of faffing about IMO.
Plus considering how unreliable the existing site is at present, storing it all on here is just asking for it all to be eventually lost for good.
I can see why others on here (post now deleted I note) are suggesting that members go somewhere else................
Best wishes,
Mike.

There's several points in there so I'll see if I can get them all in turn. A 'new' board will by definition not suffer from the unreliability we have now, and simply putting our old content into a new board ipso facto turns that board into a copy of our old board, along with whatever reliability issues it has. I've no doubt there will be some 'faffing', but realistically it should be limited to nothing more than referencing an old post now and then, and obviously over time that will decrease as the newer post becomes the reference rather than the older one. Stuff won't be 'lost for good'. The reason for changing over is to preserve the older content, and we'll make durable copies as pdf's.
I'm having enough of a battle with this at present guys, and don't need to be battling you too. If you want to leave, I can't stop you and I wouldn't if I could. I know, very very very well, that people are... 'disaffected', and I'm doing what I'm permitted to do to create a more usable resource. Yes I deleted the post referenced - if this was a board provided by the AA and someone said 'I think we should decamp to the RAC board', I'm fairly confident that would get deleted too!

[geoberni]

And of course it was down again this morning, between 'simmitc' and Mikes posts. How long for I don't know, but I'm sure simmitc knows, since he's using a site down monitor.
I tried posting a reply to a post and it went down with a '500 Server Error' while I was writing the reply. Luckily it was only a short one and I'm going to try again.

[les]

I’m sure you are doing all you can Mike, I want to say that from the start but certain comments like using the word threat is misleading folk into thinking my deleted post was urging people to leave or else! It was simply saying there are other forums with similar interests, if reliability here is ongoing. However I can’t see my post, causing a mass exodus, deleting it suggests that was the fear! It should be put back for people to judge, if it’s deemed too controversial, I’ll apologise.