PHPBB issues - was ULEZ U-turn

[Admin]

All I need to do now it resize this again to make it a bit smaller....

If you're going to be sarcastic, you might at least spell correctly

[geoberni]

All I need to do now it resize this again to make it a bit smaller....

If you're going to be sarcastic, you might at least spell correctly

Well not wishing to change the direction of this Topic, but 'Hey, it's a typo'.
Not sarcasm, just shear ruddy frustration; I hadn't changed the size because I've been having log-in problems with the hosting site for the past 36 hours(which now appears resolved ).
But at least I managed to get an image to load using another hosting site, whereas when trying to use an image from here in the Forums, the software kept giving me messages about the image height, even though it is 442px × 255px, so well inside the limits of 860 x 265.

[Admin]

The sizing issue is still outstanding with our IT provider, the company paid by the MMOC to manage the phpbb (messageboard) installation. There is another thread viewtopic.php?f=20&t=31197&start=60 which gives some detail on how the issue is caused, and I've removed the 1600 x 1600 file dimension limit until it's resolved (the current temporary limit is 5000 x 5000). However the same issue also affects signature files, and that's not quite so easy to temporarily ignore, because allowing very tall images in sig files would dramatically affect page layout.
It is one of a number of outstanding issues that are currently with our IT provider for resolving. You might say that our IT provider are failing to honour their commitment to the MMOC, and I would be forced to agree...

[BrianHawley]

I have to agree with you Mike.

In hindsight they were probably not a good choice.

As an IT pro, I would expect a company in this field to use their own website to show off their skills. But corolos.com is...... let’s be polite.... a little underwhelming. The design has not changed in five years and there is no showcase linking to sites they have designed. This is almost unprecedented for a company of this type.

I would suggest a change of supplier, but that would subject us another painful transition. Perhaps a stern letter from the committee might get them to pay attention.

Good luck and thanks for your efforts. Much appreciated.

[geoberni]

Brian

I don't see why it should

subject us another painful transition

I've changed my company website hosting, including emails and it's gone without a hitch. It's especially easy if the provider is simply selling on the hosting and you can switch to another seller-on.

Personally I find the Forum set up particularly frustrating, because I know it shouldn't be this bad and a self taught amateur could do better.
https://www.healthandsafetytips.co.uk/about-us

So why is our IT provider so poor when they're being paid to do it? Not exactly good for their reputation.

[BrianHawley]

Brian

I don't see why it should

subject us another painful transition

I've changed my company website hosting, including emails and it's gone without a hitch. It's especially easy if the provider is simply selling on the hosting and you can switch to another seller-on.

Personally I find the Forum set up particularly frustrating, because I know it shouldn't be this bad and a self taught amateur could do better.
https://www.healthandsafetytips.co.uk/about-us

So why is our IT provider so poor when they're being paid to do it? Not exactly good for their reputation.

Well a painful transition could be avoided if the new supplier is competent. Perhaps I’m getting cynical in assuming they wouldn’t be.

phpBB is practically an industry standard and it seems odd that our IT provider can’t manage it. As for reputation, there is nothing much about them to be found either way. They seem to be very minor players.

[Admin]

Brian

I don't see why it should

subject us another painful transition

I've changed my company website hosting, including emails and it's gone without a hitch. It's especially easy if the provider is simply selling on the hosting and you can switch to another seller-on.

Personally I find the Forum set up particularly frustrating, because I know it shouldn't be this bad and a self taught amateur could do better.
https://www.healthandsafetytips.co.uk/about-us

So why is our IT provider so poor when they're being paid to do it? Not exactly good for their reputation.

I've been trying to resist the temptation to reply because the last time we tried the idea of 'lets be honest with the users and let them know whats up' it turned into such a slagfest that the thread got locked. But here I am anyway...

Yup, it's very easy to set up a phpbb installation, as evidenced by the link you gave and many thousands more like it. But that's not where we are, setting up a new board. We're trying to keep an old, and I mean old, board running, complete with a huge list of mostly uncommented code changes from standard that were inserted half a dozen or more versions ago by someone we can't now ask what was edited where and why. There isn't a running code timeline for every file in a phpbb installation that details legitimate versioning edits, let alone custom additions, of which there are literally hundreds. That's why anyone editing files should always, always, comment out their changes, but I'm afraid we don't have those comments to work from. When this board was first created, many of the features - including posting images that were hotlinked from another site - weren't natively available and home-made hacks gave the board those features. It is those very hacks that regularly throw up unexpected errors that take hours or even days to track down, because no other board anywhere has the identical problems.

So yes, if you'd like me to, I can happily create you a brand new phpbb installation. I run several branch websites, the Minors On Tour website, and a dozen or so other sites for various interests. I'm not a halfwit . Your new board will work flawlessly. The only problem is, it won't contain the thousands of posts, links, references, photos, and other information that this board contains. I'm not remotely looking to defend our IT provider who I'll admit have given me many sleepless night and show no signs of abating soon, but please - if you're convinced sorting our issues is a cakewalk, get in touch with me and I'll give you sufficient access to see that your assumptions are some way off the mark

Now, has anyone got a 3.9 diff they don't need? The whining from mine is getting loud enough to drown out the wife....

[BrianHawley]

Mike, thanks for the clear explanation.

I must admit I hadn’t realised this was a legacy code setup. I had assumed (never assume!) that it was a new phpBB setup.

All the best and hope the whining (from all sources) isn’t getting to you

[geoberni]

Well we seem to have high-jacked this topic, which is a bit naughty of us, it is after all, supposed to be about Moggies and the Emission Zone... but I hadn't realised how bad the legacy situation was.

Perhaps Mike could consider moving these comments to a new Topic, if that's even possible in this particular board???

Are we approaching the stage where we might have to consider having a new board with this current one archived for reference only?

[Admin]

Well we seem to have high-jacked this topic, which is a bit naughty of us, it is after all, supposed to be about Moggies and the Emission Zone... but I hadn't realised how bad the legacy situation was.

Perhaps Mike could consider moving these comments to a new Topic, if that's even possible in this particular board???

And, as if by magic....

Are we approaching the stage where we might have to consider having a new board with this current one archived for reference only?

You're preaching to the choir - this is something I've been wrestling with for a while now. In theory, I could simply archive this old board off, and create a brand new and robust installation of phpbb to start from now. Nobody should really need to log in to the old installation, because there wouldn't be any need to add any posts to existing threads - they're only there to read. The 'new' board can reference back to the old one, but any commentary would be in the new instance not the old. It all sounds great, and it isn't really a big issue to create (can you smell a 'But' coming yet?), and would ensure we suffer less issues going forward.

BUT, we have the users that we have. And, without wishing to labour the point, they're adept at finding holes to fall in to already, without adding another layer of complexity. I receive between a dozen and twenty support requests each week from people attempting to log in to the messageboard with their MMOC membership credentials, or vice versa. I get - regularly - people email me and say "I can't remember my username, can you give it to me please? Cheers. EricStevens", or "What's my password?" etc. without the faintest clue as to how I might trace which account they are talking about. Having searched for EricStevens, Eric_Stevens, EricS and any other permutation of username and come up blank, and searched for EStevens@hotmail.com with no success, I write back to Eric and discover that his username is Fred_Stevens because it's for his dad, and the email account he sent the request from isn't the one associated with his account, accompanied by surprise that I didn't already know that. That's to say nothing of the people who ask for their messageboard account details who it later transpires have never bothered actually registering in the first place - they are members of the MMOC and therefore they must already have an account set up for them, right?

I already pull my hair out every damn day with these people - can you imagine trying to explain to them that they now read one board, but post on another? I'm going to come back to it, because really it's inevitable that we'll have to do it sooner or later, but at the moment I'm just trying to kick the ball down the road a bit further

[geoberni]

I feel your pain....

Not only do I encounter people in my work that are 'difficult' but I am also one of the moderator team on the H&S Forum I gave the link to.

We have a Forum motto 'There is no such thing as a "stupid" or "daft" health and safety question!', but many a time someone tries hard to prove us wrong The response options can be limited!

[BrianHawley]

My personal preference would be to bite the bullet and archive the old board. At least we would have a clean start. No doubt more knowledgeable users would be happy to post links to the archived board in new threads where appropriate.

It would upset some people I’m sure, but if browsers can drop flash and Apple get rid of the headphone socket then I think we would survive. After all the board was off line for a while and it didn’t kill anyone.

But the main thing I would hope to see is board users supporting the mods rather than criticising them.

[geoberni]

Agree with Brian on all counts.

[BrianHawley]

Agree with Brian on all counts.

First time anyone’s said that

[geoberni]

What worries me in all this is the lack of support, not just from our IT provider as a service provider, but for the standard of Bulletin Board itself.

Seems to me that to run an outdated forum is just asking for trouble.
We all know we're supposed to do all the published updates to our Browsers and other software, there must 1,000s of malicious bots and auto hacks out there hunting down old versions of php with associated vulnerabilities.

Isn't this like running Windows XP when Microsoft have given up on it?

If this board has got so many tweaks buried in it, is it actually supported? Is it even secure enough to be used?


I should add that I know nothing about building a Bulletin Board, so my questions come from an ignorance of the core subject (a bit like my Moggie Questions )

[BrianHawley]

What worries me in all this is the lack of support, not just from our IT provider as a service provider, but for the standard of Bulletin Board itself.

Seems to me that to run an outdated forum is just asking for trouble.
We all know we're supposed to do all the published updates to our Browsers and other software, there must 1,000s of malicious bots and auto hacks out there hunting down old versions of php with associated vulnerabilities.

Isn't this like running Windows XP when Microsoft have given up on it?

If this board has got so many tweaks buried in it, is it actually supported? Is it even secure enough to be used?


I should add that I know nothing about building a Bulletin Board, so my questions come from an ignorance of the core subject (a bit like my Moggie Questions )

I think it’s more likely hackers are going to go after more generic weaknesses like old PHP versions. (I presume ours is up to date). Although if our phpBB itself has a lot of custom code, it may not have been updated in a while as that could overwrite the modifications.

Some of the older versions of phpBB had vulnerabilities (https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerabilit ... Phpbb.html). Not sure what version we are running as it’s not advertised - which is a good thing.

It’s probably not a major risk as we aren’t a prime target. Hackers these days tend to go after financial targets or those with whom they have a political beef. Can’t think who would want to hack the MMOC. Maybe a Marina group because of us taking their 1275 blocks and front discs