Bluelight Upgrade Updates

Updates on the progress of the Bluelight server upgrade go here

Ha....made ya look

Awwwwwww

Current progress:

Site: Down
Chris: Sleeping

There's an upgrade going on??????

holy shit.

Hoptis is not feeling great so i'm alone for today i think.

I got the same message regarding hoptis. Shit timing, but I understand. Ftr, I understood our host would set up access for you and hoptis - my lack of skills made it unnecessary to make a temp acct for me. However, if I can pitch in, let me know.

Also, not to 'pile on', but I'd like to have a clear path of priorities for our engineers as we come out of the upgrade so we know what things we want-need addressed first, second, etc. From the top of my head:

1. Server and Basic vB stabilized...duh
   
2. Blogs and Plug-Ins / Add-ons updated or removed as makes sense
   
3. Additional Add-Ons listed and prioritized for testing in testlight - I see this as an ongoing exercise over time, testlighting things then rolling them out when we have confidence with them
   
   
   
   1. Sphynx search function - Can someone explain why so many want Sphinx search for vB4?, I expect our engineers may have other references to help explain why
      
   2. Mobile access testing and rollout - I really want to push this as high as possible on our to-do list, but recognize we need a solid foundation of fast clear operation before 'adding'
   
   
4. Donations Page up and running again - MAPS will work with us to use their donation stream, we just need to recode our page to hook into their system rather than Alertpay or Paypal. We aren't in dire need of this revenue stream from members right now, so it can slide lower on the list, but it has to be done at some point and should require not a lot of effort so there is no real strong reason to push it out either. Sooner is better for public view and engagement (and opinion of how we're running things)
   
5. User profile changes - these were discussed in the SUPPORT thread about the 'donor group perks', and to greater detail in MPC. I'd like to see this in place by September for reasons I'll get into later (I'll launch another thread about 'big picture').
   
6. Styles and Theme updating - something we could give a free hand to within testlight for sr. staff to try and sort out, alleviating the engineers from this duty...or they could pitch in as well if server work is hitting a pause. I will point out we're so freaking outdated with our current style we're kinda retro, which works to some degree....but we still ought to make something of a sizzle with the upgrade, no?
   
7. Splash page redesign - an old project I had tried to get off the ground over a year ago, not a critical to-do, but again looking for some bling reflecting we're moving the site forward.

Please give your thoughts on these, or other server-engineer related issues we want to tackle. Maybe I forgot some, maybe we need to move some up or down in priority. I would also say 'maybe I need to stfu and let the engineers handle what they have', but this recent flush of energy and focus to get shit done has excited me as well, and I'd rather we have a backlog of things to get to than take an existing task and tweak it endlessly beyond the point of beneficial return. I'm grateful the engineers have taken these last weeks to jump on the much needed upgrade, and would like to see many of us continue this by getting shit done.

Quick update - made you look and gave ya something

Chris' thunder, but hardware swapped out, OS installed, db in place. Working thru the testlight version to ensure plug-ins are compatible and working. I'm able to help out with that, hence my knowing what state we're at right now. Chris and Hoptis will continue to review the db for integrity (chris overlooked avatars for a moment, and had to rebuild the index more than planned :p ). Hoptis can also cover (better than I) the plug-in situation, but at least I can lend a hand. We'll let you know how things go.

I must say, I'm overly pleased with how this has progressed, so quickly and with such a lack of problems. I'll credit our engineers and their work with the host. Kudos thus far.

Would like to push to smods by Monday. Any objections?

Sorry Reed but I don't follow...push what to smods by Monday?

Hey guys, I'm all suited up and ready to spend the evening on this and it looks like a firewall update has me locked out.

At a minimum I'd like to get some sort of home page and menu up, then get testers to come through and look at the site. How to do that, I'm not sure just yet, we may have to allow individuals by IP.

The sort of testing I'm looking at will be seeing if something has gone awry in the upgrade, like any threads that are obviously missing. If any of you don't already have me on AIM, I'm 'hoptis'.

Cheers

Avatars came across; great work Chris.

Backed up the main site at vBulletin 4.1.4. Thanks so much to Chris and all his efforts so far.

I've run a script on the 'posts' table to remove IP addresses older than March 1st this year: ongoing liability issue that we need to keep on the horizon.

Now to start looking at the plugins and will be working on Testlight for this for now.

hoptis,Glad you're back!
Chris has my permissions set in testlight, so I'd be happy to help.
He will (or you) will need to give me the password he changed me to- b/c he changed my password b/c for some reason it wasn't taking my password.....?
I'll msg you on AIM.
So, once we go through and test- how much longer would you say we have before we're up??

Notes as I'm going through:
Home page does not work- Looking through FORUMS works.

Global Workshop looks good.

Announcements looks good- all links working. (not staff contact, which hoptis is aware of)

Testing grounds looks good.

(I'm not a regular in the focus forums- but to my best look)
ED looks good, CD,SD and PD look good. (all links working)

TPH,SS,NMI,SLR,SO,HL,E&C,TL and TDS all look good and set.......

TDS has a broken link but it may have been a mistake b/c it's the one word thread and it may have been archived and linked into the thread that is closed- which would give a broken link.

The BLUA is not up through one forum- (I'm going to look back to see which one again) Edit: when I went back through, it looked like it may have been a one time error?)

Crew forum looks good.

EMD looks good, links are working fine.
NEMD looks good, BLUA link works and brings up BLUA.
Words looks good.
F&T looks good.
All links into profiles look good so far as well.
S&G looks good (though I don't know most threads there)
Aussie forums look good- links are working.
European and NA forums look good.
Links working.

When on main index or inside a forum- there is a button where BLUA was that sayd BLUELIGHT- when clicked, an error message is brought up saying:
"Home Edit
Not Published
There is no content in this section"
There is no BLUA button at the bottom of the forum index.


Blogs looks good-
I like that Blogs will be on the main page- That'll make the Blogs mods happy.....maybe get a little more traffic in there.

Support as well- All links into wiki working.
From index, the RSS feed and "Subscribe" buttons are also hidden under the post lists from main index.

n3ophy7e wrote:Sorry Reed but I don't follow...push what to smods by Monday?

I think he means let the smods know what's going on exactly with these updates.

Who is doing the twitter updates? Is there anything we can tell the public who are waiting anxiously with bated breath?

I can update the Twitter but is there much to say? I kind of imagined it would be something we'd update if it didn't look like we were going to get there in time (Thursday) which I think we will.

Nothing to look at right now, just a lot of cleanup stuff, have to archive and remove the Gallery.

I didn't mean we had to update - but a post reassuring that so far we're on track and things are going well might be appreciated. It's not a big deal either way, the junkies can wait

I really like the list of links........
I was just gong through the F&T index and really like the way the list looks-
I haven't clicked all the links (and won't it's about 101;)) But the links are working and it looks so nice!!
This is going to be awesome.

^The public?!??!1
hahah We're all waiting with bated breath!!

(I don't even know what bated breath is- but I'm anxious to get back on! ) haha

Kudos to Hoptis and Chris for getting all this going! You guys have done an amazing job!!
And thanks for working so quickly!

Removed gallery files, images and a whole bunch of other unused pages.

Looking at vBulletin settings now.

This is just on TL so far, but copying with BL.

Going through the vBulletin Settings in detail, many I've ignored and hoped they work the same way but there's been a lot of changes since 3.7.4. These are the ones I've modified, the goal being to have the site operating as it was, we can look at these features later and see if they have merit but for now it would be too overwhelming to allow them all and deal with it when the site goes back online.

General Settings > Use Login "Strikes" System: Use Login "Strikes" System
Setting this to no will disable the system that prevents a user (with a specific IP address) from logging into an account after entering an incorrect password 5 times. (new feature, set to Yes)

General Settings > Post Referrer Whitelist: Removed .bluelight.nu

Facebook Options > Enable Facebook Platform: Set to no, can discuss later

Human Verification Options > Settings okay, need to double-check usergroups setting

Server Settings and Optimization Options > Use Remote YUI: Changed to 'Google', most heavy-load sites do this now

Style & Language Settings > Allow Users To Change Styles: No, we only have one style right now

User Registration Options > Username Reuse Delay: 365 (days)

User Profile Options > Enabled User Profile Features: Only 'friends' checked. This was different on TL as we were testing new features

Message Posting and Editing Options > Auto-Save Content: 60 seconds

Message Searching Options (vBulletin Internal Search) > Words to be Included Despite Character Limit: New feature; so far: pcp mda dxm dex

Forums Home Page Options > Display Calendar Events?: 0 (we barely use the events/calendar feature)

Admin Control Panel Options > Control Panel Quick Statistics: No

vBulletin Blog: General Options > Blog this Post: No

vBulletin Blog: Tagging Options > Enable Blog Tagging: No

vB Spell > Enable vB Spell for all but guests?: Yes

There's a few categories that look like they're from modules that were uninstalled but still have options. :\

Oh and the firewall has locked me out again.

Broke myself back in, stupid firewall.

Might take a nap, there's still some way to go, will update you guys throughout Sunday.

Cane2theLeft wrote:
I think he means let the smods know what's going on exactly with these updates.

Cool, I was thinking that would be what he meant but just wanted to check in case I was missing something


Thank you so much to Ronald and Chris for your work on this <3
And thank you Dez for going throught testlight and checking everything!
If someone wants to add me on to testlight I am happy to go through and check everything as well.

+1 on the gratitude to chris and ronald - you guys are saviors.

I'd also love to spot check the drug forums if you guys need someone to check those.