The Forum will be down for a software upgrade/migration

[Charles L. Cotton]

I need to install a software upgrade and I need to take the Forum down to do so. It's not really an upgrade as much as a migration meaning it's a lot more involved than merely an upgrade.

My plan is to do that tonight beginning about 9:00pm, but that may not be possible for other reasons. If this changes, I'll update this post.

Chas.

[joe817]

Thanks for the heads up.

[Scott B.]

Any and all who have ever migrated a forum, or other content system, wish you the best of luck and success.

I've had a couple go very pear shaped. Not to jinx it, but remember that there's a big audience who will return no matter what happens.

[brhalltx]

Backup, backup, backup.

[Charles L. Cotton]

Well, the new software seems to be working, but I obviously have to add our logo back and all MODS were deleted in the migration. Please let me know if you see any problems.

Also, there's only one style now, but I'm going to look for more so people will have an option.

Thanks,
Chas.

[E.Marquez]

Well, the new software seems to be working, but I obviously have to add our logo back and all MODS were deleted in the migration. Please let me know if you see any problems.

Also, there's only one style now, but I'm going to look for more so people will have an option.

Thanks,
Chas.

Using the "quick links" to find new threads, "your" threads ect, gets an error message

The specified search backend doesn’t exist.

[WildBill]

The page looks different. It only fills about half of the screen, it is centered in the middle.

[Richbirdhunter]

It's very user friendly for my iPhone, I've only been looking a few minutes but I like it. Thank you for your time and efforts

[Scott B.]

Mobile version works fine on my andriod device as well.

This is a big plus.

[suthdj]

Mine mobile cant see new post in new post link is says "The specified search backend doesn’t exist."

[baldeagle]

Ditto for the comments made by WildBill and E.Marquez. I can't check my phone right now, because Apple just released another IOS update.

Just checked on my cell phone. The same problems exist there that exist on the desktop version. The layout is clearly optimized for mobile devices.

Great job, Charles. Now you get to stamp out all the remaining bugs.

Interesting note: When I edited this post to add the cell phone info, as I clicked on Submit, I was taken to the error message that you get when you click on Active Topics: "The specified search backend doesn’t exist."

I went to control panel to adjust the display options. They are now so thoroughly screwed up it's hard to find newer threads and no matter what I do it doesn't change the order. For example, this thread now displays "backwards". IOW, the newest post is first, and the original post is last. No matter how I change the viewing order it stays the same. I have no idea where the thread is on the board, because when I go there I see posts from 2009, 2011 and 2012. {{{sigh}}}

I went to Andy's most recent post (UK's 'biggest weapons haul') and got this: The requested topic does not exist. Yikes!

[G.A. Heath]

Bugs I have found so far:
Everything above search in the quick links menu generates a "The specified search backend doesn’t exist." error (Search, Members, and "The team" works.).
Links do not open in a new tab/window.
Edit to add: Quick reply submission generates the dreaded "The specified search backend doesn’t exist." error, but completes the post.

Things that I have noticed:
Forum loads faster on all devices for me
Forum is mobile device friendly (Now we can get back those important google rankings)

[ELB]

I just logged in for the first time in a couple days, and wondered what happened to the "new posts, unread posts" etc links. Found them in the upper right corner in a drop-down menu but...they no worky. I get the "...backend doesn't exist." error. ??

[ELB]

Oh, and when I submitted my post just above, it went straight to the "...backend doesn't exist" error display again. After going to Board Index and into this forum/thread, I saw that my post was posted, but submitting it didn't take me back to the thread, went to error message instead.

[Charles L. Cotton]

This took much longer than I could have imagined and there were several restarts of the upgrade/migration. I'm going to work on the bugs now.

Thanks for the report folks.
Chas.