Forum offline soon for major upgrade

Simon Hampel

Simon Hampel

Administrator
Staff member
20+ year member
Just a heads up - some time within the next 12 hours I will be taking the forums offline for a major site upgrade that I've been preparing for the past few weeks.

This will involve migrating to new software and importing all existing data - so all threads, photos, user accounts, private messages, everything will come across to the new system.

You'll be able to log in to the new system using your existing username and password. There's a heap of new features with the new site - most important being it is fully mobile-friendly, works great on mobile phones and tablets.

Because of the volume of data (especially the photo galleries) and the amount of processing required to get things moved across, I'm estimating it will take me up to 3 days to get the process finished. Unfortunately, the forums will need to be offline during that entire period, so the site will be unavailable until the process is complete.

I've already performed a test migration (and it took me over a week to get it done the first time!), and smoothed out a lot of issues and I've written a brand new management system to finally add new zoos and photo galleries that people have been asking for.

I'm not sure exactly when I'll be ready to start the process - there's a few things I want to check on first, but it will likely be some time tomorrow morning my time (no earlier than 10AM Monday morning Sydney time, midnight Sunday night London, 5PM Sunday night California) ... but you can still use the site until I disable it - just expect it to go offline some time after that time.

I'll set things up so that the IRC chatroom will still be available while the site is offline so I can let you know how things are progressing.
 
Worth noting that the time the site is offline would be a very good opportunity for more people to come into the chatroom to get to know the regulars and chat about all sorts :) ;)
 
Three days! Well looking on the bright side, I might actually be able to get some school work done! :p

Looking forward to the upgraded site :).
 
Sounds exciting! These software migrations can be a huge undertaking with real risks of problems. So thanks, Sim, for the great work and good luck! Failure is not an option.... but delays due to unforeseen bugs are. See you on the other side :-)
 
Thanks for the warning! It seems that this impending abstinence has prompted many interesting posts - hopefully with the newer site there'll be much more of this! :)
 
And considering the time zones (and habits:p) of some people you're almost guaranteed to have someone in there
 
I hope everybody has plenty of clean drinking water, matches, blankets, canned food, a pedal-powered radio and Gerald Durrell books to ride out this gathering storm. Do not try to drive through flood waters, avoid fallen power lines stay clear of falling tree branches.

Stay safe, everybody, and I hope to see at least some of you on the other side.
 
CGSwans said:
Stay safe, everybody, and I hope to see at least some of you on the other side.
Click to expand...

I hope people made a note of the link I posted ;) so that we can see some of you in the interim!
 
I'll set up a "site is offline" page with a link to the chatroom.

Will be turning the site off in about 5 minutes.
 
... and we're back!

Sorry, it took about 24 hours longer than I had said it would, which is actually 48 hours longer than I expected!

I thought I was being smart by planning for 2 days but allowing 3, but some of the update processes I had to run to fix the old data took a lot longer than I anticipated, so it ended up being 4 days :(

Anyway - it's here now so enjoy!
 
I feel it is worth mentioning for anyone wanting to use the chatroom that the above-linked method still works, and should be used whilst Sim tinkers with the site and prepares to integrate the new and improved chatroom into the site :)
 
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