Modding on the Spectrum

I just noticed that the phpBB forum software got a new update a few days ago. Well, it's the first time I'm going to do an update. Before I tinker with the live version of the forum, I will test everything with the test forum installation on my local machine to see if the update works with the installed extensions and if some adjustments are needed. It's good that they documented the update process sufficiently and the support forums are helpful in case something goes wrong. So stay tuned .

Thanks. Going to get the latest update also, and trying to find some time to play with it on XAMPP locally. Need desperately to do some housecleaning. My old vacuum cleaner died on me, but just a few minutes ago received a new one by courier.

Yesterday, I learned that importing a (recent) database back-up on localhost is not enough if you want to test new things. I had a separate database with the basic forum structure for testing which got corrupted recently including the Mysql module of XAMPP. I managed to fix the Mysql module but I overwrote the testing database by doing this. So I imported a recent back-up of the live forum. I thought everything was fine. Then I tried to log as admin and was redirected to the live forum . After many hours of research and experimentation, I finally found the culprit. I needed to change three settings in the database: cookie_domain, server_name and script_path (the final hint brought this post).

Then again I thought everything was fine. Today, I started XAMPP as usual, loaded up the test forum... D’oh... database error . It seemed that the Mysql main database got corrupted, too (many tables were missing). I probably deleted too many files and I had XAMPP still open and running when I accidentally put the notebook into hybernation mode instead of shutting it down. Normally, leaving XAMPP open while shutting down the notebook/hybernation mode nothing bad should happen. I never found out the true cause of the problem. The only thing that helped was a clean install of XAMPP. Yeah, I'm still learning...

The update of the test forum on my local machine was successful. Before I started the update process, I disabled all extensions. Then I uploaded the changed files of the update and updated the database. After that I enabled each extension one by one and see how the forum behaves after each activation.

The Advanced Poll extension was not compatible but I luckily found a fixed version. The Contact Admin extension just needed a purge of the forum's cache. And last but not least I made the RH Topics Tags extension compatible with the new version of the forum by tweaking the css_includes.html file.

I will probably update the live forum tomorrow (because I have company this evening).

Good news! I will try to keep up with you in a few days with phpBB, but first I have to finish a few mods and I have to deal with a pretty complex help request, a mod that seems too complex for the author.

I start the update process. Therefore I put the forum into maintenance mode.

Please let me know if everything works as intended or if something isn't right.

Selene310187 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 02, 2022 4:01 pm Please let me know if everything works as intended or if something isn't right.

Everything seems to work as intended sofar. I'll keep an eye out if something isn't right.

EDIT:
I found one small issue. When trying to edit a post with one of my YT music videos, I could not edit the post and received a warning that the video was pirated, although is was just a link to YT. I had no intentions of editing the post, just checking.

EDIT 2:
I just posted two other YT videos, which I could edit as opposed to an ealier posted video (from before the update). Going to logout and login again to see if it makes any difference.

EDIT 3:
After logging out and logging in again I had no more issues!!

I tried to create a new topic and got a 500 error response. The test forum luckily showed a more detailed error report so that I could identify the cause of the error. It was the RH Topic Tags extension again. I needed to edit the css_includes.html a second time (previous edit) and change this line:
to this:

Edit:
I overlooked this post. There's even more to fix... So I will disable the extension and enable it again when I've fixed the other errors.

Edit 2:
The "create new topic" error of the RH Topic Tags extension should be fixed now.

Did you also experience timeouts from time to time recently? I don't know if it has something to do with the update itself, a problem with some extensions that are probably not fully compatible with the update or if the web hosting service provider has problems.