We Are Back

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Re: We Are Back

by Phorce » Tue Dec 26, 2023 11:39 am

davesmith_au wrote: ↑Tue Nov 14, 2023 9:46 pm
Phorce wrote: ↑Tue Nov 14, 2023 6:22 pm Great to see you back ! What happened ? Why do you have to keep moving servers ? I've been with A2 for years and never had any problems with them.
I think the last server move was around a decade ago.

The thunderbolts site is actually pretty huge and more complex than many standard hosting deals will support effectively. This requires some considerable expense to keep up, as well as complicating matters on the odd occasion major changes or upgrades are required. I'd have said we "never had any problems" with our current host in over ten years, until now. Checking a2 they have similar arrangements and costs to our current host.
Thanks for the explanation. There's AWS which has specific technologies to assist with scaling everything up and down based on demand. I've experimented with some AWS servers but I don't know effective that might be in making any savings.

Re: We Are Back

by BeAChooser » Sun Nov 19, 2023 6:33 pm

It’s great to see the forum back up. Kudos to davesmith_au and nick c.

Re: We Are Back

by davesmith_au » Thu Nov 16, 2023 8:54 am

Cargo wrote: ↑Thu Nov 16, 2023 6:50 am The nice thing is, all one has to do for old links is put a wp in there. So .info/forum3 is now .info/wp/forum3
Perfect.
Yup, you got it in one.

Having said that, I've put in a few 301 redirects, so that people unfamiliar with our sites, if they click on a link somewhere out in the interwebs, should be redirected to the right place now.

Re: We Are Back

by Cargo » Thu Nov 16, 2023 6:50 am

The nice thing is, all one has to do for old links is put a wp in there. So .info/forum3 is now .info/wp/forum3
Perfect.

Re: We Are Back

by kmcook » Thu Nov 16, 2023 12:15 am

Thanks Dave, et al.

I know the background work needed for this sort of data rescue, I've been there.
Really appreciate your efforts.

I've been patiently waiting for my mornings to be back to normal, Tbolts - then news sites.
Hope everyone finds their way back.

Re: We Are Back

by davesmith_au » Wed Nov 15, 2023 9:44 pm

Open Mind wrote: ↑Wed Nov 15, 2023 1:32 pm Oh, great news. It was either that, or I was going to suggest sending out a mass email to everyone to let them know. Cheers
That was a thought I had had, but with over 2700 members, our server could interpret a mass mailout as spam. IIRC there's a limit of x mails per hour or something similar. Well there used to be some kind of restriction so I'm guessing there still is.

Anywho, moot point now, the 301 redirects should bring most who try old links/bookmarks to the current forum :)

Re: We Are Back

by Open Mind » Wed Nov 15, 2023 1:32 pm

davesmith_au wrote: ↑Wed Nov 15, 2023 5:34 am
davesmith_au wrote: ↑Wed Nov 15, 2023 3:53 am
Open Mind wrote: ↑Wed Nov 15, 2023 2:45 am Will older links to the previous forum begin working at some point, or does everyone need to discover the new link like I did?
...

If I knew a little more about 301 redirects, I might give them another go but I'm just stoked to have been able to resurrect what we have. If there's any hard-core programmers or developers among us who know server-side shenanigans really really well, PM me :D
OK, reinspired by your post I just tried a redirect, and it worked! :shock: So I'm kinda hoping all of the old bookmarks people have used will now bring them here :)
Oh, great news. It was either that, or I was going to suggest sending out a mass email to everyone to let them know. Cheers

Re: We Are Back

by davesmith_au » Wed Nov 15, 2023 5:34 am

davesmith_au wrote: ↑Wed Nov 15, 2023 3:53 am
Open Mind wrote: ↑Wed Nov 15, 2023 2:45 am Will older links to the previous forum begin working at some point, or does everyone need to discover the new link like I did?
...

If I knew a little more about 301 redirects, I might give them another go but I'm just stoked to have been able to resurrect what we have. If there's any hard-core programmers or developers among us who know server-side shenanigans really really well, PM me :D
OK, reinspired by your post I just tried a redirect, and it worked! :shock: So I'm kinda hoping all of the old bookmarks people have used will now bring them here :)

Re: We Are Back

by davesmith_au » Wed Nov 15, 2023 3:53 am

Open Mind wrote: ↑Wed Nov 15, 2023 2:45 am I just got lucky as well ... Will older links to the previous forum begin working at some point, or does everyone need to discover the new link like I did?
Yup, you got lucky all-right! Pretty much any links out there to the forum pre-server change were severed, for a multitude of reasons. In re-establishing the forums (both v2.0 and v3.0), it became necessary to re-locate them, adding a directory to their paths. The new directory adds /wp/ to the first part of the urls, which is the same change made to the main thunderbolts site some decade or more ago when it was converted to a Wordpress site.

There's a lot more to it than just that, but that's the major change in urls required to make old links work now. I expect a slow dribble of people returning to the forum once they hear it's up again, and work out that their bookmarks are obsolete :D

If I knew a little more about 301 redirects, I might give them another go but I'm just stoked to have been able to resurrect what we have. If there's any hard-core programmers or developers among us who know server-side shenanigans really really well, PM me :D

Cheers, Dave.

Re: We Are Back

by Open Mind » Wed Nov 15, 2023 2:45 am

I just got lucky as well, checking in and finding the site up again. Much appreciated. Normally I've just checked my bookmarked forum page link, but this time for some reason, I googled Thunderbolts Project and discovered the forum up and running, but my old bookmark still leads to a 'page not available' dead end. Wonder how many might be having the same problem. Will older links to the previous forum begin working at some point, or does everyone need to discover the new link like I did?

Re: We Are Back

by davesmith_au » Tue Nov 14, 2023 9:46 pm

Phorce wrote: ↑Tue Nov 14, 2023 6:22 pm Great to see you back ! What happened ? Why do you have to keep moving servers ? I've been with A2 for years and never had any problems with them.
I think the last server move was around a decade ago.

The thunderbolts site is actually pretty huge and more complex than many standard hosting deals will support effectively. This requires some considerable expense to keep up, as well as complicating matters on the odd occasion major changes or upgrades are required. I'd have said we "never had any problems" with our current host in over ten years, until now. Checking a2 they have similar arrangements and costs to our current host.

To put this into perspective, I have a personal hosting deal I use for my own interests, it's where my PlasmaResources site lives, and a few other sites I have/host are on the same plan and this includes several Wordpress sites and a Drupal site. This costs me a few hundred bucks a year on a fairly standard out of the box deal. I started many years back with a vanilla $4.99 plan and soon had to upgrade a little to what I've now been on for heaps long and doing all-right.

In contrast, the space and bandwidth needs of the thunderbolts site are considerably higher than for the few sites I own, and that adds to the cost, it can easily run into several thousand dollars per year for busy, complex sites. The more complex your server needs, the higher the costs.

Re: We Are Back

by Phorce » Tue Nov 14, 2023 6:22 pm

Great to see you back ! What happened ? Why do you have to keep moving servers ? I've been with A2 for years and never had any problems with them.

Re: We Are Back

by Brigit » Sun Nov 12, 2023 6:46 pm

Dave Smith says, "the main thunderbolts site was migrated correctly, and we had our own backup databases (pre-migration) that I was able to manipulate to bring the forums back to life."

Back to life!

That's no small feat. We are so indebted to you Dave. Thanks so much, and hope you are feeling better.

To your good health, Paulina

Re: We Are Back

by Cargo » Sat Nov 11, 2023 6:14 pm

YES!! I tell you what, the withdrawal lasted months before I finally stopped checking to see if it was back online. Then on a whim today, having not checked in a long time, I figure I'd see and BEHOLD!! It's back.
Thank you all for the hard work.

Re: We Are Back

by davesmith_au » Sat Nov 11, 2023 12:26 pm

During the re-ignition process, it was necessary to go through the databases which underpin the forums 2.0 and 3.0 doing several "find and replace" functions. Essentially all internal links in the pre-migration forums had to be updated with a new "path" in the post-migration forums. I think I got them all.

There may be some images etc which won't display too, and I'm afraid that if that's the case, we're just going to have to wear it. We are frightfully lucky to have what we've got, thanks mostly to the diligence of some of the behind the scenes players before the migration. When I was tasked relatively recently (after some health issues had me stymied for a while) with trying to re-establish the forums, I initially had little hope of being able to, the main issue having been due to third-party actions during the site migration wherein several databases were corrupted.

I thank the Giant Spaghetti Monster that the main thunderbolts site was migrated correctly, and that we had our own backup databases (pre-migration) that I was able to manipulate to bring the forums back to life.

So, as we say, onward and upward!

Dave Smith, Forum Admin.

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