Upcoming Maintenance!
Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2022 1:00 am
Hi all. Hope everybody here is well. Who knew "2020" was going to be a freakin' trilogy? 
So, remember last year when we were down for a really long time? Yeah, it sucked. That happened, in a nutshell, because our host updated the version of PHP and never told me they were going to do it - though they insist they did. By blocking the older versions of PHP, our software no longer worked and we were forced to upgrade to a newer version of phpBB in order to get things up and working again.
Well... they're doing it again. At least this time they did give me notice - two whole weeks. Thankfully, I just learned that upgrading from our 3.2.11 version of phpBB to 3.3.5 isn't all that difficult - though there were some snafus caused by their directions not being as clear as they could've been. The upgrade will happen in two stages.
Step 1: Next weekend, I'll do the update from phpBB v3.2.11 to 3.3.5. I'll be starting at around 8pm Saturday, 19-Mar EDT (00:00 20-Mar GMT).Based on how long it took me to do the update on Nifty (which is more or less a "test" for the Den nowadays), and adding in some wiggle room just in case, I expect to be completed within 2 hours. During that time, the site will be unavailable and will give a message stating that it's down for maintenance. If something goes bizarro and it ends up taking longer than 2 hours, I'll update the message to let whoever is trying to login know what's going on and what the new ETA is.
Step 2: Somewhere between 23-Mar and 25-Mar, the host will update php to version 7.4 and older versions will no longer be available. Frankly, I wish they would give a narrower range of when it'll happen. Simply updating somewhere in a 3 day window is gonna potentially suck. There's a good chance that once the host is done, nothing changes and I can update to the newer version once i know they're done. On the other hand, Murphy is a cruel son-of-a-bitch, and so there's always a chance that once they do the upgrade from their end, things will fail until I A) know about it; and B) have a chance to login and update to using the newer version. In the best-case scenario, I find out they're done and go ahead and change to the newest version. However, Murphy being the usual asshole that he is, if things go wrong I would expect that I'll also end up being stuck at work and unable to login for a little while. Or I'll be asleep when it happens. Or who knows... Basically, "Step 2" could be nice and smooth, or it could be a few hours of frustration. Either way, once I know the upgrade is done and I have 15 minutes to switch over, everything should be all set.
Cheers!
So, remember last year when we were down for a really long time? Yeah, it sucked. That happened, in a nutshell, because our host updated the version of PHP and never told me they were going to do it - though they insist they did. By blocking the older versions of PHP, our software no longer worked and we were forced to upgrade to a newer version of phpBB in order to get things up and working again.
Well... they're doing it again. At least this time they did give me notice - two whole weeks.
Thankfully, I just learned that upgrading from our 3.2.11 version of phpBB to 3.3.5 isn't all that difficult - though there were some snafus caused by their directions not being as clear as they could've been. The upgrade will happen in two stages.Step 1: Next weekend, I'll do the update from phpBB v3.2.11 to 3.3.5. I'll be starting at around 8pm Saturday, 19-Mar EDT (00:00 20-Mar GMT).Based on how long it took me to do the update on Nifty (which is more or less a "test" for the Den nowadays), and adding in some wiggle room just in case, I expect to be completed within 2 hours. During that time, the site will be unavailable and will give a message stating that it's down for maintenance. If something goes bizarro and it ends up taking longer than 2 hours, I'll update the message to let whoever is trying to login know what's going on and what the new ETA is.
Step 2: Somewhere between 23-Mar and 25-Mar, the host will update php to version 7.4 and older versions will no longer be available. Frankly, I wish they would give a narrower range of when it'll happen. Simply updating somewhere in a 3 day window is gonna potentially suck. There's a good chance that once the host is done, nothing changes and I can update to the newer version once i know they're done. On the other hand, Murphy is a cruel son-of-a-bitch, and so there's always a chance that once they do the upgrade from their end, things will fail until I A) know about it; and B) have a chance to login and update to using the newer version. In the best-case scenario, I find out they're done and go ahead and change to the newest version. However, Murphy being the usual asshole that he is, if things go wrong I would expect that I'll also end up being stuck at work and unable to login for a little while. Or I'll be asleep when it happens. Or who knows... Basically, "Step 2" could be nice and smooth, or it could be a few hours of frustration. Either way, once I know the upgrade is done and I have 15 minutes to switch over, everything should be all set.
Cheers!