New Server Coming Soon!

UPDATE: This is the new server. So far so good. Still many little bugs to catch. Be patient while we continue to work on the site.

A few things still aren't working right and we had to temporarily suspend searches. We're trying to allow searches thru the entire site, as it's been limited before. But we may be too big for that and need to restore the limited search as before.

You can pm me with bug reports.

Thanks for being so understanding.


Original Post.

Our new server is being setup today. If all goes well tomorrow I will start moving our websites over to it. You'll know when it's completed by the speed increase during our busy hours.

There may be one or more disruptions, causing you to be unable to access the site during the transition. Please check back here for updates about predicted down time.

We will first change servers and make sure everything is working right before we upgrade the forum software. So that might happen next week at the earliest. You'll certainly notice when the forum software is upgraded because the site will look very different initially.

It's possible it might take a considerable amount of time before we upgrade the software because we will have to see the impact it will have on our custom code. There is always the possibility that we will NOT do the upgrade if the changes are too much to deal with and the site becomes dysfunctional.

Other than the problem with the server being maxed out, everything else is running pretty smooth with our existing software, so the motivation to upgrade is mostly due to the improved features (many of which I've already custom programmed into our existing software).

So please be patient as these changes are implemented. If you can't get into the forums at any point, just check back later.

Hopefully by June we'll be enjoying our new server and new software!

And thanks to everyone who has been donating to help pay for the new server! You ARE making a difference!

New server specs:
2 x Xeon 2.4 Ghz Quad Core Processors (8 processing units)
4 Gig RAM (same as now)
2 x 250 Gig Hds with RAID (256MB cache) configuration (had 2 x 37GB SCSIs before)

We will be upgrading the Operating System (FreeBSD), PHP & MySQL to their latest versions. Not sure if this will be faster or not, we'll have to see.

 

The server is setup, the testing phase will begin tomorrow. Hopefully next week we can go live with the new server.

 

First Report: So far it looks like there are some major probs moving the existing forums onto the new server. Apparently there are significant changes to the latest version of MySQL (our database software) that is causing some incompatibilities with our existing version of vB.

The good news is our more recent version of php-nuke, which we use on the new MJGuide will work fine - which is good because we have several sites using that. But older versions like Hippy.com are having some problems, but they can probably be worked around.

The best news of course is that the new server looks amazingly fast! And we'll have lots of storage (200+ Gigs) to work with.

I'll keep you updated this weekend as I work on testing more sites. Coolove & the Hip Galleries are next!

 

The new vBulletin is looking very good. I did a clean install on the server and it went smoothly. Unfortunately it looks like that is the only viable upgrade path - starting the new forums from scratch.

Don't worry, I'm going to bring in our existing data one table at a time, apparently. So that means it's going to take a LONG time to do. And then I'll also have to recode all the old customizations I've done for this site (a whole lot) if I want to keep them on the new forums.

Certain other sites will need upgrading too, like Hippy.com.

But the galleries should be working on the new server soon. That transition went perfect! We just need to sync the data and change the DNS. So the galleries might go down for a bit, hopefully tomorrow. Once they're moved, that will free up enough space to dump the forum data (haven't been able to do that for a long time!).

BTW, the new forums have an integrated gallery system, but it's very basic. You can't even put images in posts without pasting in a URL. So we may keep the galleries we have. There should be an upgrade for those that might integrate better.

Am I boring the shit out of you yet?

I guess at this point this thread is mostly for forum junkies!

 

Yes, the gallery will still contain all the photos! We're in the process of moving it right now, so you may see it down for awhile...

UPDATE: Good news! The forums have been upgraded on the new server & they're looking great! Still have a lot of work to do on them before they can go live, but it will probably be this weekend before we move to the new server.

You will be amazed at all the new features! I am having to disable a number of custom features from the old forums for now until i can recode them.

The best new feature is probably the social group system. It's pretty basic, but it has a lot of potential, which I will expand further with custom coding.

 

ATTN! Nearly 200 uploaded images got lost during the transition. Please delete your missing photos and reupload them. Sorry about that, but shit happens when you change servers.

 

You will notice that the Journals and chatroom may be unreachable until the upgrade is completed, hopefully early next week. Sorry about that but we don't want to see the same problem we had with the galleries.

 

We are now obviously on the new server, yippie!

 

Yeah it was touch and go for awhile today, but I managed to squeeze all your tons of data into the right places - so far. I think there's a bit more to go. I'll wait for ppl to report bugs to know what else needs fixin'!

Enjoy!

Oh, the chatroom will be down for awhile while the new dns propagates (I hope). If not I'll have to figure out what else might be wrong...