FYI Technical Site News (for those interested)

[xfadmin]

We made some updates today to the search system, mainly being patches to the search software that slightly improve functionality of the base XenForo Elasticsearch search module.

No downtime for the forum for these updates.

 

[xfadmin]

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.

FYI, following up on this post from @gerryvz:

Yesterday, XenForo released its first public beta for XenForo 2.3. This is strictly for testing and is a non-production release.

Given that the next major version of the Ubuntu operating system (24.04) is going to be released during the third week of April, as planned we are going to create a totally NEW server for testing of the XenForo software, as well as the operating system. This will be maintained until the final release of XenForo 2.3, which will likely be this coming summer, or perhaps in the fall. At this time, the forum will be migrated to the combination of the new software + operating system.

Doing this is likely going to afford us the opportunity to reduce monthly forum operating costs a bit by being able to downsize to a somewhat smaller server, which will be a bonus.

For members, nothing is going to change, and you will not see anything change. When the final release of XenForo 3.0 comes out, the migration will be seamless with no real downtime (perhaps 10 minutes at the most), as everything will be already in place for a full and smooth migration -- what will be seen is that the forum is "frozen" (no ability to make new posts), and then the switchover to the new forum will be made in terms of pointing the DNS system (the 500Eboard.co domain) to the new server.

Also, it is likely at that time that this forum will be switching BACK to the 500Eboard.com domain, from its primary / current "500Eboard.co" domain that we have run on since March of 2019. While 500Eboard.com absolutely works when you type it in, and points to this forum automatically, the ACTUAL domain of this forum is 500Eboard.co.

What we will do at the time of switchover is to do a "switcheroo" and make 500Eboard.com the primary domain for the new server/software, and use the existing 500Eboard.co domain as a pointer to the new forum. Again, it will all be seamless, but this is the current plan.

Just wanted to give everyone some exposure as to what is going to be happening with the forum in the next 4-6 months. Nothing will change at all from what you will see, but, there is going to be A LOT changing under the hood.

 

[xfadmin]

We will be issuing our standard, monthly system reboot on Thursday, March 28 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.

 

[xfadmin]

We will be issuing our standard, monthly system reboot on Wednesday, May 8 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.

 

[xfadmin]

A microcode update was performed immediately prior to the system reboot this morning.

The forum was down for around 90 seconds during reboot, and everything came up just fine after the reboot.

 

[xfadmin]

Hello All:

Just a quick update for everyone on what has been happening behind the scenes with the 500Eboard.

XenForo released version 2.3.0 last week. We have not implemented (nor likely will we, at least in the near term) the new version, despite it having quite a few nice improvements. The reason for this is because there are a number of items on this forum that honestly, need to be updated and changed at the core infrastructure level.

Specifically, these items are as follows:

1) We have been using Apache as the site's web server, since its changeover to XenForo in March, 2019. Apache -- while extremely reliable and robust -- is also a resource hog, and is pretty much overkill for a forum of this size. It's like killing a gnat (the forum's web serving workload) with a sledgehammer (the Apache software). There are better alternatives that exist, such as nginx, or even OpenLitespeed, which the 126board has been using. OpenLitespeed is probably the web server software that we will migrate to, because it is 100% Apache compatible, but is much less resource-intensive and it honestly performs better. Nginx is also an option, and it is EXTREMELY efficient and performant, but it is not compatible with much of the custom scripts that have been created for this site's Apache setup -- specifically redirections for links/URLs for the "old" vBulletin-based forum and pointing them automatically to the correct thread/post on the XenForo forum.

2) We have been using MySQL as this site's database, also since inception in 2019. Again, MySQL is an excellent database, but it is also somewhat resource-intensive and again - is a sledgehammer where only a light mallet is required. So, we will likely be moving to the MariaDB database, which is 100% compatible with MySQL in every way, but has a much smaller footprint and again is more efficient overall. The 126board forum currently utilizes MariaDB and we have had ZERO issues with it, whatsoever.

3) This site is operating using version 20.04.6 LTS (Long-Term Support) of the Ubuntu operating system. This is still 100% a viable operating system, and will be for some years to come. However, it is now two versions out of date (in the meantime, version 22.04 was released in 2022, and version 24.04 was released in April 2024). Realistically, standard security patches and other support for 20.04 will be ending in March, 2025, as indicated in the diagram below. By transitioning to the current 24.04 version, we will be set for security patches and full support through 2029.


4) We are going to experiment with moving this site to a smaller server. The site has been running since 2019 on a very powerful server, and the site at any point in time typically runs on less than 20% of the CPU capacity. This means that there is a lot of excess compute and data transfer capability that we are paying for every month, that is going unused. So, we are investigating going with a server setup with less excess overhead CPU capacity, and that is more fully utilised.

So, in doing this, we have created a new "Test" server using the same size CPU setup that the 126board has been using since we cleaved it off of this forum several years ago. The new server is using the current Ubuntu 24.4 software, and we are in the process of installing the requisite OpenLitespeed and Maria DB software on it.


In the coming weeks, and likely coming months, we will continue to experiment with the new setup, and will run the XenForo 2.3 software in a limited, non-public "test" mode (likely using the more manageable 126board.com database and such) to evaluate everything. We will continue to keep folks updated as to the status of the evaluation process, and also as to any migration plans.

It's pretty likely that nothing will change as to this site - it will still have all the data, images, etc. that we currently have, and will still use both the 500Eboard.co and 500Eboard.com URLs interchangeably. There will be new options available for logging into the site so that you won't have to use a password if you don't want to -- the option to use a "passkey" will be available, or to use Google, Faceplant, AppleID, Oauth or other secure identification mechanism for login will be available. This will make things very nice and less of a hassle in the future. But there are many other good things as part of the new XenForo version, as well.

When the migration is eventually done, we do not expect any site downtime at all. If there was, it would be one hour or less, barring something unforeseen. It will be more likely that this site will be fully up and available, but folks will not be able to post anything for a short period of time while the switch-over is being made, and the DNS system migrates the site's DNS pointer over to the new server. Typically this takes 15-20 minutes, and then propagates from there across the internet.

Anyway, wanted to give folks an update as to what is happening currently, behind the scenes.

xfadmin

 

[xfadmin]

A quick "test upgrade" of this forum to the new XenForo 2.3.0 software did bork the forum, requiring reversion to the system backup taken just before attempting the upgrade. Zero data was lost, and the forum was off-line for around 30 minutes for the backup/attempted upgrade/restore process.

We thought this would be the case, but wanted to make sure.

The plan will be to upgrade to forum software 2.3.0 when the new server is completed, thoroughly tested, and the forum is migrated to it, per above.

One benefit of going to the new server, is that it will cut monthly operating costs by around $30.00, or ~$350 per year. If the server does not have the necessary capacity to properly host the forum (we believe that it does, and will, based on 126board workloads and spare capacity), we have another "intermediate" tier that we can move to, which will DEFINITELY have enough capacity, and still save ~$250.00 per year.

We just wanted to let people know what is happening behind the scenes. Nothing to worry about, just kicking the tires and testing various things.

xfadmin

 

[Honda Aircraft]

I wanted to let folks know that I will be taking the redirect system down for a few hours, likely tomorrow (Thursday) morning from about 5-8 AM Eastern Time. This is to do some further migration of remaining photo albums from the old site over to this site.

During this period, links to posts on the old forum will NOT redirect to the appropriate post on this site. I am trying to do this at a time when few people will be using this site, so the impact should be minimal. ALL content existing on this site will continue to be available, you can post/reply, and so forth, during this time.

Thanks for your patience while I make this final push to get the Photo Albums migrated.

Cheers,
Gerry




I have 53 photo albums yet to migrate or delete. I believe up to two-thirds of those albums were deleted by their owners, but I need to double-check them (one at a time) against the records on the other site.

Hello GerryZ - this is off the subject but I saw a reply of yours that indicated you could find VIN numbers from an Engine serial number - I bought someone's unfinished Kitplane project and it has a Honda Engine adapted by Viking Aircraft company - they used to have a carfax on the car it came out of but they lost it - the engine serial number is L15B7 2045504 it is a 1.5 liter turbo charged VTC out of a Honda Civic probably earlier than 2018 - I would really appreciate your help or a direction you might send me - Sincerely Jim G.

 

[gerryvz]

Hello GerryZ - this is off the subject but I saw a reply of yours that indicated you could find VIN numbers from an Engine serial number - I bought someone's unfinished Kitplane project and it has a Honda Engine adapted by Viking Aircraft company - they used to have a carfax on the car it came out of but they lost it - the engine serial number is L15B7 2045504 it is a 1.5 liter turbo charged VTC out of a Honda Civic probably earlier than 2018 - I would really appreciate your help or a direction you might send me - Sincerely Jim G.

Sadly, we are only able to do this with Mercedes engines/VINs, pertaining to the 1991-1995 500E and E500 models. We don't on this forum really deal with other Mercedes models extensively, nor do we deal with non-Mercedes automobiles, engines or technology at all.

Sorry that we can't be of more help with your quest.

 

[gerryvz]

We will be updating the Wiki software today around 5 PM EST.

The Wiki will likely be down (non-visible per the menu-bar item) for 5-10 minutes, but the rest of the 500Eboard site will not be affected.

 

[gerryvz]

We will be updating the Wiki software today around 5 PM EST.

The Wiki will likely be down (non-visible per the menu-bar item) for 5-10 minutes, but the rest of the 500Eboard site will not be affected.

The Wiki update went south, due to a bug in the new version that borked the upgrade process. I contacted the developer, and he provided me with a fix.

I have to do some coding in php to implement the fix, with the Wiki files that have been uploaded to the server, so it will probably be tonight (Friday night) when the Wiki SHOULD BE back up and running. Saturday morning at the latest.

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

The site's Wiki is back up and running just fine, but it is using the previous version of the software. The fix that the developer provided, as well as an updated version, are both not working.

Thus, I reverted back to the previous, working, version. I should have a new fix to attempt, in the next 1-2 days. Fingers crossed.

 

[gerryvz]

The site's Wiki is back up and running just fine, but it is using the previous version of the software. The fix that the developer provided, as well as an updated version, are both not working.

Thus, I reverted back to the previous, working, version. I should have a new fix to attempt, in the next 1-2 days. Fingers crossed.

I have an updated fix from the developer, and will code it a bit later today / tonight. We’ll see how it works…..

 

[gerryvz]

I have an updated fix from the developer, and will code it a bit later today / tonight. We’ll see how it works…..

Wiki has been successfully updated with the new code, and should be working fine now.

 

[xfadmin]

Over the last 48 hours, some issues seem to have cropped up with regard to the forum's mailing system, which sends out the automatic e-mails to members who have opted in, for forum updates, new threads, followed threads, and "what you've missed while away" e-mails.

No settings on the forum have changed, so this is likely an issue with Google tightening up security requirements with their systems and the ability of third-party applications (such as XenForo) to automatically log into Google to send e-mail.

This issue is under investigation, and remedies are being tried. If you don't receive any e-mail from the forum, this is why. If you are receiving e-mail, that's great.

We expect that have this problem solved in the next day or two, time allowing. These things are frustrating when nothing changes on our end, and we are not informed by Google that they are making changes on their side. Please be patient and we'll get everything resolved.

Forum access, posting, and so forth is 100% NOT affected at all -- only the Gmail-based system that the forum uses to send out e-mails to members who want them.

 

[xfadmin]

It appears that we may have this problem already resolved, through the efforts of @gerryvz.

We will watch the flow of e-mail closely over the next 24-36 hours, and if things continue to flow, and no further e-mail related authentication errors are thrown and recorded in the site's admin portal, then we will call this problem resolved.

 

[gerryvz]

It does appear that email is back to flowing as it should, and no Google-related authentication errors have been thrown in the past hour. We were getting 100+ error messages per hour over the past day or two....it was getting overwhelming !!

 

[gerryvz]

It does appear that email is back to flowing as it should, and no Google-related authentication errors have been thrown in the past hour. We were getting 100+ error messages per hour over the past day or two....it was getting overwhelming !!

It's been a few days now, with zero issues with the forum sending out e-mails again. I'm going to call this problem SOLVED.

Also, earlier this week we were able to solve another bug, whereby the bbcode toggle was not working. It is now working again. This is the "brackets" that you see in the upper right corner of the post box.

 

[gerryvz]

Here is an example, from the forum's admin control panel, of the automated & multiple layers of the forum's spammer countermeasures, of multiple "new users" being automatically rejected over the past few days.

All of this goes on automatically behind the scenes when people try to register. It's the first line of daily defense against scummy scammers.



Of course, this is all in addition to the automated "spambot registration" countermeasures, which has caught and logged more than 110,000 spammer registration attempts over the past four years or so.

 

[gerryvz]

A heads up for folks -- now that the 126board is fully up and operational, we will be turning our attention to this forum and its long-awaited modernisation.

That work will be performed later this week.

First of all, we have set up a new, and lower-powered "test" server. We will be building a new server and migrating this forum to the new server, to see if it can handle the workload. If so, then we will progress with completion of the migration to that server.

If there are issues, then this server (which is a dual-processor server, and honestly overkill at about 8-12% of the processor capacity actually used on an ongoing basis) will be retained. The smaller server will approximately halve the operating costs of this forum, which is a good thing.

This forum's server was created and originally provisioned back in February 2019, and has run continually ever since. While the back-end is very robust and reliable, much of the software is starting to show its age.

Here is an overview of the work that is already underway:

1. Updating the forum software to the latest version of XenForo (currently using 2.2.17)
2. Update other key elements of the site:
   1. php -- upgrade to php 8.3 (currently on 8.2.28)
   2. MySQL -- either upgrade (currently on 8.0.33) MySQL, or migrate to MariaDB, which uses less resources and is fully compatible with MySQL
   3. cURL -- move to a more modern version (currently on 7.68.0)
   4. OpenSSL -- move to a more modern version (currently on 1.1.1f)
   5. Apache -- migrate from Apache to openlitespeed, if I am able to maintain all existing forum URL redirects that I have set up in Apache. Openlitespeed will consume less resources.
   6. Elasticsearch -- update and install Java and Elasticsearch together to Java 14 or newer, along with newer version of Elasticsearch (currently on Java 8, and Elasticsearch 7.17.28). Get a "green" light on ES rather than the "yellow" status that I currently have (though it does work). This will dramatically improve reliability of the forum's search function.
3. Update Ubuntu operating system to a newer version. Currently on Ubuntu 20.04.6 LTS. Would like to get to 22.04 or even 24.04 LTS.

This is A LOT of work that encompasses pretty much the entire software infrastructure of the forum.

I expect very brief, but intermittent periods of forum "downtime". I do not believe the forum will be down for periods longer than 10-15 minutes, if even that. If the forum does move to the new server, it will likely take 30-60 minutes for the DNS system to "re-point" the 500eboard.co domain from the old server IP address to the new server IP address. This means that some folks will have quick access, while others may take some minutes or a few hours to access the forum while the DNS pointer propagates throughout the entire internet.

No forum data will be lost, and no settings will change with regard to the forum -- login, password, etc. You MAY need to re-do your 2FA for another 30 days upon first login, but that is not a 100% given at this time.

I'll give folks a heads up when the forum updates may begin to affect access.

Thanks
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

Following up on this -- the "new" 500Eboard server has been fully set up, prototyped, tested, and is now up and running. There are still a few tweaks to do. These are mostly involving making some updates to add-ons that are specific to the newer 2.3 version of XenForo that the new server will be running. So, the new server has not yet been switched over to.

This will likely be happening in the next few days.

After we switch over to the new forum, you will notice a lot of small new features and capabilities in the forum software, but nothing major. The forum will continue to operate and look like it has.

The biggest thing you'll probably notice, is that the search function should be much more reliable on the new server, and won't be "borking" and throwing up errors from time to time until it is manually reset.

You may also notice improved performance of the web server (i.e. pages will load moderately faster) as we are using more efficient web serving and database software.

Over time (after any initial bugs / configuration issues relating to the switch-over are taken care of), we will be doing some tweaks to some of the forums, in terms of how things are shown/presented when you click on a specific sub-forum. This will highlight some material in a more visual way, and should make things perhaps more useful/helpful.

I'll give another update in the near future when we're ready for the switchover. There shouldn't be any downtime for the forum associated with the switchover -- should be completely seamless, so that you won't even know we are running on a new server.

The 126board has been running supremely since we revamped that forum's infrastructure. It is using the latest software in all respects and though it doesn't get much traffic, has been a good prototyping effort for the full revamp of this forum's infrastructure.

This effort we are getting close to concluding here, should get things in good order for at least the next five years. Note that this server was initiated in early 2019, so more than six years ago. We've been operating since that time on the same base infrastructure, with near-daily minor software updates and upgrades happening during this period.

 

[gsxr]

@xfadmin - I'm getting the error shown below when I try to merge 2 threads:

Thread 1:
https://www.500eboard.co/forums/threads/e60-not-sure-if-this-has-made-the-rounds-here.21425/

Thread 2:
https://www.500eboard.co/forums/thr...blue-130kkm-tmu-0-22m-chicago-illinois.12814/



Oops! We ran into some problems.
XF\Db\Exception: MySQL statement prepare error [1054]: Unknown column 'vwcontent_count' in 'field list' in src/XF/Db/AbstractStatement.php at line 230

1. XF\Db\AbstractStatement->getException() in src/XF/Db/Mysqli/Statement.php at line 207
2. XF\Db\Mysqli\Statement->getException() in src/XF/Db/Mysqli/Statement.php at line 43
3. XF\Db\Mysqli\Statement->prepare() in src/XF/Db/Mysqli/Statement.php at line 61
4. XF\Db\Mysqli\Statement->execute() in src/XF/Db/AbstractAdapter.php at line 96
5. XF\Db\AbstractAdapter->query() in src/XF/Db/AbstractAdapter.php at line 273
6. XF\Db\AbstractAdapter->insertBulk() in src/XF/Repository/ActivityLogRepository.php at line 310
7. XF\Repository\ActivityLogRepository->handleBulkLog() in src/XF/ActivityLog/AbstractHandler.php at line 116
8. XF\ActivityLog\AbstractHandler->bulkLog() in src/XF/ActivityLog/AbstractHandler.php at line 218
9. XF\ActivityLog\AbstractHandler->rebuildReplyMetrics() in src/XF/Repository/ActivityLogRepository.php at line 156
10. XF\Repository\ActivityLogRepository->rebuildReplyMetrics() in src/XF/Service/Thread/MergerService.php at line 275
11. XF\Service\Thread\MergerService->updateActivityLog() in src/XF/Service/Thread/MergerService.php at line 157
12. XF\Service\Thread\MergerService->merge() in src/XF/InlineMod/Thread/Merge.php at line 85
13. XF\InlineMod\Thread\Merge->applyInternal() in src/XF/InlineMod/AbstractAction.php at line 161
14. XF\InlineMod\AbstractAction->apply() in src/XF/Pub/Controller/InlineModController.php at line 133
15. XF\Pub\Controller\InlineModController->actionPerform() in src/addons/vw/vw/XF/Pub/Controller/InlineMod.php at line 55
16. vw\vw\XF\Pub\Controller\InlineMod->actionPerform() in src/XF/Mvc/Dispatcher.php at line 362
17. XF\Mvc\Dispatcher->dispatchClass() in src/XF/Mvc/Dispatcher.php at line 264
18. XF\Mvc\Dispatcher->dispatchFromMatch() in src/XF/Mvc/Dispatcher.php at line 121
19. XF\Mvc\Dispatcher->dispatchLoop() in src/XF/Mvc/Dispatcher.php at line 63
20. XF\Mvc\Dispatcher->run() in src/XF/App.php at line 2826
21. XF\App->run() in src/XF.php at line 806
22. XF::runApp() in index.php at line 23

 

[gerryvz]

Yes, this is an VaultWiki software bug. It was expecting to see a field in the database that is not there.

I think we may have fixed it -- can you try again?

 

[gsxr]

No joy... still get this error:

XF\Db\Exception: MySQL statement prepare error [1054]: Unknown column 'vwusage_count' in 'field list' in src/XF/Db/AbstractStatement.php at line 230

1. XF\Db\AbstractStatement->getException() in src/XF/Db/Mysqli/Statement.php at line 207
2. XF\Db\Mysqli\Statement->getException() in src/XF/Db/Mysqli/Statement.php at line 43
3. XF\Db\Mysqli\Statement->prepare() in src/XF/Db/Mysqli/Statement.php at line 61
4. XF\Db\Mysqli\Statement->execute() in src/XF/Db/AbstractAdapter.php at line 96
5. XF\Db\AbstractAdapter->query() in src/XF/Db/AbstractAdapter.php at line 273
6. XF\Db\AbstractAdapter->insertBulk() in src/XF/Repository/ActivityLogRepository.php at line 310
7. XF\Repository\ActivityLogRepository->handleBulkLog() in src/XF/ActivityLog/AbstractHandler.php at line 116
8. XF\ActivityLog\AbstractHandler->bulkLog() in src/XF/ActivityLog/AbstractHandler.php at line 218
9. XF\ActivityLog\AbstractHandler->rebuildReplyMetrics() in src/XF/Repository/ActivityLogRepository.php at line 156
10. XF\Repository\ActivityLogRepository->rebuildReplyMetrics() in src/XF/Service/Thread/MergerService.php at line 275
11. XF\Service\Thread\MergerService->updateActivityLog() in src/XF/Service/Thread/MergerService.php at line 157
12. XF\Service\Thread\MergerService->merge() in src/XF/InlineMod/Thread/Merge.php at line 85
13. XF\InlineMod\Thread\Merge->applyInternal() in src/XF/InlineMod/AbstractAction.php at line 161
14. XF\InlineMod\AbstractAction->apply() in src/XF/Pub/Controller/InlineModController.php at line 133
15. XF\Pub\Controller\InlineModController->actionPerform() in src/addons/vw/vw/XF/Pub/Controller/InlineMod.php at line 55
16. vw\vw\XF\Pub\Controller\InlineMod->actionPerform() in src/XF/Mvc/Dispatcher.php at line 362
17. XF\Mvc\Dispatcher->dispatchClass() in src/XF/Mvc/Dispatcher.php at line 264
18. XF\Mvc\Dispatcher->dispatchFromMatch() in src/XF/Mvc/Dispatcher.php at line 121
19. XF\Mvc\Dispatcher->dispatchLoop() in src/XF/Mvc/Dispatcher.php at line 63
20. XF\Mvc\Dispatcher->run() in src/XF/App.php at line 2826
21. XF\App->run() in src/XF.php at line 806
22. XF::runApp() in index.php at line 23

 

[gerryvz]

I have disabled the Wiki -- please let me know if this helps.

 

[gsxr]

That worked! I was able to merge the threads.

 

[gsxr]

Just starting getting this error when I try to upload any image:


Oops! We ran into some problems.

ErrorException: [E_WARNING] fopen(/home/500eboard.co/public_html/forums/internal_data/attachments/216/216942-7f4ecedff785ed7a8d1ce56b9a685321.data): Failed to open stream: Permission denied in src/vendor/league/flysystem/src/Adapter/Local.php at line 157

1. XF::handlePhpError()
2. fopen() in src/vendor/league/flysystem/src/Adapter/Local.php at line 157
3. League\Flysystem\Adapter\Local->writeStream() in src/vendor/league/flysystem/src/Filesystem.php at line 122
4. League\Flysystem\Filesystem->putStream() in src/vendor/league/flysystem-eventable-filesystem/src/EventableFilesystem.php at line 430
5. League\Flysystem\EventableFilesystem\EventableFilesystem->callFilesystemMethod() in src/vendor/league/flysystem-eventable-filesystem/src/EventableFilesystem.php at line 395
6. League\Flysystem\EventableFilesystem\EventableFilesystem->delegateMethodCall() in src/vendor/league/flysystem-eventable-filesystem/src/EventableFilesystem.php at line 71
7. League\Flysystem\EventableFilesystem\EventableFilesystem->putStream() in src/vendor/league/flysystem/src/MountManager.php at line 615
8. League\Flysystem\MountManager->putStream() in src/XF/Util/File.php at line 216
9. XF\Util\File::copyFileToAbstractedPath() in src/XF/Service/Attachment/PreparerService.php at line 89
10. XF\Service\Attachment\PreparerService->insertDataFromFile() in src/XF/Service/Attachment/PreparerService.php at line 49
11. XF\Service\Attachment\PreparerService->insertAttachment() in src/XF/Attachment/Manipulator.php at line 197
12. XF\Attachment\Manipulator->insertAttachmentFromUpload() in src/XF/Pub/Controller/AttachmentController.php at line 95
13. XF\Pub\Controller\AttachmentController->actionUpload() in src/XF/Mvc/Dispatcher.php at line 362
14. XF\Mvc\Dispatcher->dispatchClass() in src/XF/Mvc/Dispatcher.php at line 264
15. XF\Mvc\Dispatcher->dispatchFromMatch() in src/XF/Mvc/Dispatcher.php at line 121
16. XF\Mvc\Dispatcher->dispatchLoop() in src/XF/Mvc/Dispatcher.php at line 63
17. XF\Mvc\Dispatcher->run() in src/XF/App.php at line 2826
18. XF\App->run() in src/XF.php at line 806
19. XF::runApp() in index.php at line 23

 

[gerryvz]

confirmed. On it.

Typical teething problem with the switchover to the new forum software and server.

Should have a fix very soon.

Thanks for flagging.

 

[gerryvz]

The Wiki software has been repaired and re-enabled. It should be working fine from here onward.

I will be providing a general technical update this weekend, now that the migration to the new server is complete.

The old server has been powered down, for good. It served us faithfully from February 23, 2019. You took care of us all very well, old friend. You have earned a well-deserved retirement.

 

[gerryvz]

Just starting getting this error when I try to upload any image:


Oops! We ran into some problems.

ErrorException: [E_WARNING] fopen(/home/500eboard.co/public_html/forums/internal_data/attachments/216/216942-7f4ecedff785ed7a8d1ce56b9a685321.data): Failed to open stream: Permission denied in src/vendor/league/flysystem/src/Adapter/Local.php at line 157

1. XF::handlePhpError()
2. fopen() in src/vendor/league/flysystem/src/Adapter/Local.php at line 157
3. League\Flysystem\Adapter\Local->writeStream() in src/vendor/league/flysystem/src/Filesystem.php at line 122
4. League\Flysystem\Filesystem->putStream() in src/vendor/league/flysystem-eventable-filesystem/src/EventableFilesystem.php at line 430
5. League\Flysystem\EventableFilesystem\EventableFilesystem->callFilesystemMethod() in src/vendor/league/flysystem-eventable-filesystem/src/EventableFilesystem.php at line 395
6. League\Flysystem\EventableFilesystem\EventableFilesystem->delegateMethodCall() in src/vendor/league/flysystem-eventable-filesystem/src/EventableFilesystem.php at line 71
7. League\Flysystem\EventableFilesystem\EventableFilesystem->putStream() in src/vendor/league/flysystem/src/MountManager.php at line 615
8. League\Flysystem\MountManager->putStream() in src/XF/Util/File.php at line 216
9. XF\Util\File::copyFileToAbstractedPath() in src/XF/Service/Attachment/PreparerService.php at line 89
10. XF\Service\Attachment\PreparerService->insertDataFromFile() in src/XF/Service/Attachment/PreparerService.php at line 49
11. XF\Service\Attachment\PreparerService->insertAttachment() in src/XF/Attachment/Manipulator.php at line 197
12. XF\Attachment\Manipulator->insertAttachmentFromUpload() in src/XF/Pub/Controller/AttachmentController.php at line 95
13. XF\Pub\Controller\AttachmentController->actionUpload() in src/XF/Mvc/Dispatcher.php at line 362
14. XF\Mvc\Dispatcher->dispatchClass() in src/XF/Mvc/Dispatcher.php at line 264
15. XF\Mvc\Dispatcher->dispatchFromMatch() in src/XF/Mvc/Dispatcher.php at line 121
16. XF\Mvc\Dispatcher->dispatchLoop() in src/XF/Mvc/Dispatcher.php at line 63
17. XF\Mvc\Dispatcher->run() in src/XF/App.php at line 2826
18. XF\App->run() in src/XF.php at line 806
19. XF::runApp() in index.php at line 23

confirmed. On it.

Typical teething problem with the switchover to the new forum software and server.

Should have a fix very soon.

Thanks for flagging.

This should be now fixed. It was a permissions issue on the server, relating to the folder that contains all forum images.

The folder now has full write access, and attachments should be able to be uploaded at this point.

Thanks.

 

[gerryvz]

Confirming image attachment.

 

[gerryvz]

I will be providing a general technical update this weekend, now that the migration to the new server is complete.

OK folks, here is the promised technical update.

We have now 100% successfully completed the most comprehensive technical overhaul of this site's infrastructure since February 2019, when we migrated to the XenForo software, and simultaneously went from a "managed" hosting service to a Virtual Private Server setup.

The actual migration was performed on Friday June 19th, at around 5:30 PM EDT. The forum had very minimal downtime (perhaps around 30 minutes) while this migration was being performed; the majority of the time was for the internet to propagate the changeover of the "500Eboard.co" domain from the old server's IP address to the new IP address.

No data was lost in the process, and the migration was (for the most part) drama-free. Only a couple of small bugs popped up, the biggest one being the inability to attach photos to posts (which was solved in fairly short order).

This was a very comprehensive overhaul that touched all aspects of the technical underpinnings of this site:

• Migration from the Ubuntu 20.04.6 operating system to Ubuntu 22.04.5. Ubuntu 20.04 was released in March 2020, and its support officially ended in May 2025. The new Ubuntu version will supported through April 2027. We will migrate in the next six months to the current version, Ubuntu 24.04.
• Migration from XenForo 2.2.14 to 2.3.6, the very latest version of the forum software
• Moved from the Apache web server to OpenLiteSpeed, which is much faster while consuming less resources
• Moved from the MySQL database to MariaDB, which is very similar but faster, and consuming less resources
• Moved from php 8.2.28 to 8.3.21. php 8.2 active development stopped in December 2024. php 8.3 will reach end of life (EOL) at the end of 2027.
• Moved to a more stable infrastructure to support the search capability (this should make search much more reliable going forward)

We also had to re-set-up many automated tasks from the old system, such as the daily and weekly database backups, administrative accounts on the server that performed these tasks, and re-do various security settings. All of this "post-migration" work has taken about 12 hours to complete.

There will be some ongoing work over the coming days, weeks and months to implement some of the new features and capabilities of the XenForo 2.3 software. Some of it is pretty cool stuff that folks will like, including the ability to highlight specific posts in new ways (not just the "sticky" posts we have now) when you click on a sub-forum. We'll phase some of this stuff in gradually.

We also got rid of the "standard" XenForo interface, and replaced it with the "optional" interface that the forum used to have (in addition to the boring standard interface). The new interface has both "light" and "dark" modes, that you can switch either at the top right or the very bottom of your screen, to suit your taste. I have personally always used the "light" version as I like it better.

The result of all of this work is that the forum is now on a solid and modern technical footing for at least the next 5 years, in all dimensions. Sadly with the horsepower needed by the advanced search capability we have, we are technically not able to go to a smaller (cheaper) server, so we are running on the same (dual processor) server type that we have used since 2019. The 126board does not use this same search capability, so it is able to run easily on a very small and inexpensive server. But this forum can't do that, unfortunately.

Which is fine, because the search capability is one of the most important used features of this site, and helps put it head and shoulders above many if not most other forums of any type out there.

We'll continue to keep this forum updated on a near-daily basis with software updates, patches and tweaks to keep things operating smoothly. The "old" server has now been turned off, but we are keeping it around for a few weeks, just in case any old files or configuration items are needed from it. Once we're satisfied that everything is 110% here on the new server, we'll delete the old server and save the extra money that it is costing by keeping it in a dormant state, going forward.

XenForo will be releasing its version 2.4 software in the next 3-6 months, and when it's released we'll plan to migrate to that software. They are going into the "beta" testing phase in the coming weeks for this -- we will not use beta software for this site. That will also entail a move to the current php 8.4 language. We also may move to Ubuntu 24.04 at that time, as well.

In any case, if you see or experience any errors, please post them. We'll be monitoring things carefully in the coming days and weeks.

Thanks for your patience with this process. It has been many many months in the works, and we are now complete, as well as getting the 126board.com site up and running again. We can mark both tasks now, DONE.

 

[gerryvz]

We also had to re-set-up many automated tasks from the old system, such as the daily and weekly database backups, administrative accounts on the server that performed these tasks, and re-do various security settings. All of this "post-migration" work has taken about 12 hours to complete.

Here is a little information on the site backup regimen and redundancy that we have, so that site information is not lost.

I do the following maintenance and backup routine every Sunday morning when I get up:

1. Run a manual site "snapshot" backup at the server
2. Run a manual backup and "sync" of all of the site's images, copying all new images to my local home computer for backup here
3. Copy the site's Sunday backup of the database to my local home computer, for backup here

One of the most important jobs is #3 above -- making sure that the site's database is automatically backed up every day, without fail. With the new server, this had to be reconfigured and executed, via the Linux cron command. A "cron" job is basically a timer that triggers the system to do a specified task at a given minute, hour, day, or month. Basically you can do anything under the sun on a system with a cron job.



Confirmed that the daily site database backup cron job is working as of this morning.

The site's database is automatically backed up at 2:00 AM ET every morning, and then once a week the special "Sunday" backup is migrated and archived on my home computer system, where it is backed up to the cloud hourly, and to another drive located here on site, also hourly.

Note that even COMPRESSED, the site's database is 200+ MB in size. That would probably be pushing 1 GB uncompressed.

The full server (containing all 80 GB of the site's drive) is also automatically backed up daily at the server, along with a separate "snapshot" backup that I manually do every Sunday. These server-side backups are extremely valuable and helpful for those very rare times when a software upgrade goes haywire, and borks the site. It's easy to wipe the server and do a direct restore from one of these daily backups.



Over the past 6+ years, I've probably had to do this about 5-6 times when things go REALLY sideways.

Lastly, all site images are also backed up every Sunday from the site to my home computer's hard drive, where they are also backed up hourly to the cloud, and also hourly to a separate hard drive in my home. This is achieved by the Ubuntu Linux rsync (Remote Sync) command, which compares the local files on my hard drive to those on the server, and downloads any new files to my home computer, and/or deletes any files on my home computer that were deleted on the server. This process takes about 3-4 minutes to complete.

The site adds around 250-400 MB of new image files every week.

 

[gerryvz]

One other small remaining task has been completed -- the "500Eboard.com" domain is now properly pointing to this forum (which uses the 500Eboard.co domain).

 

[gsxr]

@xfamin - I noticed one fairly major difference with the new software upgrade. Most photos people are uploading are now defaulting to "full size", where previously the default was "thumbnail". Some old posts are affected as well. This is causing a ton of scrolling to get past supersize images.

Also seems like if files are uploaded via the "Attach files" button, those default as thumbnails, which is weird. I've not uploaded many pics yet so I haven't nailed down the specific use cases. Would be nice if we could return to the previous defaults though!

 

[gsxr]

Sample thread - I believe previously, all the images in this thread were thumbnailed. Now, most of them are full-size inline:

Thread 'Project: ExtremeE part III'

May 29, 2023

Haven't posted on here Ina while, but thought I'd share my current project I've decided to do. Its a weird one lol. W124 carbon Truck with full Tesla Model 3 drivetran and electronics. Design will change probably but this is the basic idea for now.

• AS Design
• Replies: 67
• Forum: Body Shop

• 
• 

 

[gerryvz]

I believe this should be fixed, going forward.

 

[gerryvz]

Well, it’s been almost a month since the change-over to the new server and the upgrade to the forum software.

Adjustments behind the scenes have been continuing, mainly for re-initiating some of the automated processes that we had in place before, such as the automatic daily database backups on the forum server, the weekly database backup that is downloaded to my own computer for safekeeping, etc.

Another important thing accomplished was solving various “permissions” issues to allow the two back-end server administration accounts (500Eadmin and 500Esuper) — NOT the forum administrators such as sudo, myself, Glen and the gsxr — to be able to remotely log into the server from anywhere in the world, and have the correct access to appropriate files and directories without having to use the “root” account. The “root” account is a deity — it can do anything that is possible on the server. But for security reasons, and as a prudent practice, “root” is disabled on the server. The admin accounts can drop into “root” temporarily, but if permissions are set correctly, they really shouldn’t ever have to, at least as far as administering forum- and operating system-related files.

This server admin access was achieved using the facl command, which pertains to “access control lists”. ACLs are specific permissions that allow specified users to access directories and directory hierarchies (folders and files within a directory). @bclifton knows all about this stuff, I’m 100% sure.

A few notes as to the forum itself:

• We have FINALLY gotten the search capability to a point of 100% reliability. It has not gone down or disconnected since the change-over. The back-end of the search was rebuilt from the ground up on a new Java Virtual Machine and Elasticsearch combination at the time of the forum switchover.
• Although the forum is running on an identically configured server as the old forum was (dual processor; 80GB storage, etc.), it runs “hotter” than the old forum did. This means that the new server uses around 20-30% of the processing capacity of the servers, whereas the “old” forum was in the 10-15% range.
• Now that the forum is up, running, reliable, and operating smoothly, we’ll begin phasing in a few new tweaks in the coming weeks and months as to how a few of the sub-forums are being presented to users. We may start with the HOW-TO forum, and see how this goes. We’ll be looking for input and feedback from folks as to how they like, or don’t like, the thread presentation changes.

Anyway, just wanted to give folks an update and progress report. The forum is very healthy from a technology perspective.

 

[gerryvz]

Doing another quick follow-up on this. I'm happy to report that site reliability -- and ESPECIALLY search reliability -- is better than it has ever been.

Search has yet to have gone down or failed since the change-over to the new server infrastructure. This is a MAJOR fix, and solves a persistent technical issue that the site has had (the search going down once every week or so and having to be reset manually) since the site moved to XenForo and the VPS setup back in March of 2019.

Site speed and responsiveness also have been excellent.

We'll enjoy this period of stability for a while before making any major changes to things. XenForo 2.4 has not yet been released, but will be coming in the near future. We'll wait to upgrade to it until any initial bugs are identified and worked out, but the site's infrastructure is 100% ready for this upgrade when it comes.

 

[xfadmin]

The site has been up and operating flawlessly since the last reboot, approximately a month ago. We've installed and collected a month's worth of system patches and updates, including new Linux kernel software, most of which needs to be implemented via system reboot.

We will be rebooting the server in a few minutes. Things will be offline for about 90 seconds while the system is brought down, rebooted and comes back up. Thanks for your patience.

 

[gerryvz]

• We have FINALLY gotten the search capability to a point of 100% reliability. It has not gone down or disconnected since the change-over. The back-end of the search was rebuilt from the ground up on a new Java Virtual Machine and Elasticsearch combination at the time of the forum switchover.

Doing another quick follow-up on this. I'm happy to report that site reliability -- and ESPECIALLY search reliability -- is better than it has ever been.

Search has yet to have gone down or failed since the change-over to the new server infrastructure. This is a MAJOR fix, and solves a persistent technical issue that the site has had (the search going down once every week or so and having to be reset manually) since the site moved to XenForo and the VPS setup back in March of 2019.

As evidenced by the screen shot above from the admin control panel, I am SUPER HAPPY about the now rock-solid reliability of the Search functionality. In the past, before the big technical update this past June, the search function was failing every 1-7 days, often requiring a reboot of the server to get it up and running again.

This is now no longer the case. As you can see (1.7 million searches since the last server reboot 29 days ago), the Search function is now highly reliable and no longer fails/goes down/throws errors.

And just so you know, we don't actually have 1.7 million searches in 29 days. Each "search" performed (when someone enters something into the search box at upper right of your screen) ticks up the search counter by six, so the actual total number of searches performed would be 1.7 million / 6 = ~ 283,300 actual searches performed.

If you extrapolate that out to ~30 days, that would mean that there are around 9,500 searches performed EVERY DAY on this forum. Meaning: search words and phrases are being entered into the Search box 9,500 times by forum guests and members EVERY SINGLE DAY. That's a lot of searching, folks !!!

And yes, per the above image, more than 400,000 posts and threads have been indexed by the forum's search engine.

As you can see from this admin terminal screen shot, the forum has not been rebooted for more than 29 days. Last week a patch to the Linux kernel was installed, so the system is saying that a reboot is required to implement the new code. We'll do a reboot tomorrow (Wednesday) morning around 7 AM EST, so the forum will be down for around 90 seconds while the reboot happens and the system comes back up.

Also -- November 30th, 2025 marks the 17th continuous year of operation of this forum since it first came online on November 30, 2008. This was just a couple of months after I moved from Portland Oregon to Houston Texas. Looks like we'll probably make it to 20 years, right @gsxr?

 

[gerryvz]

For those interested, another small glimpse into ongoing forum administration, behind the scenes.

Since the forum went online on 30-Nov-2008, we have performed regular backups of the forum database. The ONE exception to this was the first 7 months or so of the forum, back in the first half of 2009, when I DID NOT make any backups. And when the forum's hosting company, 1&1, deleted the forum files from their server accidentally, around the 4th of July 2009, I didn't have a current backup to reconstruct the first six months or so of forum posts.

I was able to reconstruct some forum posts and threads (perhaps 15-20% of them) from Google's cache over the next week or so, but sadly we had to start from scratch on July 5 with a new database. From that point onward, I made regular backups.

When the forum moved, in Feb/March 2019, to a true Virtual Machine setup, and we migrated the software from vBulletin to XenForo, which is 100% administered by myself, I set up an Ubuntu "cron job" for daily, automated backups of the forum database. In addition to this, the company that provides the VM server, Linode (now part of Akamai) based in Philadelphia, also provides daily backups of the entire Virtual Machine and retains snapshots going back a day, a week, and up to a month.

In addition, I also every Sunday morning do a manual "snapshot" backup of the server. I often also invoke a manual snapshot backup of the entire server immediately before any major software upgrade, as a restore point in case something goes haywire. And since 2019, I've had to restore from these manual "snapshots" about 8-10 times when something did go wrong. It takes about 30-40 minutes to do a full restore from the snapshot, after wiping the server clean.

The Linode backups are a paid "extra" service, but only $5.00 a month for a lot of peace of mind.

Anyway, here are a few screen shots from my computer that show database backups stored. I have stored EVERY SINGLE BACKUP ever made of the database, since July 2009. As two extra layers of security, ALL of these historic database backups are continuously backed up to the cloud via Backblaze.com, and also to a local, attached external hard drive sitting next to my computer via Apple's "Time Machine" backup functionality.

Here are the very first backups I have on hand, from July 2009. Notice the first forum header image (the JPG file "site_logo_1.jpg"), which dates from May 2008. This is when I first started setting up the forum. It was all set up and ready to go by the end of June 2008, ready and waiting to see if 500Ecstasy was going to solve its problems and come back online (or not). I moved from Portland to Houston in August/Sept. 2008, and after getting settled there, and determining that 500Ecstasy was not going to be reliable from that point forward (i.e. likely to go down for good at some point), I fired up the dormant forum, and it went online on the evening of November 30, 2008.

You can see a very initial backup on December 3, 2008 .... just four days after the forum officially came online. There weren't many posts at that point, and so the forum's database was only 117K compressed (probably about 400K uncompressed) !!



Here are the last backups done with the "vBulletin" software, and the very first backups done with the "new" XenForo forum. Note that I named the final manual backup of the vBulletin database "VB_backup_3-14-2019" just in case I needed to revert back to vBulletin for some reason. The actual changeover to the new XenForo software was 3-9-2019. You can see that I did SEVERAL backups of the new forum database after the changeover was completed.
You can see the first file in the listing below, an uncompressed database, was 494.5MB in size, and 126.2MB compressed. That's quite a bit of growth from the 117K of the very first database backup in the previous image!!!



In the image below, you can see the databases BEFORE the switch to XenForo. Before we converted it (the new forum was EMPTY) as of March 9th, the XenForo database was 4-5MB in size. The next backup, after the switch from vBulletin to XenForo, was 93.6MB!



So interestingly, the database LOST size (didn't lose any data) when we converted from vBulletin to XenForo, going from 126.2MB in size with vBulletin down to 93.6MB with XenForo.

And now you can see the latest XenForo database backup (I move the accumulated backups from my local hard drive to the external drive on a quarterly basis) stored on the external drive, from December 28th, now at 231.2 MB. Uncompressed that would probably be somewhere around 800MB-1GB in size.



And here is a view of the Linode administration console, showing the automatic backups via its server backup service that I pay extra for. It has the latest backups, plus snapshots from the past two weeks, PLUS the manual snapshot that I run every Sunday (or when a major upgrade is going to happen):



And lastly......here is the Ubuntu console that shows the daily database backups (created automatically via the aforementioned "cron job") that are preserved on the 500Eboard server. It keeps EIGHT DAYS of daily backups, and automatically deletes the oldest database backup file when the latest backup is completed.


Thought you all would be interested to see this glimpse of how the forum retains its data, using multiple levels of redundancy so that we NEVER lose data again. The July 4th 2008 data loss taught me a lesson that I have never forgotten. Fortunately that time was very early in the forum's existence, so there was no major data loss. It would be catastrophic to lose the 17+ years of accumulated information that we now have on this forum !!!

 

[Bogeyman]

While I don't necessarily understand all the steps involved, I certainly appreciate the time and effort to make it all happen. Thanks from a long time subscriber.