Hi all,
RWG is now down for a major software upgrade. I'll be updating this post with progress reports as time goes on.
Current Status:
Saturday
1.30pm Board is down. Backing up database, removing old board plugins and generally cleaning up the db ready for the upgrade. I will then be doing some config work on the server, which will mean that the whole site will disappear from the web for a short while. Once done, our portal pages will re-appear almost immediately.
2.30pm: Backups all complete and database squeaky clean (mainly because I did most of the work yesterday). Server has been down for a reboot and is now configured as we want it. It won't be going down again, so if you haven't read our portal pages, now might be a good time. Gonna be a while before there's much else to read
Now I have to run about 200 SQL queries to update the database for the new software. fun fun fun :facepalm:
7.07pm I've got the basic board software installed and talking to the database, but now I'm waiting for a long optimisation routine to finish. Only problem is that it has to go through all the 330k+ posts on the board and that's gonna take about 5 hours. However, my original timeline was for this routine to be done by noon tomorrow, so I am about half a day ahead of projections. I can't do anything else on the board until this stuff completes, so this is going to be the last update from me tonight - I'm gonna call it a day.
Sunday
9.20am The 'countdown' page has now gone as the basic board software is working, so I'm using the standard 'board offline' page instead. Next step is to get the thing to look a bit more like RWG and install the various add-ons we need. Meanwhile, the hamster is giving his cage a good clean...
12.45pm Don't want to talk too soon, but I am at LEAST a day ahead of where I expected to be now. It'll take some luck, but there's a possibility we'll be back up later today. However, I've been at this for about 7 hours already today and I need a break, so I'm gonna go have that beer and a bite to eat. Watch this space.
14.30: Okay, having had a quick pie and a pint, this is going smooth as silk - I left it running a database optimisation routine while I was away and general board speed has now improved considerably (which was my main concern having installed most of the extras). Some final configuration to do, but I'm on the home stretch. We WILL be up later today (edit: famous last words. Fail :facepalm: Sorry folks ). All the test installations over the last couple of months (and the subsequent pages of notes) are really paying off. You can expect a glitch or two, but we'll fix those as time goes on.
16.15: Shit. Spoke too soon - just hit a major snag. Just trying to find the cause. Will report back when I know more..
16.50 Okay, I'm going to quit trying to figure this out and will instead roll back a few steps to before the problem occurred. This won't actually take THAT much time (a few hours) but will involve several hours of waiting about as I'll have to resync all the post content again, which takes 5+ hours. I'm gonna try and get to that point this evening and then let the resync run overnight. Should then be a fairly quick job getting everything back together tomorrow - assuming I don't break the damn thing again.... grrrr
Monday
06.45 Okay, well I've figured out what caused the problem yesterday (it's a bug - in part relating to FURL caching). Meantime things are progressing. Still a fair amount of work to do, so I'm not gonna make any predictions as yet, but watch this space.
09.15 Hmm - still hitting some problems. What I can't quite figure is why I didn't hit the same issues when we last tested this software with a current version of our database (about two months ago). If the worst comes to the worst, we can get back up by rolling back to the old software and postponing this whole thing until I've figured it out, but I'm hesitant to do that just yet.
11.00 ooo - I might be wrong, but I think I may have narrowed down the location of the secondary issue. It's in one of the add-ons (third-party plugins for the board software that add extra functionality) - not 100% sure which one yet, but I have a hunch which it's going to be.
Going to roll back one minor point release in the board software as if the problem is where I think it is, that should fix it. Will take a bit of time, but we shall see.
If this doesn't work (and it's going to take me several hours to find out), I shall bite the bullet and roll back to our previous setup for now until I can do some more testing and find out exactly what went wrong.
14.00 I hate to say this in case I jinx the fscker again, but I think I've sussed what was at the heart of both of the problems I've had with this thing over the last couple of days. I've actually got EVERYTHING installed now and it all works - however, I have to run yet another cleanup routine before I can let everybody in, and that's gonna take a few hours. I'll know for sure somewhere around 8pm this evening. If it's worked, we'll be up tonight. If it hasn't we'll be back on the old software early-ish tomorrow *crosses fingers*
8.10
RWG IS BACK UP! WELCOME HOME, GUYS!!!!
RWG is now down for a major software upgrade. I'll be updating this post with progress reports as time goes on.
Current Status:
Saturday
1.30pm Board is down. Backing up database, removing old board plugins and generally cleaning up the db ready for the upgrade. I will then be doing some config work on the server, which will mean that the whole site will disappear from the web for a short while. Once done, our portal pages will re-appear almost immediately.
2.30pm: Backups all complete and database squeaky clean (mainly because I did most of the work yesterday). Server has been down for a reboot and is now configured as we want it. It won't be going down again, so if you haven't read our portal pages, now might be a good time. Gonna be a while before there's much else to read
Now I have to run about 200 SQL queries to update the database for the new software. fun fun fun :facepalm:7.07pm I've got the basic board software installed and talking to the database, but now I'm waiting for a long optimisation routine to finish. Only problem is that it has to go through all the 330k+ posts on the board and that's gonna take about 5 hours. However, my original timeline was for this routine to be done by noon tomorrow, so I am about half a day ahead of projections. I can't do anything else on the board until this stuff completes, so this is going to be the last update from me tonight - I'm gonna call it a day.
Sunday
9.20am The 'countdown' page has now gone as the basic board software is working, so I'm using the standard 'board offline' page instead. Next step is to get the thing to look a bit more like RWG and install the various add-ons we need. Meanwhile, the hamster is giving his cage a good clean...
12.45pm Don't want to talk too soon, but I am at LEAST a day ahead of where I expected to be now. It'll take some luck, but there's a possibility we'll be back up later today. However, I've been at this for about 7 hours already today and I need a break, so I'm gonna go have that beer and a bite to eat. Watch this space.
14.30: Okay, having had a quick pie and a pint, this is going smooth as silk - I left it running a database optimisation routine while I was away and general board speed has now improved considerably (which was my main concern having installed most of the extras). Some final configuration to do, but I'm on the home stretch. We WILL be up later today (edit: famous last words. Fail :facepalm: Sorry folks
). All the test installations over the last couple of months (and the subsequent pages of notes) are really paying off. You can expect a glitch or two, but we'll fix those as time goes on.16.15: Shit. Spoke too soon - just hit a major snag. Just trying to find the cause. Will report back when I know more..
16.50 Okay, I'm going to quit trying to figure this out and will instead roll back a few steps to before the problem occurred. This won't actually take THAT much time (a few hours) but will involve several hours of waiting about as I'll have to resync all the post content again, which takes 5+ hours. I'm gonna try and get to that point this evening and then let the resync run overnight. Should then be a fairly quick job getting everything back together tomorrow - assuming I don't break the damn thing again.... grrrr
Monday
06.45 Okay, well I've figured out what caused the problem yesterday (it's a bug - in part relating to FURL caching). Meantime things are progressing. Still a fair amount of work to do, so I'm not gonna make any predictions as yet, but watch this space.
09.15 Hmm - still hitting some problems. What I can't quite figure is why I didn't hit the same issues when we last tested this software with a current version of our database (about two months ago). If the worst comes to the worst, we can get back up by rolling back to the old software and postponing this whole thing until I've figured it out, but I'm hesitant to do that just yet.
11.00 ooo - I might be wrong, but I think I may have narrowed down the location of the secondary issue. It's in one of the add-ons (third-party plugins for the board software that add extra functionality) - not 100% sure which one yet, but I have a hunch which it's going to be.
Going to roll back one minor point release in the board software as if the problem is where I think it is, that should fix it. Will take a bit of time, but we shall see.
If this doesn't work (and it's going to take me several hours to find out), I shall bite the bullet and roll back to our previous setup for now until I can do some more testing and find out exactly what went wrong.
14.00 I hate to say this in case I jinx the fscker again, but I think I've sussed what was at the heart of both of the problems I've had with this thing over the last couple of days. I've actually got EVERYTHING installed now and it all works - however, I have to run yet another cleanup routine before I can let everybody in, and that's gonna take a few hours. I'll know for sure somewhere around 8pm this evening. If it's worked, we'll be up tonight. If it hasn't we'll be back on the old software early-ish tomorrow
*crosses fingers*8.10
RWG IS BACK UP! WELCOME HOME, GUYS!!!!
