Forum Issues Dec2013-Jan2014 [RESOLVED]

[Omnidon]

EDIT: The conversion is complete, see below.

My webhost just upgraded the server to the latest version of php with very little warning, breaking many features on this rather old forum script.

I have bandaid-fixed a few things, but all plugin-related features such as Attachments and guest-posting are currently unavailable.

This happened at a bad time, since I have been rather busy, but I will try to get this all fixed as soon as possible.

Rather than manually updating the existing forum script to support the new php, I will likely be converting the forum to a different (more modern) script entirely.

This change will likely occur over the next several days. Please be patient with any resulting issues that may arise.

The BG store is not connected to the forum in any way and will not be affected by this issue. If you have any purchase-related problems, be sure to contact the developer directly by email.
He can be reached at:
heruca
/at\
battlegroundsgames [DOT] com

If you have questions about the forum, feel free to contact me at:
Omnidon
/at\
battlegroundsgames [DOT] com

[heruca]

Thanks for taking care of this, Omnidon.

And I hope that after the update, we will have less issues with spambots posting here.

[Omnidon]

And I hope that after the update, we will have less issues with spambots posting here.

Heheh, probably not. This forum is actually extremely resilient to spam. I'll likely have to mod it again just to make it as good as this script at stopping them. That's the price of being highly placed on google.

[Omnidon]

Was busy the last couple weeks and today when I went to do the upgrade I found that the upgrade script was also broken by the new PHP, so I'll have to do the conversion on another server then transfer it over.
Therefore expect it to take a bit longer.

[Omnidon]

The forum conversion is complete.

You may notice that some things, such as the colors, are a bit off and will need to be fixed, but everything seems to be functional at the moment. I'll modify the forum template to better match the old one eventually.

One of the only big annoyances that I've noticed is that it seems vanilla phpBB3 doesn't support showing the global announcements on the forum index, though I'll mod that in when I get the chance.

The search feature will not return any results until I rebuild the search cache, which I will try to do tonight.

If anyone has any major issues with the new forum software, please tell me.

[markuwp]

Omnidon, thank you for all your work on this. Much appreciated!

[Omnidon]

Just added back the ability to search for posts from the last 24 hours:
http://battlegroundsgames.com/forums/se ... id=lastday

A link to it is currently just below the search box. (As long as you check in every day it's the most reliable way to find new posts.)

[Omnidon]

Search indexing is complete. Text searches on old posts should now be working again.

[heruca]

Awesome. Thanks so much for all your hard work, Omnidon.

[Omnidon]

Added global announcements back to the index page.

[Dark Lord Galen]

And I hope that after the update, we will have less issues with spambots posting here.

Heheh, probably not. This forum is actually extremely resilient to spam. I'll likely have to mod it again just to make it as good as this script at stopping them. That's the price of being highly placed on google. ;-)

I noticed you are utilizing PHP here... I am a forum member on another site that also utilizes PHP... (http://www.canonfire.com) we had issues at one time with Spam & BOTs but vertually elliminated all of them by adding one simple user input. When logging on the forum, anyone can read it (see above link) but if you wish to add a new or comment on existing threads, screenname and password and those that access the site also enter a simple password on a second screen in order to add new topics or comment on anything. Could a similar application could be applied here?
Screen with "enter word above" say Battlegrounds? Since most BOTs cant type.... and most users that have questions can, it is an effective extra line of defense without being overtly cumbersome.

Just a Thought.... and Keep up the good work guys.

[Omnidon]

I noticed you are utilizing PHP here... I am a forum member on another site that also utilizes PHP... (http://www.canonfire.com) we had issues at one time with Spam & BOTs but vertually elliminated all of them by adding one simple user input. When logging on the forum, anyone can read it (see above link) but if you wish to add a new or comment on existing threads, screenname and password and those that access the site also enter a simple password on a second screen in order to add new topics or comment on anything. Could a similar application could be applied here?
Screen with "enter word above" say Battlegrounds? Since most BOTs cant type.... and most users that have questions can, it is an effective extra line of defense without being overtly cumbersome.

Just a Thought.... and Keep up the good work guys.

Actually, most bots are very good at typing and can in many cases read CAPTCHA images better than humans can to give the correct response. This forum fully supports all of the major CAPTCHA scripts but pretty much all of them have been thoroughly defeated by the spammers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAPTCHA

The previous version of the forum had a very reliable CAPTCHA that defeated the vast majority of spam bots. However, that was a custom script that required extensive modding.

Currently, this site is using a question & answer security method (similar to but more advanced than what you described), which is reliable as long as no spammer takes the time to custom-code his bot script to specifically attack this website.
However, because Battlegrounds is so highly placed on Google, it is very likely that spammers will give this site that kind of extra attention eventually.

EDIT: Just had to delete a spammer

[Omnidon]

Demoted this from a global announcement to a normal post since everything seems to be working properly.

It will likely be a while before I get around to making further changes unless something urgent comes up.

However, if anyone finds any problems, be sure to tell me.

[heruca]

I can't seem to fix the clickable image link in the OP of this thread. Could you take a whack at it?

[Omnidon]

I can't seem to fix the clickable image link in the OP of this thread. Could you take a whack at it?

Fixed. If you were getting that stupid "403 Forbidden" error, then that's the web host's stupid anti-spam filter kicking in again. I edited the post directly in the database to get around it. If we run into it fairly often I'll complain to the web host about it.

[heruca]

Thanks. Yeah, that was the error I was getting.

[heruca]

I noticed that certain text characters (bullets, quotes, etc.) did not make the transition well. Example

Is there any way to do some sort of global "search & replace" to fix these, or will I need to manually edit each post?

[Omnidon]

Is there any way to do some sort of global "search & replace" to fix these, or will I need to manually edit each post?

I can run a database query if I know which characters need to be replaced, such as and
Any others you know about?

[heruca]

No, but I'll let you know here if I come across others.

[Omnidon]

Well, the ones from that example are fixed now.