Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Trying to upgrade board software

Polverone - 20-3-2009 at 15:29

We were offline for longer than I expected as I was trying to upgrade the forum software and hit a snag. I may temporarily disable the board again later as I make another attempt but for now I think I need to learn more about PHP debugging before I continue.

kclo4 - 20-3-2009 at 15:34

What updates are we getting? anything noticeable?

Polverone - 20-3-2009 at 16:00

It's mostly security improvements, but a few improved features too. You can read about it here.

Polverone - 22-3-2009 at 14:01

The forum software is finally upgraded. It took a lot of time because the standard upgrade procedure did not work, so I had to do a lot of manual fixing to get the database formats updated for the latest forum software.

U2U messages sent after Friday afternoon were not carried over as part of this upgrade, due to the way I had to handle the database. If you have important U2U messages missing, you can still visit the legacy forum with the newer U2U database at http://www.sciencemadness.org/old-talk/

Don't post to the old board though, because further posts will not be transferred to the newly upgraded version here.

[Edited on 3-22-2009 by Polverone]

kclo4 - 22-3-2009 at 16:05

when I click http://www.sciencemadness.org/old-talk/ it gives 404 Not Found.

Polverone - 22-3-2009 at 16:48

Try again now.

kclo4 - 22-3-2009 at 17:01

Yep :)

Fleaker - 22-3-2009 at 18:37

You don't have an https for this newer version? I noticed that I can get to https://sciencemadness.org/talk , but upon logging in, I am redirected to the http.

Am I the only one experiencing this?

Polverone - 22-3-2009 at 19:54

Fleaker, you are right.

With the old forum software if you started out using https, you would keep using it. If you started with http you would also keep using it. Now the forum software forces one protocol or the other based on a configuration variable that I have to define for the board. I have asked the XMB support forum if there is a way to restore the old behavior.

I like to use https, but I know that not everyone does, and if I force the forum to https I am afraid we will lose search engine coverage as well as annoying some members.

I think I have a solution

Polverone - 22-3-2009 at 20:16

Try going to https://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/

You may have to log in again. It should be the same as the regular forum except it uses https. Since the forum software only permits you to set http or https I just set up 2 copies of the software, 1 for http and 1 for https, under different urls. The content is all the same though.

hector2000 - 23-3-2009 at 00:21

why you dont upgrade forum to last version of xmb?
last version contain lot of new part.like avatar,multi attachment and.... ?

Polverone - 23-3-2009 at 09:12

I have upgraded to the last version of XMB. Try making a post and you'll see that there is a new multi-attachment option. XMB has had avatars forever but they've always been disabled here.

hector2000 - 23-3-2009 at 10:58

why avatar is disable here?

Polverone - 23-3-2009 at 11:28

Many people will pick avatars that are offensively ugly, and I don't want to hurt their feelings by telling them that their avatar is no good and must be replaced or removed.

Fleaker - 23-3-2009 at 13:53

Excellent and quick fix to the problem. I appreciate it Polverone, and I am sure others do as well. Have a good day and thank you for updating the board.

jokull - 27-3-2009 at 06:27

It seems that the "Post reply" and "Quote" controls are not available in the References section, specially in the "wanted references..." thread. I hope this may be corrected in order to satisfy a request from another members.

Polverone - 27-3-2009 at 15:04

This problem was reported by gsd also. I think it is fixed now. The permissions system used internally by the forum software has changed in this latest release and it has been hard to figure out what combination of permissions to apply to make it behave like the old version.

I had a bug reported to me where non-approved members could read Whimsy and References, and I fixed that problem, but apparently the fix I made was overbroad and prevented members from posting. I think I have it appropriately set now so approved members can read/post but others cannot.

Panache - 19-4-2009 at 14:45

Quote: Originally posted by Polverone  
Try going to https://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/

You may have to log in again. It should be the same as the regular forum except it uses https. Since the forum software only permits you to set http or https I just set up 2 copies of the software, 1 for http and 1 for https, under different urls. The content is all the same though.


The secure server address now is failing to make a connection, as such the only way i could log and view was via the http site. Don't know if others are experiencing this.

MagicJigPipe - 19-4-2009 at 21:19

I am experiencing this also as of the time of this posting.

I am now in "HTTP mode".

Polverone - 20-4-2009 at 13:38

I am having trouble with HTTPS too. It looks like they just moved the site to another server. I will see if this problem resolves spontaneously by tomorrow. If not I will go to tech support.

[Edited on 4-20-2009 by Polverone]