phpBB 3.2 and PostgreSQL migration

[Chewi]

As you may have seen in the other thread, I'm going to get this place upgraded to phpBB 3.2. It's just been released and I'm now taking care of the phpBB package for Gentoo Linux.

I'd ideally like to only run PostgreSQL without MySQL in future, especially on the small ARM box I plan on using, so I've attempted to migrate the database. There's no official procedure for this so I just kinda winged it with FromMySqlToPostgreSql. I had to improve the code so that it would handle empty string values properly. I'll be submitting that change shortly. Yay open source. Upgrading over the years had also made the column order go slightly out of sync and the tool doesn't bother to check the column names so that needed fixing too. Only 3 tables were out. If I were to do it again, I'd reimport it into MySQL using the column names first.

So please scream if anything seems off. I don't want to do the 3.2 upgrade later and find it's all out of whack.

[kaos]

I dont see any dates on posts...

but im not even sure we ever had them.

Edit: Oh there they are

[Mik]

top left above the avatar on each post.

[Chewi]

Oookay so I may have broken the place for just shy of a whole year. I would have fixed it sooner but because the migration seemed to work initially and no one contacted me directly, I figured there was just some minor issue. It wasn't until I tried to post today that I realised how bad it was. I don't think any amount of breakages from Mik is ever going to top this so I will never accuse him of trying to feed the server with coke again. He even correctly noted the issue in the Staff Forum, the database sequences hadn't been restored so it was trying to reuse old ID numbers.

The funny thing is that I've moved the forums across two machines since then, once back in May when I replaced my desktop with a new AMD Ryzen system (wooo fast!) and last night when I finally got around to moving the site to my Utilite Pro (wooo slow!) after years of talking about it. Despite being a major step down hardware-wise, I can't actually tell the difference.

Database breakage aside, you may have noticed (yeah, right) that the site was only available for hours at a time for the past few months. I had stopped leaving my desktop on 24/7 as there was no longer any great need for it. I'm not kidding when I say I have noticed the difference in my energy bills. Maybe less than £10 per month but still, it adds up. The Utilite only burns 8W at full pelt so this is being left on 24/7. It has already been my music player, IRC proxy, printer server, scanner server, time server, and a generally useful machine for a while now and it will be doing more soon. A great little workhorse!

Once I'm happy that it's definitely all working, I'll put out a fresh email to everyone.

[Mik]

I break a lot of shit these days as I wear many hats in my company, so I got good at identifying how badly I fucked up and why.

I noticed it was offline a few months back but given that it's been dead for the best part of a decade I figured you'd just shuttered it forever, me and Kaos cybering in Discord was a fine substitute.

[kaos]

me and Kaos....

Whoa....
I haven't been that guy in a very long time. almost didnt know who you were talking about.

Kaos and Killjoy Interactive...RIP

Plague and Plagueware....mostly Immortal.

no one contacted me directly

I wouldn't even know how. You're like an internet ghost.

[Chewi]

Whoa....
I haven't been that guy in a very long time. almost didnt know who you were talking about.

Kaos and Killjoy Interactive...RIP

Plague and Plagueware....mostly Immortal.

That'll take some getting used to.

I wouldn't even know how. You're like an internet ghost.

Pfft, just because I'm not on Facebook? Still on email, Hangouts, Skype, LinkedIn if you really must... or IRC if you know where to look.

[Shane]

phpbb still needa add a note pad tho, those were fun.

[kaos]

or IRC if you know where to look.

Porn channels

[Mik]

I wish there was a "fuck off and die" option to Linkedin, too many random people from India want to add me, I think people take that with 22 more contacts you increase your job chances bullshit, it also told me I could apply to 200k a year jobs, sure I can linkedin, sure I can.

[kaos]

you can apply.
it wont mean anything, but you can do it.

[Chewi]

Okay, so it only took me 2½ years to get around to the phpBB 3.2 bump. Now I can upgrade to phpBB 7. I'll do that tomorrow.... maybe.

[kaos]

Huzzah

[Chewi]

Well damn, I actually did update to phpBB 7 when I said I would. It definitely seems faster. I've also fixed the all important smilies and added the two new ones we were missing. Made them look better with the dark theme too.

[Chewi]

Just doing a test post now I've updated to 3.3.1. Should have done it ages ago, bloody security vulnerabilities.