Problems Problems

[MovedGoalPosts]

For some time now things haven't been quite right.   The site has at time run very very slowly, those we want to get into the site, can't and those who we don't want, seem register their spam with ease.  Eventually the hamster that scurries around behind the scenes threw in the towel. Surgery has been required.  It remains to be seen if this is successful.

The database powering the site is now on a new server.  This may address some of the slowdowns.

A number of patches have been applied, but to do so, due to corruptions, many mods and the site itself had to be rolled back a few versions and then built up again.  It is hoped we haven't lost anything critical ......

At the moment registration for users remains broke ....

[Ramrod]

As usual, thank you for your work behind the scenes 

[bopdude]

Well done MGP

[IMPz]

Thanks MGP for all your efforts appreciated as always

[Dutchie]

Nice work mgp and yeah noticed slowdowns from pc and phone

[Stormpr00ter]

Nice one MGP.

Unfortunately, the forum issues are likely down to the underlying technology (PHP SMF Framework - If anyone wants to argue, please do so by PM and I'll explain why SQL Injection is the most used form of hacking, and how most PHP frameworks are vulnerable).
What's worse is that moving to anything else probably means losing the posting history here, or at least it being a complete ball-ache to migrate. (I could probably migrate posts, page content and other data to a new system with a database backup and about 4-8 hours of developing a custom script/app to do the job)

My technical recommendation would be to go for a completely managed forum service (if such a thing exists), rather than a web server for which NTHW installs and manages forum software, i.e. let someone else worry about this sort of thing - however, I do understand the practicalities of these things, and changing to something else may not be the best path at this time. Something to think about longer term though....

[MovedGoalPosts]

SMF isn't going to be perfect.  Nor will the majority of free or open source type forum software.  But paid for stuff is, for a site of our size, extortionate, especially when most of these have moved to annual licences.  In a similar vein a managed site would also cost a lot.  I don't think it's necessary.

I'd expect migration tools would exist for a lot of the stuff from smf to other systems.  After all smf is a well developed and common platform.  But moving is a ball ache we really could do without.

The registration is at the moment due to a backend checking process, against spammers, where something (I'm not going to say what publicly) isn't connecting.  This is probably a server hosting configuration issue.  If that can be resolved, then the site should be fine for a while, provided any new security patches are applied ....

On the other hand that wretched thing called Tapatalk has really corrupted stuff beind the scenes and can neither be successfully installed, or uninstalled.  Now there is going to have to be a lot of php file compare and edits.  It's the last time that pile of excrement gets anywhere near this site.

[Stormpr00ter]

SMF isn't going to be perfect.  Nor will the majority of free or open source type forum software.  But paid for stuff is, for a site of our size, extortionate, especially when most of these have moved to annual licences.  In a similar vein a managed site would also cost a lot.  I don't think it's necessary.

I'd expect migration tools would exist for a lot of the stuff from smf to other systems.  After all smf is a well developed and common platform.  But moving is a ball ache we really could do without.

The registration is at the moment due to a backend checking process, against spammers, where something (I'm not going to say what publicly) isn't connecting.  This is probably a server hosting configuration issue.  If that can be resolved, then the site should be fine for a while, provided any new security patches are applied ....

On the other hand that wretched thing called Tapatalk has really corrupted stuff beind the scenes and can neither be successfully installed, or uninstalled.  Now there is going to have to be a lot of php file compare and edits.  It's the last time that pile of excrement gets anywhere near this site.

PM me the area you are looking at for the registration issue - I'll have a look at it today. Also let me know the scale of the php file comparisons, I should be able to help out there too.

[MovedGoalPosts]

Hopefully the ability to register for new users is resolved (unless you are a spammer when you should be hung drawn and quartered and then permanently denied use of the internet).

There is still work to do.  The remnants of Tapatalk, which embedded itself into the forum code are now resulting in a silly number of error logs.  I can see what I'm going to be doing over the weekend

[bopdude]

Great work, shame about Tapatalk, I used to use it

[Stormpr00ter]

Hopefully the ability to register for new users is resolved (unless you are a spammer when you should be hung drawn and quartered and then permanently denied use of the internet).

There is still work to do.  The remnants of Tapatalk, which embedded itself into the forum code are now resulting in a silly number of error logs.  I can see what I'm going to be doing over the weekend

If you're not already aware of it, you may find this tool useful for comparing the code files:
https://www.diffchecker.com/

If you like, I'll download the tapatalk package and I can find what modifications it will have made.

[MovedGoalPosts]

I think the current tapatalk package may have some differences to the version that was installed here.  And the effects of it will be confused by the various updates to the forum software, and that we have our own styling.  Certainly the current tapatalk package installation routine throws out error messages, and looking at some of the alterations it should make those sections may in fact be in completely different parts of the board.

If you have time to take a look, great.  Otherwise I suspect I'll be trying to build a new set of forum files over the weekend.

[Stormpr00ter]

I think the current tapatalk package may have some differences to the version that was installed here.  And the effects of it will be confused by the various updates to the forum software, and that we have our own styling.  Certainly the current tapatalk package installation routine throws out error messages, and looking at some of the alterations it should make those sections may in fact be in completely different parts of the board.

If you have time to take a look, great.  Otherwise I suspect I'll be trying to build a new set of forum files over the weekend.

What version of the package did we have installed? I'm sure I can get hold of that version, and the latest version.
It is possible to determine all the changes each installation would have made, as these changes are stored in one of the XML files in the package - using this data, I can create a quick and dirty program to scan all the relevant forum files and give me a report on the differences.

[Stormpr00ter]

Looks like 43  tapatalk code references stuck in the forum code - shouldn't be too dificult to weed them out, but will need a safe "playpen" to test any changes (have sent you a PM on that)

[MovedGoalPosts]

Thanks to Storm a lot of the rogue settings should now be cleared.  Hopefully we can now get back to our proper business of shooting each other

[Stormpr00ter]

Checked the error logs again this morning - no further tapatalk errors are happening - just spam blocker log entries, showing it's doing it's job.

Happy days 

[bopdude]

Good work both of you