Okay what just happened here?

[I-90]

So a few days ago i get this message saying that aaroads forum is in maintainece mode i couldn't access the forum for 5 days

[hotdogPi]

Same here, except it was 5 days for me.

[1995hoo]

Per the AARoads Twitter account, "The server need[ed] to migrate to a newer PHP for the SMF s/w. 1&1 [were] trying to expedite that, but it [took] some time."

(Quotation edited for verb tense reasons.)

[DeaconG]

It's back...it's BACK! IT'S BACK! 

Those withdrawal symptoms are brutal! 

[CtrlAltDel]

Per the AARoads Twitter account [...]

Ah, I didn't think to look at Twitter. It might have been helpful to put something on one of the nonforum parts of the site.

That said, I missed this place. Happy to be back.

[1995hoo]

Per the AARoads Twitter account [...]

Ah, I didn't think to look at Twitter. It might have been helpful to put something on one of the nonforum parts of the site.

That said, I missed this place. Happy to be back.

I saw it because froggie asked them about it and they replied. While I follow them, it never occurred to me to ask.

[hbelkins]

My understanding, being the non-techie that I am, is that they installed a new version of the forum software, which was incompatible with the version of PHP that was running on the server. I'm not sure how it got fixed; whether they got the PHP upgraded or backtracked to an older version of the forum software.

To me, this is a cautionary tale about immediately upgrading to anything that comes out. There's a reason my Mac still runs OS 10.6.8 (although I have a newer version on an external drive that I can start up from if necessary). Newer versions of the OS broke a bunch of software that I use. And there are also reasons that I'm still running iOS 6.x on my iPhone and haven't upgraded the iOS on my work iProducts.

(And yes, my Windows netbook still runs XP).

[Alex]

I was the one responding on twitter. We thought the php issue was the main problem, but it turns out the dated sql database version is also an issue. James reverted the software back to the previous version, and was able to restore it. Initially it seemed that would not be possible and that we'd be stuck until the server upgrades to php 5.6, which will take place by month's end, if not sooner. Thankfully we don't have to be stuck in maintenance mode til then now.

All of this started the morning I was scheduled to head out of town for the next week. I delayed my departure for three hours trying to work with James on this to fix it, but in the end ran out of time.

[rickmastfan67]

My understanding, being the non-techie that I am, is that they installed a new version of the forum software, which was incompatible with the version of PHP that was running on the server. I'm not sure how it got fixed; whether they got the PHP upgraded or backtracked to an older version of the forum software.

Found a way to downgrade back to 2.0.13 from .14 finally.

I mean, they said that the version of PHP was compatible for the upgrade, but in the end, it just didn't like it anyways.

[Roadgeekteen]

I was starting to lose hope!