talkFORUM

The Christmas theme is very nice.

Time has come to do an upgrade of the software and database that runs the forum. It is a pretty significant upgrade as I wanted to wait until the latest version of phpBB was stable. It is now 4 months since release without any bug fix releases so time is good.

There are a number of preparation tasks that have to be completed. They include switching off a number of features like themes and styles plus switching off all extensions before the upgrade happens. So once preparations start some things will start to look a bit different, some features might stop working (like SEARCH) and we may end up looking even more old fashioned than we do now. The plan is to restore all facilities once the upgrade is complete.

Once the upgrade is started a full back up of the server and databases will be taken, that means we should not lose any posts or other things like private messages. And obviously while the upgrade is running the forum will not be available for use.

There will be a few more messages to be shared before I actually start so for now. So, happy easter or whatever your flavour is.

Hope it goes well.

Vespa wrote:The Christmas theme is very nice.

It's lovely to see a bit of colour.

Cheers, Mark, hope it goes smoothly

Starting this evening I will start to dismantle some of the additional features of the site before I start to make the final preparations for the upgrade. The final steps before the upgrade starts is a full back up of the forum and before that I will disable posting so the back up will be completely up to date. That will not happen tonight, it is more likely to be tomorrow or Tuesday depending on priority of other work that I have to do.

What you will see this evening is:

1. A restriction of the forum theme to the default and quite plain display
2. The ChristEaster snow and hats will disappear
3. Automatic embedding of links, photos and videos is likely to stop working
4. Many of the additional bbcodes will be taken out of action before the upgrade
5. Tapatalk will switch off - just before posting is disabled
6. Search fuction will be disabled - just before posting is disabled
7. Some other background activities that will be invisible to most users will also be switched off

At some stage the forum may go offline for a few minutes but there should not be anything more than 5 minutes before I do the final close down for upgrade.

Thank you

mark wrote:Starting this evening I will start to dismantle some of the additional features of the site before I start to make the final preparations for the upgrade. The final steps before the upgrade starts is a full back up of the forum and before that I will disable posting so the back up will be completely up to date. That will not happen tonight, it is more likely to be tomorrow or Tuesday depending on priority of other work that I have to do.

What you will see this evening is:

1. A restriction of the forum theme to the default and quite plain display
2. The ChristEaster snow and hats will disappear
3. Automatic embedding of links, photos and videos is likely to stop working
4. Many of the additional bbcodes will be taken out of action before the upgrade
5. Tapatalk will switch off - just before posting is disabled
6. Search fuction will be disabled - just before posting is disabled
7. Some other background activities that will be invisible to most users will also be switched off

At some stage the forum may go offline for a few minutes but there should not be anything more than 5 minutes before I do the final close down for upgrade.

Fucking hell, first coronavirus -now this.

colinthewarriormonkey wrote:
Fucking hell, first coronavirus -now this.

Better start panic posting now.

If anything goes crazy, or any other worthwhile updates we will post them here:

Twitter - https://twitter.com/TalkforumU
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/talkforum.co.uk

Oh noes the Christmas vibe has gone.

The next stage of preparation for the forum upgrade will be to strip back page formatting to the default (and quite basic) theme. That will happen later this evening. Everybody will see the same two shades of blue theme without an image at the top of the screen. Apologies for the ensuing visual blandness.

Forum upgrade is likely to happen at some time on Wednesday, probably afternoon.

I must say I'm getting used to the nice Evertonian feel of the forum.

Later today, upgrade is planned. Probably afternoon at about 2pm UK time. Get out and enjoy the sun