Good idea yes keep that running every now and then and make sure to go for a decent flight and not build up moisture in the crankcase as @gsxr would advise
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Hi Guest !
Welcome to the 500Eboard forum.
Since its founding in late 2008, 500Eboard has become the leading resource on the Internet for all things related to the Mercedes-Benz 500E and E500. In recent years, we have also expanded to include the 400E and E420 models, which are directly related to the 500E/E500.
We invite you to browse and take advantage of the information and resources here on the site. If you find helpful information, please register for full membership, and you'll find even more resources available. Feel free to ask questions, and make liberal use of the "Search" function to find answers.
We hope you will become an active contributor to the community!
Sincerely,
500Eboard Management
FYI Technical Site News (for those interested)
- Thread starter gerryvz
- Start date
Good idea yes keep that running every now and then and make sure to go for a decent flight and not build up moisture in the crankcase as @gsxr would advise
I did a full system reboot a few days ago, because of a once-per-month Linux kernel upgrade. Generally things get booted and reset at least once, and sometimes twice, per month.
Individual stuff like elasticsearch, or Apache, gets rebooted much more frequently. These application-specific reboots do not result in any system downtime (well, generally <1 second). It is not noticeable to anyone.
A full system reboot takes 60-90 seconds, during which time the site is unavailable.
Which remindes me, I never re-attempted the database upgrade of MySQL from 5.8 to 8.0, so I can update the Ubuntu system software from 18.04 to to 20.04.
Individual stuff like elasticsearch, or Apache, gets rebooted much more frequently. These application-specific reboots do not result in any system downtime (well, generally <1 second). It is not noticeable to anyone.
A full system reboot takes 60-90 seconds, during which time the site is unavailable.
Which remindes me, I never re-attempted the database upgrade of MySQL from 5.8 to 8.0, so I can update the Ubuntu system software from 18.04 to to 20.04.
We're up to 90% of storage on our 75 GB storage volume now. This is where all of the forum's images and documents are stored.
This means that in the next week or two, I'll bump this volume up to 100 GB. It currently costs $7.50 a month for the storage, and this will up the forum's operating cost by $2.50 a month to $10.00 a month. It is infinitely expandable, so we can continue to expand it as we need to in the future, when we want to.
The regular 80 GB forum storage volume (where all of the forum code, database, avatars, smilies and all other non-image/document stuff is stored) is up to 45 GB, or 56%. I'd say that about 10-15% of that 56% is uncompressed system log text files, which I can easily go in and compress and regain a lot of space. I can also delete old logs. The system logs provide a record of everything that happens with the system, and are important if there were ever a problem with the forum, and so forth. They are useful to keep on hand, at least for a year or two.
This morning I expanded the "attachments" volume for the forum from 75 GB to 100 GB. This was because we had reached 91% of the capacity of the 75 GB volume with all of the forum's photographs, PDFs and other attachments.
With the expansion, we went from 91% down to 68% utilization of the storage resources.
The forum was off-line for around 10-12 minutes while I was doing this expansion. Basically I had to let Linode perform the expansion, then I had to reboot the 500Eboard server, and then unmount the volume from the server, resize it and run a file check, and then re-mount and attach it to the server.
Confirmed that the additional storage capacity is recognized.
All is good again !!
With the expansion, we went from 91% down to 68% utilization of the storage resources.
The forum was off-line for around 10-12 minutes while I was doing this expansion. Basically I had to let Linode perform the expansion, then I had to reboot the 500Eboard server, and then unmount the volume from the server, resize it and run a file check, and then re-mount and attach it to the server.
Confirmed that the additional storage capacity is recognized.
All is good again !!
Last edited:
The forum software has been officially upgraded to XenForo 2.2. We also upgraded the Wiki software, as well as the XenForo Media Gallery and Enhanced Search modules.
Everything went well with the update, with no issues. The forum was offline for around 40 minutes while the software upgrade was taking place.
A couple of notes:
Most all of our add-ons seem to be 100% compatible with the XenForo 2.2. The one exception is one of the third-party add-ons for the Enhanced Search (Elasticsearch), which provides the "typeahead" function for the search box. We have disabled this add-on until the developer releases a new version, which has been promised for the next week or so.
We also have to update the FlatAwesome "skin" to the latest version that is specifically for XenForo 2.2, although the "old" version of FA+ is working just fine with the new software. We'll probably update this in the next 24 hours.
We will be making some subtle changes in the coming days and weeks to take advantage of some of the new features and capabilities of XF 2.2, and we'll detail those for you as they are made. I expect that we will be on this version of the XenForo software for the next 18-24 months, so this was a significant upgrade for the foreseeable future.
@gerryvz , the upgrade has done something weird to certain images in posts. It appears to be displaying a giant low-res thumbnail instead of a small thumbnail... or if it's trying to display a full-size image, it's not.
Samples:
All images in first post here:
See image in post #5 here:
I'll try pasting an image directly below to see what happens:
(Seems to work fine in this case.)
Samples:
All images in first post here:
SOLD - Upper Engine Harness 124-440-20-06 | Parts for Sale
I have a spare 500E upper engine harness in good working order if anyone is interested? 124-440-20-06 Electrically Tested satisfactory label 250usd
www.500eboard.co
See image in post #5 here:
1990 300E AMG | W124 AMG & Tuner Cars
no affiliation and no knowledge of this specific car. Looks like AMG Japan Car...
www.500eboard.co
I'll try pasting an image directly below to see what happens:
(Seems to work fine in this case.)
We did A LOT of investigative and technical work on this issue. It turns out that it is not a problem or issue, but rather a "feature" designed into the new version of XenForo. It is also a controversial feature among forum owners, and one that XenForo is considering changing.
Did a bunch of maintenance over the past 24 hours, including rebuilding (resizing) the entire attachment thumbnail database dowm from 200 pixels per image to 150 pixels, and some other steps. This is why the forum was intermittently up and down yesterday -- because we needed all of the server power that we could muster to complete the image resizing (there are more than 120,000 images in the database) as quickly as possible.
Some discussion with the XenForo development team is below:
The bottom line is as follows:
1) If you attach images, it is best to "embed" them in your text (as @gerryvz does, for example, with his HOW-TO tutorials), or to "embed" them as a group at the bottom of a post (as is typically done with images when cars come up for sale).
2) For all new posts, going forward, we have implemented a new third-party add-on that will AUTOMATICALLY embed any attached images (if you don't manually embed them where you want to, first) at the bottom of the post. This will avoid the large, blurry up-converted thumbnail images.
3) We will monitor things, and we are sort of expecting that XenForo will revert the attachment behavior to one similar to past versions of the software in the future. If this happens, it will probably negate the need for the third-party add-on mentioned in #2 above, and the forum can revert to its built-in behavior.
But until that time, we're going to have to have this workaround. This IMHO is an egregious "fail" on the part of the XenForo developers, and we think they are now realizing the errors of their ways in this regard. We expect them to do the right thing and fix it.
Regards.
500Eboard Management
Quick elasticsearch engine update this morning -- zero forum downtime.
Before:
After:
Changelog (what's new) is here: Elasticsearch version 7.9.3 | Elasticsearch Reference [7.9] | Elastic
Before:
After:
Changelog (what's new) is here: Elasticsearch version 7.9.3 | Elasticsearch Reference [7.9] | Elastic
Slight database update today, from MySQL 5.7.31 to 5.7.32.
Restarted database service, but zero forum downtime.
MySQL 5.7.32 changelog: MySQL :: MySQL 5.7 Release Notes :: Changes in MySQL 5.7.32 (2020-10-19, General Availability)
Restarted database service, but zero forum downtime.
MySQL 5.7.32 changelog: MySQL :: MySQL 5.7 Release Notes :: Changes in MySQL 5.7.32 (2020-10-19, General Availability)
Updated the Elasticsearch search engine to the latest version, 7.10.1, which was just released.
Changelog can be seen here: Elasticsearch version 7.10.1 | Elasticsearch Reference [7.10] | Elastic
Changelog can be seen here: Elasticsearch version 7.10.1 | Elasticsearch Reference [7.10] | Elastic
Several site software updates in the recent few days:
- Today -- upgraded Elasticsearch engine from 7.10.2 to 7.11.0, which is the latest release. Changelog here.
- Tuesday Feb. 9 -- upgraded Java from 11.0.9.1 to 11.0.10. Changelog here.
- Monday Feb. 8 -- upgraded VaultWiki from 4.1.1 Patch Level 1 to 4.1.1 Patch Level 2. Mainly a bugfix release.
- Sunday Feb. 7 -- upgraded php language from 7.4.14 to 7.4.15. Changelog here.
Over the past day or so, we've done several significant updates to the software underpinning the forum. This has necessitated two separate reboots over the past two days -- one on Tuesday, and a second one early Wednesday morning. The total system down-time for both reboots was about 3-4 minutes, so no serious disruption to forum operations other than being unavailable during those couple of times.
First, we updated the Apache web-server software from version 2.4.46 to 2.4.48. This was not a major update, just a periodic bug-fix with a couple of new capabilities thrown in. Apache is only updated once or twice per year, and is a very mature and stable piece of software. Since the forum started in March, 2019, Apache has only been updated five times, the last being in August of 2020 (nearly a full year ago).
Next, we applied the roughly monthly "update" of the php language, going from version 7.4.18-2 to 7.4.20. We will be updating php to the next major version, version 8.0.x, sometime later this year. While the forum software and underlying infrastructure software is all compatible with php8, we believe there may be a couple of add-ons that we have installed, that may not yet be fully compatible with php8. So we will wait a few more months before we do this upgrade.
We also performed an update of the MySQL database from 8.0.24 to 8.0.25 this week. A very very minor update, but this keeps us on the cutting edge for the database. MySQL is typically updated every 2-3 months with minor updates. In March of this year, we did a major update of MySQL from the previous 5.6.x version to 8.0.x. MySQL 8.x will be the major version of MySQL for at least the next 3-4 years, and the XenForo software will maintain full compatibility with MySQL 8.x for at least the next 5-7 years.
Did a minor update to the Elasticsearch search engine, from version 7.13.0 to 7.13.1. This is basically a minor monthly update, nothing special.
We also just realized that the Wiki software license expired in March of 2021, so this needs to be renewed, and then I can update the Wiki software. It is still working fine, but eventually with a future XenForo forum software update, it will break the Wiki functionality. So we'll renew that license today.
We also did the monthly Linux firmware update to the server, which is mainly security-related software patches. This update is what required one of the two reboots of the server. Doing this keeps the server secure and more or less hack-proof.
That should about cover things.
In the next month or so, we will be pursuing a major Linux system software upgrade, from Ubuntu 18.04.5 to 20.04.2. When this happens, the forum will likely be down for 30-60 minutes. We will give plenty of advance warning as to when this is, but we expect it to be early in the morning East Coast time, so shouldn't have a major effect on our US members.
First, we updated the Apache web-server software from version 2.4.46 to 2.4.48. This was not a major update, just a periodic bug-fix with a couple of new capabilities thrown in. Apache is only updated once or twice per year, and is a very mature and stable piece of software. Since the forum started in March, 2019, Apache has only been updated five times, the last being in August of 2020 (nearly a full year ago).
Next, we applied the roughly monthly "update" of the php language, going from version 7.4.18-2 to 7.4.20. We will be updating php to the next major version, version 8.0.x, sometime later this year. While the forum software and underlying infrastructure software is all compatible with php8, we believe there may be a couple of add-ons that we have installed, that may not yet be fully compatible with php8. So we will wait a few more months before we do this upgrade.
We also performed an update of the MySQL database from 8.0.24 to 8.0.25 this week. A very very minor update, but this keeps us on the cutting edge for the database. MySQL is typically updated every 2-3 months with minor updates. In March of this year, we did a major update of MySQL from the previous 5.6.x version to 8.0.x. MySQL 8.x will be the major version of MySQL for at least the next 3-4 years, and the XenForo software will maintain full compatibility with MySQL 8.x for at least the next 5-7 years.
Did a minor update to the Elasticsearch search engine, from version 7.13.0 to 7.13.1. This is basically a minor monthly update, nothing special.
We also just realized that the Wiki software license expired in March of 2021, so this needs to be renewed, and then I can update the Wiki software. It is still working fine, but eventually with a future XenForo forum software update, it will break the Wiki functionality. So we'll renew that license today.
We also did the monthly Linux firmware update to the server, which is mainly security-related software patches. This update is what required one of the two reboots of the server. Doing this keeps the server secure and more or less hack-proof.
That should about cover things.
In the next month or so, we will be pursuing a major Linux system software upgrade, from Ubuntu 18.04.5 to 20.04.2. When this happens, the forum will likely be down for 30-60 minutes. We will give plenty of advance warning as to when this is, but we expect it to be early in the morning East Coast time, so shouldn't have a major effect on our US members.
In addition to the emergency patch of the forum software applied to the system, because of the YouTube change which broke embedded links to YouTube videos, we also performed a MAJOR upgrade of the Ubuntu operating system software today, from version 18.04.5 to 20.04.2. The forum has been unavailable a few times during the day while this software upgrade was being performed, due to system reboots and quality control processes.
Some additional minor pruning is happening throughout the afternoon, to remove old system log files and make some system optimizations for log retention and rotation, but these operations will not affect the forum operation, and we should have little to no additional forum unavailability over the next few hours.
Thanks for your patience during this major system surgery. This is the first time since the forum came online in March 2019 that we have done a major operating system update.
Some additional minor pruning is happening throughout the afternoon, to remove old system log files and make some system optimizations for log retention and rotation, but these operations will not affect the forum operation, and we should have little to no additional forum unavailability over the next few hours.
Thanks for your patience during this major system surgery. This is the first time since the forum came online in March 2019 that we have done a major operating system update.
You can see that the main file storage on the server has been reduced from 92% to 67%. Things have been set up so that the system logs and such will be rotated at an interval so that this storage will grow much less quickly in the future. We will be expanding the 100GB storage volume (which is now at 81%+) to 150 GB in the near future, to provide additional room for the ~500 MB of new attachments stored each week.
We are also investigating options to "optimize" the file storage in the future, by reducing image file sizes on the server. The goal would be to cut the overall file storage to about one-half what it is now. We'll talk about that more at a later date.
We are also investigating options to "optimize" the file storage in the future, by reducing image file sizes on the server. The goal would be to cut the overall file storage to about one-half what it is now. We'll talk about that more at a later date.
Thank you
Over the past few days, we have had a couple of spammers that seem to have gotten through the site's copious defenses against spammers. This has resulted in a few members receiving unsolicited "conversation" correspondence. A majority of the spam posts were caught, though approximately 6-8 individuals did receive spam messages in their conversations.
Upon further technical examination, it appears that the automated forum spam tools out there, available to hackers and spammers, may have been able to "break the code" of existing forum defense mechanisms, including Google's "reCAPTCHA2" system (which this forum has used since its migration to XenForo in March 2019), and are now able to breach these defenses and post at will. It is a constant battle of escalation between these spam software programmers and the forum defense capabilities out there.
Of the two spammers we have observed in recent days, there are significant similarities in their activities and "signature" in terms of what they were able to do once they breached the site. This leads us to believe that the breaching is indeed an automated mechanism (a "spam-bot" program), and not the manual work of a spammer who actually takes the time to register and then make posts.
Our sincere apologies for the fact that the spammers got past the site's security controls, and for the annoyance and mental distress that these unsolicited offers may have caused those who received them.
A couple of versions ago, XenForo instituted a new forum defense capability, called "hCAPTCHA". This is the newest generation of automated site defense. It is supposed to provide much stronger protection than the reCAPTCHA2 mechanism. We implemented the hCAPTCHA system as of this morning, and will be carefully monitoring new registrations and activity to assess the effectiveness of the new defense setup.
If you do observe forum spam in a post, please use the "REPORT" button to alert it to forum leadership.
If you receive conversation spam, please alert @xfadmin so that this situation can be addressed.
Thank you,
@xfadmin
Upon further technical examination, it appears that the automated forum spam tools out there, available to hackers and spammers, may have been able to "break the code" of existing forum defense mechanisms, including Google's "reCAPTCHA2" system (which this forum has used since its migration to XenForo in March 2019), and are now able to breach these defenses and post at will. It is a constant battle of escalation between these spam software programmers and the forum defense capabilities out there.
Of the two spammers we have observed in recent days, there are significant similarities in their activities and "signature" in terms of what they were able to do once they breached the site. This leads us to believe that the breaching is indeed an automated mechanism (a "spam-bot" program), and not the manual work of a spammer who actually takes the time to register and then make posts.
Our sincere apologies for the fact that the spammers got past the site's security controls, and for the annoyance and mental distress that these unsolicited offers may have caused those who received them.
A couple of versions ago, XenForo instituted a new forum defense capability, called "hCAPTCHA". This is the newest generation of automated site defense. It is supposed to provide much stronger protection than the reCAPTCHA2 mechanism. We implemented the hCAPTCHA system as of this morning, and will be carefully monitoring new registrations and activity to assess the effectiveness of the new defense setup.
If you do observe forum spam in a post, please use the "REPORT" button to alert it to forum leadership.
If you receive conversation spam, please alert @xfadmin so that this situation can be addressed.
Thank you,
@xfadmin
After a fair bit of struggle and a lot of technical evaluation, troubleshooting, and bringing in some big guns from the outside who could not diagnose the problem, it appears that we have now solved the problems that caused the search function on the site to go down every few days.
This has dramatically improved overall site uptime, because not only are these reboots of the search engine capability now unnecessary, but on the occasions when just a simple search engine reboot doesn't work, a full server reboot (necessitating that the forum/site is down for about 60-90 seconds) is also not needed.
Don't ask as to what had to be done to solve the issue, but just note that it is solved. Not saying search will never go down again, but the frequency with which is has gone down / thrown an error has been reduced from every few days, now to probably weeks, or perhaps once a month, if that.
Overall site stability has never been better. We have been rebooting the server perhaps once every month, just for good measure, but this has not really been needed. As it stands right now, the last time the server was rebooted was 12 days ago. Ideally, we would LOVE to see the server go for a good six months of uptime, just to see how stable it really is...... unfortunately this is not possible, as new versions of the Ubuntu "firmware" are released about once per month (mainly bug and security fixes), and implementing these firmware updates requires a full system reboot.
This has dramatically improved overall site uptime, because not only are these reboots of the search engine capability now unnecessary, but on the occasions when just a simple search engine reboot doesn't work, a full server reboot (necessitating that the forum/site is down for about 60-90 seconds) is also not needed.
Don't ask as to what had to be done to solve the issue, but just note that it is solved. Not saying search will never go down again, but the frequency with which is has gone down / thrown an error has been reduced from every few days, now to probably weeks, or perhaps once a month, if that.
Overall site stability has never been better. We have been rebooting the server perhaps once every month, just for good measure, but this has not really been needed. As it stands right now, the last time the server was rebooted was 12 days ago. Ideally, we would LOVE to see the server go for a good six months of uptime, just to see how stable it really is...... unfortunately this is not possible, as new versions of the Ubuntu "firmware" are released about once per month (mainly bug and security fixes), and implementing these firmware updates requires a full system reboot.
At approximately 5:00 PM EST / 2:00 PM PST / 10:00 PM GMT TODAY (Friday, December 3), the 500Eboard will be taken off-line for approximately one hour.
This is for the upgrade of the forum software to version 2.2.8, as well as the first upgrade of the Wiki software in almost a full year.
We anticipate the time required to perform these tasks will be closer to 30 minutes, but are giving ourselves extra buffer time, in case there are complications, and also approximately 5 minutes for a database "snapshot" backup immediately before commencement of the installation procedures. This will ensure that no information is lost in the event that things go "south."
You may see a message displayed that the forum is currently being upgraded, or it will simply be inaccessible in your web browser during the upgrade process.
Thank you for your patience,
@xfadmin
This is for the upgrade of the forum software to version 2.2.8, as well as the first upgrade of the Wiki software in almost a full year.
We anticipate the time required to perform these tasks will be closer to 30 minutes, but are giving ourselves extra buffer time, in case there are complications, and also approximately 5 minutes for a database "snapshot" backup immediately before commencement of the installation procedures. This will ensure that no information is lost in the event that things go "south."
You may see a message displayed that the forum is currently being upgraded, or it will simply be inaccessible in your web browser during the upgrade process.
Thank you for your patience,
@xfadmin
Search function stability continues to be excellent since we solved this issue back in late September/early October. The server is only requiring one reboot per month, primarily due to new security patches of the Ubuntu operating system that require it.
During the Christmas holiday season, the forum's infrastructure software will be getting an upgrade -- primarily the php software going from version 7.4 to 8.1, and the Java language that the search function runs on getting upgraded from Java 11 to Java 17, which was released in September 2021.
Other than that, all infrastructure that the 500Eboard is running on is very much up to date and future-proofed for the next 3-5 years.
The 500Eboard server has been humming along without a re-boot for almost 29 days now.
We've had a bunch of software updates (mainly security patches, and updates to the Linux kernel) that have accumulated and have been installed over the past few weeks, some of which require a reboot to fully implement. Thus, I will re-booting the server on Friday, January 14, at 0630 EST / 0330 PST / 1130 GMT. The forum will be unavailable for around 90 seconds while the system completes the re-boot process.
Thanks in advance for your patience with the down-time,
@xfadmin
We've had a bunch of software updates (mainly security patches, and updates to the Linux kernel) that have accumulated and have been installed over the past few weeks, some of which require a reboot to fully implement. Thus, I will re-booting the server on Friday, January 14, at 0630 EST / 0330 PST / 1130 GMT. The forum will be unavailable for around 90 seconds while the system completes the re-boot process.
Thanks in advance for your patience with the down-time,
@xfadmin
The server was rebooted as promised, this morning. The forum experienced approximately 65 seconds of "down-time."
It was up and running for 30 days, 20 hours before the reboot, which encompassed and installed more than 100 software changes, "fixes" and security patches.
The 500Eboard server has been up for 25+ days, but there are some monthly Ubuntu system patches and security updates that need to be applied, and the server must be rebooted to implement them.
Thus, I will be issuing the forum's monthly system reboot on Tuesday, March 22 at 0400 PDT / 0700 EDT / Noon GMT.
The forum will be inaccessible for approximately 60-90 seconds at that time, while the reboot proceeds.
Thus, I will be issuing the forum's monthly system reboot on Tuesday, March 22 at 0400 PDT / 0700 EDT / Noon GMT.
The forum will be inaccessible for approximately 60-90 seconds at that time, while the reboot proceeds.
A quick note to let the forum membership know that the forum's storage has been upgraded from spinning "hard disk drive" based storage to all-electronic (semiconductor-based) "NVMe" storage.
What this means is that the storage performance (speed with which data can be read and written when using the forum) goes up about an order of magnitude (10-20x over traditional hard disk drives). It also means that the storage has greater reliability because there are no mechanical parts in the storage system that can fail.
You likely won't see much if any "real world" improvement in the performance of the forum, because of Internet lag times, phone/ipad/computer lag time, and so forth, but on the back end of the forum, this is a significant upgrade and a positive technical addition for forum performance and reliability.
Let me know if you have any questions or comments.
@xfadmin
What this means is that the storage performance (speed with which data can be read and written when using the forum) goes up about an order of magnitude (10-20x over traditional hard disk drives). It also means that the storage has greater reliability because there are no mechanical parts in the storage system that can fail.
You likely won't see much if any "real world" improvement in the performance of the forum, because of Internet lag times, phone/ipad/computer lag time, and so forth, but on the back end of the forum, this is a significant upgrade and a positive technical addition for forum performance and reliability.
Let me know if you have any questions or comments.
@xfadmin
Last night, XenForo released a new update to the forum software, version 2.2.9. We performed the update this morning, and the forum was off-line for about 1 minute while the update was being run.
Mostly this update was a collection of bug-fixes, accumulated since the last update was released in December, 2021.
For those interested, more detail about the bugs fixed with this update can be found here:
xenforo.com
Later today we will be updating the forum's "skin" for those of you using it.
If you are not familiar with the forum's "skins" that are available, you can select them using the "Style chooser" link at the bottom of your screen:
A menu will pop up on your screen that allows you to choose between the default, and 500Eboard Light and Dark skins:
And if you are using the 500Eboard Light or Dark skins, you can toggle between these two using the light bulb at the top right of your screen:
Mostly this update was a collection of bug-fixes, accumulated since the last update was released in December, 2021.
For those interested, more detail about the bugs fixed with this update can be found here:
XenForo 2.2.9 Released
XenForo 2.2.9 Released XenForo 2.2.9 is now available for all licensed customers to download. We strongly recommend that all customers running previous versions of XenForo 2.2 upgrade to this release to benefit from increased stability. In addition to the usual bug fixes and improvements, we've...
xenforo.com
Later today we will be updating the forum's "skin" for those of you using it.
If you are not familiar with the forum's "skins" that are available, you can select them using the "Style chooser" link at the bottom of your screen:
A menu will pop up on your screen that allows you to choose between the default, and 500Eboard Light and Dark skins:
And if you are using the 500Eboard Light or Dark skins, you can toggle between these two using the light bulb at the top right of your screen:
A note to let folks know that the forum will be undergoing approximately 1-2 hours of "down time" on Saturday, April 23 from 6-8 AM EDT / 3-5 AM PDT.
The reason for this is that a major new version of the Ubuntu operating system has been released, version 22.04, code-named "Jammy Jellyfish," and we will be updating the forum to this new version. Major new versions are released in April of every other year, and so a major upgrade like this only happens when the new "LTS" (long term support) versions are released in even years. "LTS" means that the release of the operating system is officially supported with all patches, security updates and other enhancements for a full FIVE years from the date of release. Non-LTS releases of Ubuntu are typically only supported for a period of a few months.
We believe that all of the technical underpinnings are in place for a completely smooth migration, unlike when we migrated from 18.04 (which the forum used for the first couple of years of its existence) to 20.04. Of course, immediately before the upgrade we will make a full "snapshot" backup of the entire forum and all of its databases, as a security measure in case something goes wrong (as happened when we initially attempted in 2020 to go from 18.04 to 20.04).
The actual upgrade will likely only take about 10 minutes, plus another 5 minutes or so for the full backup. However, we are adding extra time into the mix in the event that the upgrade goes awry, and a full "restore" from the backup is required. From experience, a full restore requires 60-90 minutes to complete, so a two-hour downtime window would be the worst-case scenario.
If you are interested in learning more about Ubuntu 22.04, which was officially released today, please check out the links below.
The reason for this is that a major new version of the Ubuntu operating system has been released, version 22.04, code-named "Jammy Jellyfish," and we will be updating the forum to this new version. Major new versions are released in April of every other year, and so a major upgrade like this only happens when the new "LTS" (long term support) versions are released in even years. "LTS" means that the release of the operating system is officially supported with all patches, security updates and other enhancements for a full FIVE years from the date of release. Non-LTS releases of Ubuntu are typically only supported for a period of a few months.
We believe that all of the technical underpinnings are in place for a completely smooth migration, unlike when we migrated from 18.04 (which the forum used for the first couple of years of its existence) to 20.04. Of course, immediately before the upgrade we will make a full "snapshot" backup of the entire forum and all of its databases, as a security measure in case something goes wrong (as happened when we initially attempted in 2020 to go from 18.04 to 20.04).
The actual upgrade will likely only take about 10 minutes, plus another 5 minutes or so for the full backup. However, we are adding extra time into the mix in the event that the upgrade goes awry, and a full "restore" from the backup is required. From experience, a full restore requires 60-90 minutes to complete, so a two-hour downtime window would be the worst-case scenario.
If you are interested in learning more about Ubuntu 22.04, which was officially released today, please check out the links below.
This morning, we upgraded the php language (which the forum software is built using) from version 7.4 to version 8.1.
This is a significant jump that should result in overall slightly better forum performance, due to the greater efficiency of php 8.1.
It also brings this part of the forum's technical underpinnings up to the current state of the art, and will future-proof the php side of things for at least the next 5 years, as XenForo will continue to support php 8.x for many years to come. There was probably only another couple of years remaining for XenForo to support php 7.4+ before version 8.x would have been required.
The forum was off-line and unavailable for approximately 3 minutes while this change was being made.
This is a significant jump that should result in overall slightly better forum performance, due to the greater efficiency of php 8.1.
It also brings this part of the forum's technical underpinnings up to the current state of the art, and will future-proof the php side of things for at least the next 5 years, as XenForo will continue to support php 8.x for many years to come. There was probably only another couple of years remaining for XenForo to support php 7.4+ before version 8.x would have been required.
The forum was off-line and unavailable for approximately 3 minutes while this change was being made.
@xfadmin, I've seen the error shown below a couple times today when clicking Reactions OR when replying to a post... any relation to the PHP upgrade?
Oops! We ran into some problems.
ErrorException: [E_USER_WARNING] [WebPush] gmp extension is not loaded but is required for sending push notifications with payload or for VAPID authentication. You can fix this in your php.ini. in src/vendor/minishlink/web-push/src/WebPush.php at line 82
Oops! We ran into some problems.
ErrorException: [E_USER_WARNING] [WebPush] gmp extension is not loaded but is required for sending push notifications with payload or for VAPID authentication. You can fix this in your php.ini. in src/vendor/minishlink/web-push/src/WebPush.php at line 82
- XF::handlePhpError()
- trigger_error() in src/vendor/minishlink/web-push/src/WebPush.php at line 82
- Minishlink\WebPush\WebPush->__construct() in src/XF/Service/PushNotification.php at line 271
- XF\Service\PushNotification->getWebPushObject() in src/XF/Service/PushNotification.php at line 130
- XF\Service\PushNotification->sendNotifications() in src/XF/Service/PusherTrait.php at line 194
- XF\Service\Alert\Pusher->push() in src/XF/Repository/UserAlert.php at line 165
- XF\Repository\UserAlert->insertAlert() in src/XF/Repository/UserAlert.php at line 103
- XF\Repository\UserAlert->alertFromUser() in src/XF/Reaction/AbstractHandler.php at line 192
- XF\Reaction\AbstractHandler->sendReactionAlert() in src/XF/Repository/Reaction.php at line 203
- XF\Repository\Reaction->insertReaction() in src/XF/Repository/Reaction.php at line 144
- XF\Repository\Reaction->reactToContent() in src/XF/ControllerPlugin/Reaction.php at line 67
- XF\ControllerPlugin\Reaction->actionToggleReaction() in src/XF/ControllerPlugin/Reaction.php at line 21
- XF\ControllerPlugin\Reaction->actionReact() in src/XF/ControllerPlugin/Reaction.php at line 14
- XF\ControllerPlugin\Reaction->actionReactSimple() in src/XF/Pub/Controller/Post.php at line 381
- XF\Pub\Controller\Post->actionReact() in src/XF/Mvc/Dispatcher.php at line 352
- XF\Mvc\Dispatcher->dispatchClass() in src/XF/Mvc/Dispatcher.php at line 259
- XF\Mvc\Dispatcher->dispatchFromMatch() in src/XF/Mvc/Dispatcher.php at line 115
- XF\Mvc\Dispatcher->dispatchLoop() in src/XF/Mvc/Dispatcher.php at line 57
- XF\Mvc\Dispatcher->run() in src/XF/App.php at line 2352
- XF\App->run() in src/XF.php at line 524
- XF::runApp() in index.php at line 20
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Same here, yesterday. Today, occasionally will not load full size images with in the thread, and few times this after a time out
I have not seen or experienced any issues, today.
I noted one thing that when trying to post photos from my phone earlier like I normally do I was getting error messages saying the file was too large. I had to cut it down to what seemed like less than 1mb limit before I could attach anything.
Has the prior 8mb (IIRC) photo limit been reduced?
Has the prior 8mb (IIRC) photo limit been reduced?
The forum's Wiki software received a major update this morning, which fixed more than 100 bugs that had built up. The forum had no down-time as a result of the upgrade, fortunately. Everything should be up and running as per normal with the Wiki.
Also, I wanted to give everyone a heads up as to the implementation of a new feature on the forum, which will be phased into some of the sub-forums. This is the ability to "vote" on solutions provided to members' questions. Answers to questions that receive "up-votes" automatically rise to the top of the thread, just below the original question, so that they will be immediately presented. This does not deprecate nor delete other responses, or supporting answers, as part of the thread -- it just will elevate the best answer(s) to the top of the thread so that they are presented immediately.
This will mainly be a convenience feature, and as said it will be rolled out to a couple of the sub-forums, and then gradually into others based on member responses and usage.
This capability has been built-into XenForo for some time, but just has not been utilized. We have decided to try it out to see how well it is liked, and used.
Thank you,
Management
Also, I wanted to give everyone a heads up as to the implementation of a new feature on the forum, which will be phased into some of the sub-forums. This is the ability to "vote" on solutions provided to members' questions. Answers to questions that receive "up-votes" automatically rise to the top of the thread, just below the original question, so that they will be immediately presented. This does not deprecate nor delete other responses, or supporting answers, as part of the thread -- it just will elevate the best answer(s) to the top of the thread so that they are presented immediately.
This will mainly be a convenience feature, and as said it will be rolled out to a couple of the sub-forums, and then gradually into others based on member responses and usage.
This capability has been built-into XenForo for some time, but just has not been utilized. We have decided to try it out to see how well it is liked, and used.
Thank you,
Management
Today, the forum's XenForo code was upgraded to version 2.2.12, which was released earlier in the day. It is a heavy bug-fix update, but also importantly introduces a new feature. That feature is the replacement of the manual "CAPTCHA" (anti-spam) function with a new and better capability from CloudFlare, called CloudFlare Turnstile.
www.cloudflare.com
You are all familiar with the stupid little CAPTCHA arrays where you have to pick out all of the cars, bikes, or buses or bridges in the array. And you know what a complete waste of time that is! Well, we won't be using those CAPTCHAs any longer (we had used for the past couple of years the invisible "hCAPTCHA" which does the same thing, without all of the hassle.
The Turnstile is also 100% invisible and uses the latest generation technology to properly authenticate people with ZERO hassle and also completely invisibly. It also has privacy benefits as all forms of the CAPTCHA, which are created by Google, pass information back to Google every time a CAPTCHA is accessed (whatever form). This is a mild privacy issue. CloudFlare's Turnstile does not do this and there is ZERO information passed anywhere when Turnstile is used.
Most of you who are registered for the site will never see the CAPTCHAs - they are mainly for visitors and unregistered folks. But the addition of the Turnstile will make things a little friendlier and less of a hassle.
Turnstile has a couple of options, one being the "no interaction required" bar below. However, we have chosen to implement their version that is 100% invisible, so you never even know you are passing through its gate. But you will probably see this implemented on other sites in the future.
Anyway, just a small update for everyone.
Enjoy,
Management
Cloudflare Turnstile, a free CAPTCHA replacement
Cloudflare Turnstile is a simple, free CAPTCHA replacement so web visitors have great, CAPTCHA-free experiences.
You are all familiar with the stupid little CAPTCHA arrays where you have to pick out all of the cars, bikes, or buses or bridges in the array. And you know what a complete waste of time that is! Well, we won't be using those CAPTCHAs any longer (we had used for the past couple of years the invisible "hCAPTCHA" which does the same thing, without all of the hassle.
The Turnstile is also 100% invisible and uses the latest generation technology to properly authenticate people with ZERO hassle and also completely invisibly. It also has privacy benefits as all forms of the CAPTCHA, which are created by Google, pass information back to Google every time a CAPTCHA is accessed (whatever form). This is a mild privacy issue. CloudFlare's Turnstile does not do this and there is ZERO information passed anywhere when Turnstile is used.
Most of you who are registered for the site will never see the CAPTCHAs - they are mainly for visitors and unregistered folks. But the addition of the Turnstile will make things a little friendlier and less of a hassle.
Turnstile has a couple of options, one being the "no interaction required" bar below. However, we have chosen to implement their version that is 100% invisible, so you never even know you are passing through its gate. But you will probably see this implemented on other sites in the future.
Anyway, just a small update for everyone.
Enjoy,
Management
We will be issuing a monthly system reboot on Wednesday at 9AM PST / Noon EST. This is just a normal maintenance action to activate installation of many of the system patches that have been installed over the past weeks.
The forum should be "down" for approximately 2-3 minutes while the system comes back up.
The forum should be "down" for approximately 2-3 minutes while the system comes back up.
The Apache web server software was updated today, to the 2.4.56 version released on March 7th. This is only the seventh time since the forum was migrated to Apache in March 2019, that the web server software has been updated. Back in March 2019, the forum was initially running on Apache 2.4.29.
Changelog for this version is located here, for those interested.
There was no forum downtime in the change-over to the new version -- it was instantaneous with a
command issued.
Changelog for this version is located here, for those interested.
There was no forum downtime in the change-over to the new version -- it was instantaneous with a
Code:
service apache2 restartWe will be issuing our standard, monthly system reboot on Sunday, March 26 at 4AM PDT / 7AM EDT. This is just a normal maintenance action to activate installation of many of the system patches that have been installed over the past weeks.
The forum should be "down" for approximately 2-3 minutes while the system shuts down, reboots, and then comes back alive.
The forum should be "down" for approximately 2-3 minutes while the system shuts down, reboots, and then comes back alive.
At approximately 7:00 PM EST tonight, the forum will be off-line for approximately 30 minutes for a major database upgrade.
You will likely see the "DO NOT WIG OUT OR GO POSTAL" screen during this entire time.
This database upgrade operation will entail taking a snapshot system backup (for security purposes, in case anything goes wrong we have a current backup to revert to), installing the aptitude package manager, performing a number of system commands to re-install mysql client and mysql server, and then restarting the database services. And then error-checking.
If all goes well, the upgrade should require less than 10 minutes total; if it doesn't, then it could be up to 30-45 minutes if a system restore from backup is required.
Thanks for your patience and support in advance.
You will likely see the "DO NOT WIG OUT OR GO POSTAL" screen during this entire time.
This database upgrade operation will entail taking a snapshot system backup (for security purposes, in case anything goes wrong we have a current backup to revert to), installing the aptitude package manager, performing a number of system commands to re-install mysql client and mysql server, and then restarting the database services. And then error-checking.
If all goes well, the upgrade should require less than 10 minutes total; if it doesn't, then it could be up to 30-45 minutes if a system restore from backup is required.
Thanks for your patience and support in advance.
We will be taking the forum off-line on Saturday, Feb. 3 at 8:00 AM EST for approximately one hour.
During this time, we will be applying TWO forum software patches — XenForo 2.2.14 Patch Level 2, and then XF 2.2.15 on top of that.
Also, we will be updating the php language version from php 8.1 to php 8.2. This is downloaded and already on the server, as is the brand-new php 8.3, but we have to flip the version pointer from 8.1 to 8.2, and then run some quick tests on the forum and various add-ons, to make sure that nothing breaks.
We are being told that there will be one more, final XenForo 2.2.x version published in the next couple of months, and XenForo 2.3.0 will be released also like in or before this spring.
XF 3.0 is under full-time development, but I am not expecting this to be generally available until well into 2025.
During this time, we will be applying TWO forum software patches — XenForo 2.2.14 Patch Level 2, and then XF 2.2.15 on top of that.
Also, we will be updating the php language version from php 8.1 to php 8.2. This is downloaded and already on the server, as is the brand-new php 8.3, but we have to flip the version pointer from 8.1 to 8.2, and then run some quick tests on the forum and various add-ons, to make sure that nothing breaks.
We are being told that there will be one more, final XenForo 2.2.x version published in the next couple of months, and XenForo 2.3.0 will be released also like in or before this spring.
XF 3.0 is under full-time development, but I am not expecting this to be generally available until well into 2025.
The aforementioned XenForo software upgrades were achieved this morning, with approximately 10 minutes of site down-time. It went smoothly, and the forum's third-party "skin" software was also updated to reflect the new forum software version.
We will be performing the php language switch-over at the Saturday 8AM EST time, per above.
This switchover will not require any actual site down-time, as it will be switched over via the Linux terminal console (green-screen).
We will be performing the php language switch-over at the Saturday 8AM EST time, per above.
This switchover will not require any actual site down-time, as it will be switched over via the Linux terminal console (green-screen).
We took down the site this afternoon for 17 minutes, to make some adjustments and install some additional php-related software to the server. Mainly the down-time was for a full site backup, in case anything went wrong.
Fortunately everything went smoothly, the needed php software extensions were installed, and the site came back up beautifully.
This site is now running php 8.2.15, which is the current "mainstream" version of php. php 8.3 is out, but it is not yet in broad use, and we are not expecting XenForo software to be compatible with it until the 3.0 version is released either later this year, or in early 2025.
Fortunately everything went smoothly, the needed php software extensions were installed, and the site came back up beautifully.
This site is now running php 8.2.15, which is the current "mainstream" version of php. php 8.3 is out, but it is not yet in broad use, and we are not expecting XenForo software to be compatible with it until the 3.0 version is released either later this year, or in early 2025.
We will be issuing our standard, monthly system reboot on Tuesday, February 27 at 5AM PDT / 8AM EDT. This is just a normal maintenance action to activate installation of many of the system patches that have been installed over the past weeks.
The forum should be "down" for approximately 2-3 minutes while the system shuts down, reboots, and then comes back alive.
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