SMF Busy... Forum Downtime?

[Life in Paradise]

So was it that the North Koreans, Chinese, or Russian hackers thought that the AARoads Forum was so important that they needed to attack or hold it for ransom?  And then when no one came up with more than $12.53 for the ransom that they decided to go back to trying to hijack medical/financial records?

[Alex]

OK who did we piss off recently that's screwing with this place.

Is some Fin trying to relegate us to a lower-tier forum?

Russians is our guess

I fixed the viewing others profile option. I neglected to add all of the fields to the table I recreated. Fortunately I still have a copy of the old forum DB, so I just mimicked what was there.

Unrelated question: Are these extra requests generating additional ad revenue?

No, the ad revenue for this month is 9% lower than it was at this time last month.

[wanderer2575]

Seriously, I appreciate all the effort by the admins to get the forum back online.

^  What dave said.

[1995hoo]

I have to admit I couldn't help but wonder whether this was a repeat of "angry banned user throws tantrum."

[hotdogPi]

I have to admit I couldn't help but wonder whether this was a repeat of "angry banned user throws tantrum."

I was more imagining New Urbanists. "Angry banned member" wasn't even on my radar.

[1995hoo]

I have to admit I couldn't help but wonder whether this was a repeat of "angry banned user throws tantrum."

I was more imagining New Urbanists. "Angry banned member" wasn't even on my radar.

I was thinking in terms of a repeat of the incident last year that led to the forum being taken offline for a few days.

[oscar]

The viewing others profile option should work now. I changed some things in the database last night and caused that.

I just accessed my own profile, and made a minor edit (apparently successfully).

[1995hoo]

The viewing others profile option should work now. I changed some things in the database last night and caused that.

I just accessed my own profile, and made a minor edit (apparently successfully).

I just successfully viewed Oscar's profile, so the feature appears to be back.

[MATraveler128]

The viewing others profile option should work now. I changed some things in the database last night and caused that.

I just accessed my own profile, and made a minor edit (apparently successfully).

I just successfully viewed Oscar's profile, so the feature appears to be back.

Seconded. I just viewed you and Oscar's profile and it's working for me too.

[Hunty2022]

I also viewed 1995hoo's stats page and oscar's posts page with no issue.

[ZLoth]

That being said, the forum database is still being flooded with call requests, so I may switch it into maintenance mode again until I can figure out what to try next...

Please give us some warning before the forum goes into maintenance mode.

And, thank you for investigating this.

[freebrickproductions]

OK who did we piss off recently that's screwing with this place.

Is some Fin trying to relegate us to a lower-tier forum?

Russians is our guess

I remember in my first year of high school, and Huntsville City Schools implementing student laptops system-wide, someone, I believe a foreign government, attempted to attack Redstone Arsenal and wound-up hitting the city school system's network in the process, which made using the internet at school to do literally anything a slow and arduous task. I could very well see this being something similar.

[Big John]

Has wikipedia ever done this for someone challenging their site?

[JayhawkCO]

I like the theories, but I think the investigation has just shown some incompatible software versions.

[rickmastfan67]

That being said, the forum database is still being flooded with call requests, so I may switch it into maintenance mode again until I can figure out what to try next...

Please give us some warning before the forum goes into maintenance mode.

And, thank you for investigating this.

Ok, we're going into Maintenance Mode @ 5PM on March 18th. Mark your calendar. lol.

[Scott5114]

Just so everyone knows, the wiki is on a separate server, so it will remain up during the downtime if you still need to get your fix of roads stuff.

[Alex]

While there has been a spate of Russian IP addresses trying to create forum member accounts recently, the software compatibility is the issue with the current version of PHP that is the problem. As such, we will be switching the forum to maintenance mode tonight, likely after 9 PM EDT, to work on upgrading the SMF software to meet PHP 8.1 requirements. The result may be that the forum goes back to a default SMF template, as there are some additional PHP issues related to the Button Copy theme we have in place here. That said, the functionality of the forum should still be the same regardless of how it looks.

[SSOWorld]

While there has been a spate of Russian IP addresses trying to create forum member accounts recently, the software compatibility is the issue with the current version of PHP that is the problem. As such, we will be switching the forum to maintenance mode tonight, likely after 9 PM EDT, to work on upgrading the SMF software to meet PHP 8.1 requirements. The result may be that the forum goes back to a default SMF template, as there are some additional PHP issues related to the Button Copy theme we have in place here. That said, the functionality of the forum should still be the same regardless of how it looks.

We may have to upgrade to the reflective sheeting theme

[vdeane]

That being said, the forum database is still being flooded with call requests, so I may switch it into maintenance mode again until I can figure out what to try next...

Please give us some warning before the forum goes into maintenance mode.

And, thank you for investigating this.

Ok, we're going into Maintenance Mode @ 5PM on March 18th. Mark your calendar. lol.

March 18?  Yay time travel!

[1995hoo]

The subject line has a certain song running through my head.

https://youtu.be/dWipTSreuaw?si=3UER2ripPoLLrGbH

[74/171FAN]

Everything seems to be working fine minus the emojis looking weird.

(I forgot Alex's comment on his own Facebook posts    )

[Alex]

Everything seems to be working fine minus the emojis looking weird.

(I forgot Alex's comment on his own Facebook posts    )

Yes anything that references the regular directory from the temporary one will not work until things are finalized. The jumbled text for the emoji's is the result. This would also go for avatars and message icons.

[Alps]

I can at least see that certain features are working (putting most recent posts first, in my case) but others are not (showing unread posts - right now I see no differentiation). Wishing luck.

[rickmastfan67]

(showing unread posts - right now I see no differentiation). Wishing luck.

That seems to be working fine for me.

Unread Posts = All posts since you last logged.
Updated Topics = Unread posts that you're subscribed to (watching).

[WillWeaverRVA]

Looks like we're back? Everything seems to be working for me.