Diddums

raises hand

We're getting there Jay. Slowly but surely.

Right, Bruce from Vidahost is going to see what he can do for me. This guy is an angel in the darkness, I'll tell you that. Invision are the most useless company in existence. Lovely support until you buy their product, at which point you might as well talk to a wall. He's going to try and import all the old stuff onto the new board as well, let's hope he manages to pull it off. This whole thing has caused permanent trauma for me. "Start a website" they said. "It's fun" they said.

Right, here's the score. Going from an Nginx based server to an Apache based server has opened up many possiblities for me on the back end in terms of site optimization. The issue, as I'm sure you've all noticed, is that it's pretty much broken the site as it was configured for Nginx. I've spent the last 6 hours or so trying to get some things sorted but the site refuses to play ball. I spent the $25 on another 6 month licence so we get tech support again, and I can upgrade the software via Invision's own updater (they're the guys who made our forum software). I've been chatting to them and they said that we can try upgrading it, but due to certain things being lost, there's no guarantee that the threads and posts will return. This is a big thing for me. So what do you guys think, carry on like this, where I pull my hair out for possibly months on end until it gets sorted, or take the risk and go straight to the latest version of the software with no bugs or issues, and potentially losing everything in the process? If it fails, it's square one. Clean slate. No post counts, no members, no threads / forums / posts, nothing. So, what do we reckon folks?

Yeah, lots of weird shit going on. It's starting to look like I might need to backup our content and reinstall the software. Clearly moving from Nginx to Apache is messing with it. I'm having a night in with Kyla tonight after a hectic day at work. I suspect next time I'll be able to tinker again will be Monday night, so stay tuned and please be patient guys.

PS4. Thanks for all the advice guys, I've been collecting whatever bits and pieces of materials and whatnot I can find too. Really good game, genuinely impressed. I won't be on tonight though, ordering pizza and chilling with a film with Kyla.

Alright folks, I'm in. I've been doing the usual stuff on Earth and have got a few spare goodies. Where do I sell them? Can I even sell them? What do I get for them? It's nothing special, just the usual crap. Also, Crucible. Do I need to be lvl 20 or what? What. as a level 5, can I do? I've been doing the standard stuff, is there anything i need to look out for? Stuff I can do?

You'll bare what eh? Crikey, don't even have any emoticons :/

Guys there is TONS of stuff going on in the background, please bear with us, we're working on it. Also, don't post anything which is long and you won't repeat as the odds of it staying are about 50/50 at this point.

Hello jay who is legendary, welcome aboard! I hope you enjoy your stay dude, I'm sure you will!

Yep. Side effect of the transfer, currently being worked on. Start here for updates. It's starting to look like I might have to back up what we have and do a clean install. It's a tedious and shit job but at least when all the dust has settled this place will be spick'n'span.

This is what happens when I submit a post. Internet sucks.

k

Test

Ok, progress is being made. First off, the guys at Vidahost are awesome. Seriously impressed, 10/10, would recommend. We've now got Gzip enabled which should make things a bit faster on the browser end too. I'm still workin on some other bits and pieces as are Vidahost, mainly to get the things Kyle mentioned working correctly and to make the place faster. For reference, with Google Pagespeed we were clocking in at 58/100 last night, today we are on 73/100. I want to go much higher but these things take time as I'm a noob. Stand by folks, we're getting there!

Guys move around a bit in the forum before reporting it as slow. Basically because we're at a new host, your browser needs to recache it before it goes all smooth again. I've just raised a ticket with tech support for the other issues, these guys are great so hopefully won't be long.

Yeah, there were a few hours in between the files being copied and them actually installed so anything between those two times is gone unfortunately. This includes the 13 new members we had but I don't think any were stayers anyway. From a quick glance, the "view full site" button is knackered for mobile devices and avatars don't show on the home page, but that's all I've got. Can you guys please reply to threads with smilies and stuff, log out, log in, just give the place a bit of a stress test so I can compile a report for tech support? Oh and is it any snappier yet?

Transfer complete. There are a few teething issues so please report them here and I'll call tech support in a bit.

Site migration requested. Can take up to three days but having dealt with them this morning they seem pretty good so hopefully it will be done sooner.

Hello mate, if there's anything you need let me know. This lot are great to play with, so if you're looking for a bunch of rag tag lunatics to hang out with, just drop in and say hi! I can make you an admin if you like, might help, although you could probably do that via the back end already

*cough* erm, yes officer, well you see.... erm.... sorry, what did you say again?

Nah, it's cool. I'm very glad to have discovered this. I'm amazed at how much getting this all done has changed me, I've been down lately and I think this whole thing with the site has been a part of it, which is why my head was firmly planted in the sand. Let's hope it all goes a bit smoother now

Not sharing per se, but I'm on a bit of a health kick atm so I'm all ears

FUCKING THUD. That was the sound I heard when the penny dropped. See, I have learned this evening about Gzip, which compresses files so that they load faster for browsing. This is a very common thing and if you don't use it, ur a nub lulz. So I researched how this all works and it's very simple: it's a bit of generic code which goes into the .htaccess file in the root directory and voila, the site is much faster. So I did this. Ran tests before and after inserting the code and the site was actually slower with it. Much googling and head scratching ensued but I couldn't figure it out. Eventually I suss out that this code only works with Apache webservers, and we're running Nginx. I phoned the hosting company and they were about as useful as a knitted condom. Apparently they don't do Apache at all. I've found a new host here in Englandtown with tech support in England rather than Bangladesh or wherever the last one was so I can have a conversation without dodgy accents and waiting for the infamous delay you get from cheapo international calls which result in both me and them talking at the same time. Apache is almost as old as the Internet itself. Nginx is still fairly new so all the support articles online automatically assume you're running Apache, which is probably why none of the things I tried in the past worked. As an added bonus, they do the full migration for nada provided I pay for a year up front. This also allows me to ditch any unnecessary options from my current provider which will save a few pennies as well. Keep an eye out, I'll let you guys know what's happening when so if there's any downtime, you know why.

GO GET THAT HOTROD WORKING!