Server issues - point of no return, we move to Microcosm ASAP

The past has caught up with us.

The 9 servers that run LFGSS have been stable for ages. Some 4 years in fact.

But... they are 4 years old.

The hosting company host these servers on virtual machines, but due to the old kernels we are running the servers are now throwing errors regularly (every 15-30 minutes).

What this means is that to keep LFGSS working on vBulletin, without it throwing errors, I would need to upgrade the kernel and operating system that we run on.

Therein lies a problem... we're using such an old version of vBulletin that we cannot upgrade the operating system without getting a new version of PHP that vBulletin does not run on.

The farce:

• If we upgrade the kernel to remove the issue, then we must upgrade the Linux version to achieve this.
  
• If we update the version of Linux, then we get the upgraded version of PHP.
  
• If we have the updated version of PHP, vBulletin 3.8 won't actually work.
  
  

We were planning to migrate to Microcosm very soon, this weekend or next week. Basically as soon as we have verified that we have no bugs blocking us.

This post is to let you know: We have reached a point of no return, we cannot now stay on vBulletin 3.8 even if we wanted to, and we must leave the current servers as soon as we are able to, within days at the very worst.

We will perform a cut-off before we do the migration. Any post made after this time will NOT be migrated to Microcosm. We will push ahead with the migration as soon as we can.

We are now fighting fires and we have no hope to put them out... instead it's a race to escape before we are burned too badly. Whatever state Microcosm is in, it's a better state than staying put.

A crazy weekend beckons.

See you on the other side, hopefully

Good luck, hope it all migrates smoothly.

Hopefully I will be allowed to move to the new platform too!

I, for one, am excited about the move!

This is mainly because I don't have to do anything and then I get a shiny new forum to play in. If there's anything we can help with VB, let us know!

Oh, and the errors mean that you may see a lot of outages in the next few days.

I've wiped out the nursery.

All "regular users" are now just considered "registered users", and default permissions apply.

The nursery no longer exists.

RIP nursery

Exciting stuff... Lufuguss is dead, long live Lufuguss...

wow. fantastic work with Microcosm, and fingers crossed just about perfect timing.
your post reads like the opening of Armaggedon or something.
good luck!

VB I get this error at work when i try to login using persona:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/12459491/lfgss-error.png

At home i think it works fine.

Donors have been wiped out, donor stars removed.

Knowledge of who currently had a star will be retained and any associated perks kept. You'll find yourselves in a "Patrons" usergroup on the other side.

I have 2 active subscriptions, but the Donate button has gone red, assuming this is related to the shift - will we have to review our donations on Monday to check if they're still live?

VB I get this error at work when i try to login using persona:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/12459491/lfgss-error.png

At home i think it works fine.

One potential reason for this is that your workplace intercepts your SSL traffic, decrypts it to do traffic monitoring, and then re-encrypts it using their own certificate.

Do you have another browser, can you see via the browser what certificate is being used (usually by clicking the padlock in the address bar).

I have 2 active subscriptions, but the Donate button has gone red, assuming this is related to the shift - will we have to review our donations on Monday to check if they're still live?

They will still be live... PayPal store the subscription, not me... so PayPal will continue to auto-process them.

All attachments and album images are now being served from the database rather than file system (prepping for export).

will /spy.php still work after this

Currently stripping youtube and other tags from posts, another 1,710 pages to go, taking roughly 30 seconds per page = 14 hours.

Writing new posts will be slow for the next 14 hours.

will /spy.php still work after this

It won't exist.

This is the closest for Microcosm: http://go.lfgss.com/search/?type=conversation

Equivalent to the "Today's Posts" and "New Posts" pages.

Good luck with the hard work- hope it goes with as few glitches as possible.

What wait, where are you all going? Don't leave me here all on my own. I'm scared. Hello! Hello! is there any one still out there?

It won't exist.

This is the closest for Microcosm: http://go.lfgss.com/search/?type=conversation

Equivalent to the "Today's Posts" and "New Posts" pages.

Damn, I know its not a priority but I did like having a subscribed threads ticker in a small window in the corner of my screen, so I didn't need to check the site i could just skim that from time to time at work.

Woohoo someone unlocked the mental home and let the nutters back in.

Before you turn out the lights, can we have tags back in the footy thread?