Legal's Up: Where are you, DZ?

[Rich Lucibella]

DZ-
Don't ever run into me in public. I think I just might kiss you! You, too, LawDog. After 16 hours straight, the answer was right in front of me all along.

DZ's heads up in Suggestions at 11:20 AM referenced an empty thread in Legal under the ID 200010031119.html. Well, the UBB software is really fragile with files the size of TFL. When it corrupts a post, it generally puts in the date of the post as the post ID. Thus:
200010031119 = Oct 03 2000 11:19. This is how we generally find 'em.

But there was no ID in the files that matched this number and, besides, there was no post at 11:19 this morning. I chalked it up to a failed posting. Still, part of this number has been coming back at me all day: 200010. It's the number that the Index Script sees as the number of threads in Legal (actually, there's 7145). Anyway, I tried everything to force around this....no go, as the number appeared in none of the indexes.

A few minutes ago, Ian mentioned DZ's heads up in the Lounge and, for the first time I looked at the embedded date...October 3 Sure enough, there was a post at 11:19PM. It wasn't in the indexes...and couldn't be pulled up on the Board. This caused the entire problem.

In any case, I apologize for the Forum shutdown and, most especially, for having to delete all of the posts from 10/4/2000. I didn't think I had a choice at the time.
Rich Lucibella

[This message has been edited by Rich Lucibella (edited October 05, 2000).]

 

[dZ]

Glad to be of service!

mayhaps we can kiss some .308 rounds into a berm some day!

that post appeared at 11:20 AM yesterday right after i posted into the MMM flag thread

the post was called no
there was no author listed...

can you get the IP address of that post?

dZ

 

[Rich Lucibella]

Postscript: When it Rains, it Pours!

Literally 30 seconds after I finished posting last night, I lost connection with the TFL Server and couldn't get a restart. I hadn't finished the reset to a public Forum. When I got up (late) this AM, I called the host company and they informed me that they had no problem getting in.

Turns out that an ISP can have a router problem that prevents you from getting to certain sites, depending on location. Who'da thunk it? So, I'm back in on another ISP. Legal is now working.

Here's the good news: I managed to recapture all threads that I had to delete yesterday. There may be one or two posts and threads missing, but we're pretty much back to where we were.
Rich

 

[Rich Lucibella]

DZ-
I have the problem post. It was posted by a Member in good standing here and appears normal. I suspect there are garbage control characters in it, added by the software inadvertently. These occcurences are becoming common on TFL...no hack involved. If anyone sees a garbage thread, please do exactly what DZ did....copy and post any info you received.

The UBB flat file structure is antiquated, inefficient and fragile. I believe these thread crashes occur when the server is loading up with a process like moving a thread...this is a real server hog. Additionally, once I had restricted the Forum, it wouldn't allow me to open it....though the Control Panel showed it open. I had to do a search to find the file for the forum setting and physically edit it. In short, UBB is a dog when it comes to large sites. Their answer: "Oh, you have way too many threads. You need to prune everything prior top about 60 days ago". Not.

In any case, I hope to have us up on new software within a week or so.

As concerns the date of the problem post, you've made the same error as I. You thought it was posted at 11:19AM yesterday. That's where I was looking for it. In fact, it was posted on the 3rd (day before yesterday).
Rich

 

[mussi]

If we have to limit the amount of files in the UBB database, couldn't
it be possible to move the old posts to some sort of SQL database
which we could access either with perl, or preferably with PHP?

I could actually run something very large on my machine (I have two GB
empty webspace here), if there was not my bandwith restraining that.
Maybe I'll come up with some PHP solution once I get some example UBB
threads full of data so I can implement my search engine.

 

[Dangus]

mussi, the new software, vBulletin, does just that. It is SQL based and uses PHP.

------------------
The Alcove

I twist the facts until they tell the truth. -Some intellectual sadist

The Bill of Rights is a document of brilliance, a document of wisdom, and it is the ultimate law, spoken or not, for the very concept of a society that holds liberty above the desire for ever greater power. -Me

 

[Rich Lucibella]

mussi-
The excuse that we need to limit data is, IMHO, BS. Barring hardware and OS glitches, there's only two things at work here: System Resources and Code. We've got plenty of resources. Therefore, the code simply doesn't do what it purports to. I suspect a bug in the file locking routines on UBB.
Rich