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Sunday is Google Meeting Day at NewMars...
A lot has happened at NewMars in the past week.
We'll open the waiting room at Midnight UTC - 7 PM Houston - 8 PM New Hampshire
The phpBB3 test / demo site on Azzure seems to be working well.
Work is progressing (very slowly) in correcting hundreds of bugs in FluxBB 1.5.11.
The package is actually running (limping) on the Azure site. Today I learned how to debug with a browser, using Visual Studio Code with PHP extensions and a set of debugging tools. The issue I'm currently investigating is the missing data that we ** don't ** see when we run a request to see topics in a Category. All the data is being delivered by the MySQL database, but some of it gets lost before it can be shown to the operator. There are no error messages. The data just goes away!
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Tonight's Google Meeting is setting up...
During the first session, kbd512 and I took a look at the failures in FluxBB 1.5.11 as modified to run with modern PHP.
The error that I first reported turned out to be a symptom of another problem. We were looking at viewforum.php, using Visual Studio Code with PHP extensions and Inteliphense, and with the addition of the browser real-time debugging added two days ago.
kbd512 deduced that the problem is caused (in part) by my having restored from backup.
Update later: In thinking about kbd512's observation, I thought about the difficulty I had trying to restore the FluxBB database from CSV files. Eventually ChatGPT4 and I were able to complete the conversion (or so we thought) but now I realize there may be fields that were not restored correctly. The failure of FluxBB to show the number of posts recorded for topics may be due to an incorrect value in a field called "moved to" ... in the php code, if that is NULL, then hyphens are printed. Apparently in the conversion, I may well have stored nulls when some other value was needed. When kbd512 changed the php code to NOT NULL, the text appeared in the html display.
In short, I now have a clue to follow next week, as I continue working on trying to get FluxBB to run with modern PHP and MySQL. kbd512 has indicated he would prefer to concentrate on conversion to phpBB3, so I am on my own to try to get FluxBB to run without errors.
In the second hour we started work on the conversion. The first step was to compare the posts tables in the two databases.
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For SpaceNut ... here is a comparison of the posts tables in the two databases:
+--------------+-------+--------------------+------------+
| tbl_name | c_ord | c_name | data_type |
+--------------+-------+--------------------+------------+
| phpbb_posts | 18 | bbcode_bitfield | varchar |
| phpbb_posts | 19 | bbcode_uid | varchar |
| fluxbb_posts | 9 | edited | int |
| fluxbb_posts | 10 | edited_by | varchar |
| phpbb_posts | 9 | enable_bbcode | tinyint |
| phpbb_posts | 11 | enable_magic_url | tinyint |
| phpbb_posts | 12 | enable_sig | tinyint |
| phpbb_posts | 10 | enable_smilies | tinyint |
| phpbb_posts | 3 | forum_id | mediumint |
| fluxbb_posts | 7 | hide_smilies | tinyint |
| phpbb_posts | 5 | icon_id | mediumint |
| fluxbb_posts | 1 | id | int |
| fluxbb_posts | 6 | message | mediumtext |
| phpbb_posts | 17 | post_attachment | tinyint |
| phpbb_posts | 16 | post_checksum | varchar |
| phpbb_posts | 28 | post_delete_reason | varchar |
| phpbb_posts | 27 | post_delete_time | int |
| phpbb_posts | 29 | post_delete_user | int |
| phpbb_posts | 24 | post_edit_count | smallint |
| phpbb_posts | 25 | post_edit_locked | tinyint |
| phpbb_posts | 22 | post_edit_reason | varchar |
| phpbb_posts | 21 | post_edit_time | int |
| phpbb_posts | 23 | post_edit_user | int |
| phpbb_posts | 1 | post_id | int |
| phpbb_posts | 20 | post_postcount | tinyint |
| phpbb_posts | 8 | post_reported | tinyint |
| phpbb_posts | 14 | post_subject | varchar |
| phpbb_posts | 15 | post_text | mediumtext |
| phpbb_posts | 7 | post_time | int |
| phpbb_posts | 13 | post_username | varchar |
| phpbb_posts | 26 | post_visibility | tinyint |
| fluxbb_posts | 8 | posted | int |
| fluxbb_posts | 2 | poster | varchar |
| fluxbb_posts | 5 | poster_email | varchar |
| phpbb_posts | 4 | poster_id | int |
| fluxbb_posts | 3 | poster_id | int |
| fluxbb_posts | 4 | poster_ip | varchar |
| phpbb_posts | 6 | poster_ip | varchar |
| fluxbb_posts | 11 | topic_id | int |
| phpbb_posts | 2 | topic_id | int |
+--------------+-------+--------------------+------------+
40 rows in set (0.00 sec)
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It is Sunday at NewMars, and Google Meeting is scheduled for midnight UTC.
If our members are able to free up the time, we'll have the waiting room open at 7 PM Houston, 8 PM New Hampshire.
Items that might come up include:
New GW Johnson files/links
Links to support files from GW Johnson YouTube videos
***
FluxBB clone on Azure ... remaining bugs
phpBB3 forum on Azure ... challenge of conversion of database
Other issues/questions/comments members might introduce
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The waiting room will be ready shortly...
Waiting room is open...
This was a productive meeting ... we achieved several mini-milestones despite technical issues with the screen sharing software.
Todo items:
1) tahanson43206 to prepare a post for GW Johnson to use as an anchor for links to resources for YouTube viewers
2) tahanson43206 to send link to GW Johnson
3) GW Johnson to prepare instructions to load the post with resources and text explaining what they are and how to use them
4) tahanson43206 to implement the instructions
5) GW Johnson to test all the links
6) GW Johnson to edit the description fields under the YouTube videos to point to the NewMars resource post
****
7) tahanson43206 to contact Mr. Burk (Executive Director of the Mars Society) to report on progress with FluxBB 1.5.11 >> 1.5.12 update
8) tahanson43206 to ask Mr. Burk for a contact at Dreamhost to work with kbd512 on setting up a new folder with FluxBB 1.5.12
Note to SpaceNut .... please note the current plan does NOT envision stopping service at all.
I'll take a moment here to explain (as best I can) how the upgrade would work....
No changes to the database are needed, with one exception: the fluxbb_config table needs to be updated to match the new software version.
That change can be made at the time the webmaster switches between the new software and the old.
The existing NewMars side (I'll call it NewMars Prime) would continue in operation exactly as it is now, while the new software is installed.
kbd512 would install the new software into a new folder, which might be an exact copy of the version running in Azure in FluxBB.
The existing FluxBB package would continue running in the "forums" folder while the new software is prepared for service.
On the day the switchover would take place, the old forums folder would be renamed as "oldforum" and the "FluxBB" folder would be renamed as "forums". Apache would be restarted.
At that point, requests from users would flow to the new software. The critical files that must match are the fluxbb_config table and the corresponding config.php file in the new forums folder. kbd512 would have insured that the contents of config.php match the contents of the database table. What this means in practice is that four fields in config.php would be updated to match the ones currently set in NewMars prime.
The rename operation should take no more than a few seconds to complete, and the restart of Apache a few seconds more.
Upon completion of these steps, kbd512 (and anyone else enlisted at the time) would test the system to be sure everything is working.
****
SpaceNut ... based upon the plan described above, you may (if you wish) proceed to implement the changes you might like to make to the existing database. I'm thinking of the new Inactive Member Group, and the new Projects Category, and potentially other Categories you may decide to implement.
We still need to thoroughly test the clone, to wring out any remaining bugs that may exist.
***
For all ... questions about this plan are welcome... Since we are moving firmly in the direction of upgrading FluxBB software, please put your questions and suggestions in the topic:
FluxBB Clone Bug Reports (etc)
However, if your comments/questions show up here that is fine as well.
Finally,.... not everyone has logged into the clone ... please ** do ** long into the clone.... We would ** really ** appreciate help finding any bugs that may remain before we go live with this software. We've been working on this for five months, and don't need to be in a big rush to install it. Let's beat on the system ... just remember that nothing you put into the clone will be saved. Our plan is to seamlessly swap the forum software while keeping the existing database.
There is currently no plan to close the clone on Azure. That service can remain for the full year that Microsoft provides for evaluation. so long as I can afford the rent.
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