vBulletin 4 upgrade

[Strange]

The usual route is via PHP, and as far as I know (and I may be very wrong), PHP lacks many of the string operators and or calls which make text manipulation so easy in some other languages.

Actually, one of PHP's strengths (arguably, one of the few) is string handling. There is a very good regular expression match/replace library (actually, there are two IIRC - it is a couple of years since I did any PHP coding). But you are right, it wouldn't be the right way to do it, anyway.

[chrlzs]

If the database were just a simple ascii-code based set of documents which could be accessed directly without any go-between, then it would indeed be a minimal task, at least for the internal BAUT links. I'll bet that many BAUT members would be able to write a routine for that in about five minutes.

My knowledge of data base servers is limited, but from what I know, the problem is that a MySQL database is somewhat more difficult to access. The usual route is via PHP, and as far as I know (and I may be very wrong), PHP lacks many of the string operators and or calls which make text manipulation so easy in some other languages. Apart from that, although it would probably be possible, it would certainly be SLOW.

The database, resp. the appropriate tables could theoretically be dumped as an ascii text via phpMyAdmin, run through a string manipulation routine and, and re-imported, but BAUT would have to close down for at least a day for that because it would lose the multi-user capacity.

Doing a complete search/replace at runtime would take a while.

Eeurgh! But thanks for that further explanation.

And as Slang pointed out, that won't help any links coming in from outside sites, where they have previously grabbed the once-working-but-now-dead links...

[HenrikOlsen]

My knowledge of data base servers is limited, but from what I know, the problem is that a MySQL database is somewhat more difficult to access. The usual route is via PHP, and as far as I know (and I may be very wrong), PHP lacks many of the string operators and or calls which make text manipulation so easy in some other languages.

Depending on the install, and very likely in this case, PHP can have the regexp string manipulation functions from Perl, so the actual manipulation of the posts would be fairly simple and could run as a relatively low priority background job.
At one post per second it would take 19 days, if it starts at the youngest posts the vast majority of posts people actually see would be done in the first couple of hours.


That still won't solve the problem on the external links being broken, but to be honest, many of them were broken before the move too because of the stupid design of vBSEO.

[kleindoofy]

Depending on the install, and very likely in this case, PHP can have the regexp string manipulation functions from Perl, so the actual manipulation of the posts would be fairly simple and could run as a relatively low priority background job. ...

Sounds good, at least in that part.

Although I've done some slight work-overs of standíng PHP routines for a few of my websites, I'm not actively into PHP and had to rely on my private collection of hearsay for what I posted above.

However, I do tons of ascii-based text manipulation offline using various methods and am pretty sure that a great deal of the link problems could be solved given the post-vector tables etc. and some time. However, that's purely academic because any solution has to be done online at runtime.

Considering the size of the MySQL database, I'm guessing a low priority background job would run, hmm, a week or longer?**

[edit: **posted before Henrik added his time appraisal]

[slang]

It might run a long time... only to discover that you've made some tiny little mistake that didn't take into consideration all possible substitutions, and now you're faced with a broken database, and months of fixing, if fixing is still possible, or returning to week old data, losing all new posts, or... suffice to say: horror.

"Live" translation is the key. At least the old forum names (as used by vbseo) could be fixed by a simple alias, or perhaps even a symlink. If that's safe of course.

ETA: the only real question (IMHO) is, whether that translation should be done at webserver or forum application level.

[Trebuchet]

The "reply with quote" function is not working for me at the moment. Comes up with some of the icons stuffed over to the RH side of the screen. I"m not sure I've used it on this computer since the upgrade, however. Is it just me or are others seeing this?

[HenrikOlsen]

Given what Fraser mentioned about the new server setup, I think it's actually fairly unlikely it can be done at the server level unless they have mod_rewrite enabled and allowed in .htaccess files.

[kleindoofy]

The "reply with quote" function is not working for me at the moment. Comes up with some of the icons stuffed over to the RH side of the screen. I"m not sure I've used it on this computer since the upgrade, however. Is it just me or are others seeing this?

I have that on one of my older computers which runs an older browser version.

Try a double click on "reply with quote" instread of a single click. That does it for me.

[kleindoofy]

It might run a long time... only to discover that you've made some tiny little mistake that didn't take into consideration all possible substitutions, and now you're faced with a broken database, and months of fixing, if fixing is still possible, or returning to week old data, losing all new posts, or... suffice to say: horror. ...

My normal solution for that would be to add strict criteria to the search/replacement routine and only replace instances in which the case is absolutely certain. Having do so, I like to tag processed instances as "fixed" with inert custom variables or command sequences to exclude them from future runs and make them easily searchable. That would probably fix up most of the internal links.

Further runs could narrow down the criteria. I.e., don't make the routine(s) too general. That could go on for months. Is there any real rush?

That could even be done parallel to a runtime translation hack, eventually making the hack obsolete. That hack could use the "fixed" tag as an "ignore" criterium.

The problem is that I don't know if using inert custom variables or command sequences as tags is possible in PHP.

However, it should be asked if it's worth fixing all external links. Lots of links in older posts are possibly dead anyway.

[Trebuchet]

I have that on one of my older computers which runs an older browser version.

Try a double click on "reply with quote" instread of a single click. That does it for me.

Yes, that worked, and I'll have to remember it. Opens in a new window, instead of in the thread. Pretty annoying, however.

[chrlzs]

It might run a long time... only to discover that you've made some tiny little mistake that didn't take into consideration all possible substitutions, and now you're faced with a broken database, and months of fixing, if fixing is still possible, or returning to week old data, losing all new posts, or... suffice to say: horror.

"Live" translation is the key. At least the old forum names (as used by vbseo) could be fixed by a simple alias, or perhaps even a symlink. If that's safe of course.

ETA: the only real question (IMHO) is, whether that translation should be done at webserver or forum application level.

Like kleindoofy, I've done a lot of these sort of manipulations (admittedly long ago in another life..), with no disasters.. Just follow some simple rules:
- run initial tests on a reasonable sample (preferably several samples taken from different historical periods) from *non-live* copies, obviously.
- log every change you make, showing what it was, and what it changed to
- examine those sample logs thoroughly and revise the code accordingly
- when it all looks sweet, implement
- keep the logs for a reasonable period...

(Added - or what Kleindoofy said!)

Having said all that maybe live translation is the only way - but under the circumstances I would be sorely tempted to:
1. Change all the internal links so they are correct. I really don't think this would be a huge job for a competent programmer.
2. Either live with the external link issue, or run a live translation on any incoming 'old-style' links.

It seems to me that you *don't* want invalid links in your data forever, so bite the bullet now I reckon. And don't forget - those incoming links ARE currently broken anyway...

[caveman1917]

I'd also go with live translation, for a couple of reasons:
1. From the external perspective everything works again perfectly.
2. You're not changing the database itself, only a front-end little translation script is added. This means, if you got anything wrong in the script there's no problem, just edit a few lines and everything's fine again. If however you already changed half the database and then notice you made a mistake...

[Jeff Root]

I just tried a bookmark I saved some time ago:

http://www.bautforum.com/astronomy/63827-huge-hole-found-universe.html

I get the message:

Not Found
The requested URL /astronomy/63827-huge-hole-found-universe.html was not found on this server.

Apache/2.2 Server at www.bautforum.com Port 80

Can you explain in significant but maybe-not-quite-nauseating detail why
this does not work, why it used to work, and what URL will work currently?

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

[HenrikOlsen]

We used to have an add-on installed called vBSEO, which purported to make the links "search engine optimized"¹.
This module had a lot of problems such as: including the page number in references to posts so it didn't work for people with a different page length and making links to member pages that weren't unique which made it sometimes possible for people to pick usernames that meant their profile page was shown instead of that of another user.
It was quite likely also the reason for the infamous "Can't post treads with the word 'time' in the title" bug.

This add-on wasn't included after the move, I think mainly because it caused more problems(mentioned previously) than it solved(none).

A URL that will work is: http://www.bautforum.com/showthread....-universe.html, or for that matter http://www.bautforum.com/showthread.php/63827-blah-blah, the important bit is the number before the first "-".
For the ones you have, simply replace "/astronomy/" (or whatever the subforum name was) with "/showthread.php/".

1) Buzzword-speak for "we'll charge you lots of money for a service we just invented that you don't have any way of checking the efficiency off".

[Trebuchet]

Yes, that worked, and I'll have to remember it. Opens in a new window, instead of in the thread. Pretty annoying, however.

Ok, I've upgraded FireFox and the single click works fine now. I had no idea FF was so outdated on this computer. On the other one, it's constantly bugging me to update but this one hasn't been. I was clear down at two-point-something. So the little "problem" has worked to my benefit.

[Jeff Root]

I gather that the problem is caused by vBulletin stuffing everything into
one file, so it and/or other software has to synthesize a realistic-looking
file structure for the outside world, where none actually exists.

Maybe you've already discussed this and I just didn't recognize it...

Could you have the error handler try a URL using vBulletin's required
format when a page is not found using the normal URL format?
That is, rather than having a function connected to vBulletin make
the conversion, have the error handler make it? Would that tell the
outside world "You are being redirected to a different page"?

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

[HenrikOlsen]

I gather that the problem is caused by vBulletin stuffing everything into
one file, so it and/or other software has to synthesize a realistic-looking
file structure for the outside world, where none actually exists.

Actually it's stuffed into a database, which technically is a collection of large files, yes.

The posts and threads don't exist as actual webpages but are generated on-the-fly, based on finding them by their reference numbers.

Maybe you've already discussed this and I just didn't recognize it...

Could you have the error handler try a URL using vBulletin's required
format when a page is not found using the normal URL format?
That is, rather than having a function connected to vBulletin make
the conversion, have the error handler make it? Would that tell the
outside world "You are being redirected to a different page"?

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

That's what's been discussed when people mention mod_rewrite, except is won't be the error handler doing it, but rather the web server itself inspecting the page requests and possibly rewriting them based on a set of rules before they're sent through to the BB software.

[Nick Theodorakis]

I just noticed all the way down the page near the footer there is a select box with the option to choose styles. However, the only choice is the default page style. Nevertheless, this makes me think that other styles could be installed. Could an administrator investigate if there other user-selectable styles available, particularly a higher contrast one?

Nick

[closetgeek]

Is anyone else noticing way longer loading times and hesitation between actually typing letters and them showing up on the screen? At first I started running virus scans because it is actually behaving exactly how it does when I have a keylogger. It only happens in this forum, though, and all three of my scans are coming up that I have no threats.

[Donnie B.]

Just to provide a positive note, the "go to first new post" bug seems to have been vanquished in this release. The feature has worked as it's supposed to for every thread I've used it on, and never seems to plop you back to the first post as it sometimes did before.

[R.A.F.]

I posted the following to forum feedback, and realized it might be a good idea to post it here...

...ever since the "change" page formating on msnTV2 (webtv) is completely unreadable.

Fortunately I have other options, but I can't understand just why the "new look" would be so unfriendly to webtv2.


I should explain further...when attempting to view this site with webtv2, the 1st subforum of each section is visible and nothing else. I can "solve" this by changing page size, but then each post runs off the edge of the page making it more trouble to read than it's worth.

I don't know if anything can be done about this, or even if it is worth trying to "fix" it...just wanted to make sure that those who "need to know" are aware that not everything is "hunky-dory" with this new look.

[Grashtel]

Is anyone else noticing way longer loading times and hesitation between actually typing letters and them showing up on the screen? At first I started running virus scans because it is actually behaving exactly how it does when I have a keylogger. It only happens in this forum, though, and all three of my scans are coming up that I have no threats.

The delay in typed letters showing up on the screen suggests that the problem is at your end rather than the server (the typing up of a post is purely local to your machine, the server has nothing to do with it). Have you done anything to your browser lately or installed any programs that might be running in the background hogging resources?

[pzkpfw]

The delay in typed letters showing up on the screen suggests that the problem is at your end rather than the server (the typing up of a post is purely local to your machine, the server has nothing to do with it). Have you done anything to your browser lately or installed any programs that might be running in the background hogging resources?

...but it might be to do with JavaScript on the page (supplied by the site). I've noticed the various text boxes on the BAUT pages are "sluggish" too. Haven't investigated yet.

[Jeff Root]

I turned "Active Scripting" back on in my security settings in order to do stuff
on another website. Now I cannot view attachments unless I right-click and
select "Open Link in New Window". I could view attachments normally with
"Active Scripting" disabled. This is obviously the same behavior as the "Post
Quick Reply" button not working when "Active Scripting" is enabled, which I
reported a couple of weeks ago.

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

[closetgeek]

The delay in typed letters showing up on the screen suggests that the problem is at your end rather than the server (the typing up of a post is purely local to your machine, the server has nothing to do with it). Have you done anything to your browser lately or installed any programs that might be running in the background hogging resources?

I would agree if it were on every forum or program that involves typing but I can't figure out why it's only occassional and only on this forum.

[Fazor]

Is anyone else noticing way longer loading times and hesitation between actually typing letters and them showing up on the screen? At first I started running virus scans because it is actually behaving exactly how it does when I have a keylogger. It only happens in this forum, though, and all three of my scans are coming up that I have no threats.

BAUT does that to me at home through IE, and a little slow through Chrome, but fine through Firefox. *shrug*

[Ara Pacis]

I would agree if it were on every forum or program that involves typing but I can't figure out why it's only occassional and only on this forum.

Me too. It seems to happen in quoted replies but not in the regular quick reply at the bottom of the page.

[mugaliens]

The delay in typed letters showing up on the screen suggests that the problem is at your end rather than the server (the typing up of a post is purely local to your machine, the server has nothing to do with it). Have you done anything to your browser lately or installed any programs that might be running in the background hogging resources?

I'm with closetgeek and Ara on this one. BAUT is but one of three vBulletin 4.0.2 forums I use, and only BAUT experiences the slow typing rate. It's most evident when I type a sentence then use the backspace key to erase the sentence. But it's painlfully evident when I'm typing fast, too, as it's a pain to have the screen lag so much.