Possible host and forum changes - please read

Rico · August 21, 2007, 08:16:43 AM

As most of you know, during the past few weeks my web host has been doing some upgrades and changes to their servers. This seems to have caused some slowdowns on the site, and forums especially. I have emailed them again (just this morning) to ask about this and to see if it will improve. I have one idea. If things don't improve in the next few days I'm thinking of getting a new web host. But this might mean a few things. There might be a few downtimes to switch things over (but I don't think it would be a lot). What I am thinking of doing is rebuilding the web site and use my other domain www.treksinscifi.com. Then I could keep the old one active until I turned the switch. The way the site works now is all traffic gets redirected to www..treksf.com. I would reverse this if I switch to direct all traffic to www.treksinscifi.com.

I think this would work but it would involve some work. Here's the one big question. I might change forums software during this move and this may mean losing what we have - sort of. There is conversion software out there and I may be able to move all the posts, member info over, etc. But it may be harder than it's worth. Would it be a big deal to sort of start over? It's not my preference and I would certainly copy over any current and important threads (like the RPG area). I could also probably get people their post counts back if that's important, etc.

I wanted to get everyone's opinion on this before I do anything major. Again, this is all just one option right now. I am going to continue to try and get my current host and site to work better but I wanted to toss this in the ring sort of and get the feelings of folks here. Everyone that comes to the forums and posts is a friend and important so I want to keep this as easy as possible. But I also want the site to grow and work much better for all of you too. Sorry about the long post. So go ahead and post and let me know what you all think.

billybob476 · August 21, 2007, 09:10:26 AM

I know this just happened over at the ELR forums and it wasn't a huge deal. However according to Scott, the DB was too big and the conversion script he found would time out. I think if you're switching forum software we might be looking at a starting from scratch.

If you need any help let me know, I'm somewhat savvy at making MySQL dance to my tune.

Geekyfanboy · August 21, 2007, 09:53:47 AM

To be honest Rico.. it would be difficult to see everything go. We have worked so hard the past few years to make this forum what it is. And I hate to say it but I'm proud of my post count because this is the first forum that I became an active member of. If we start from scratch it would be like the past few years never happened.

But with that said.. if we did it once we can do it again..

...we can rebuild it.. bigger, better, badder :)

billybob476 · August 21, 2007, 09:58:23 AM

We have the technology!

Rico · August 21, 2007, 10:31:55 AM

I completely agree with your sentiments Kenny and it is definitely a last resort. I wasn't super pleased when the ELR forums had to start over. But Scott over there has done that every few years anyway. I would certainly try to migrate the data here over if I do decide to move hosts. I have looked into it a bit and there seem to be tools to move from a SMF forum to a phpBB forum (which is what I am thinking of trying). At the very least I might even just duplicate this forum on w new host to see how it performs first.

Don't worry. Nothing is going to happen for at least a week or more. I really want to see if my current host can get things smoothed out first. I was just sort of testing the waters right now. I'll keep you all posted.

billybob476 · August 21, 2007, 10:41:50 AM

Funny that your host wouldn't do server maintenance/upgrades late at night/early in the morning. The host I deal with at work has their upgrade window between 4 and 6 am. Makes a bit more sense to me. Then again I've had lots of experience with substandard web hosting.

Rico · August 21, 2007, 11:27:41 AM

It's hard to say exactly what time of day they do this all at. I don't get times, just dates. But I got the idea going from MySQL 4.1 to 5 was a pretty major upgrade/change. Not just normal maintenance.

billybob476 · August 21, 2007, 11:36:19 AM

I fully agree. Just seems like a lot of downtime. Sorry if I'm belaboring the point, I'm a web developer, I live this stuff every day. Webhosts are the bane of my existence. It makes me glad that we've moved in house for our stuff at work. I'd rather have control over everything myself. Obviously for these boards that is not a reasonable option from either a financial or motivational standpoint.

If they are doing an in place upgrade from mySQL4 to mySQL5 then it is not a trivial thing.

Anyways, I'll stop blathering on. Just trying to kill some time at work.

Rico · August 21, 2007, 12:18:27 PM

I think I'm going to try one test first. I have a spare MySQL spot (only get 5 DB's with my plan) so I am going to attempt to rebuild the forum there using phpBB and see if I can move the data over. This will be a test run to see if it's possible and see if it helps at all. Nothing will change here for the moment.

iceman · August 21, 2007, 03:03:47 PM

My Suggestion for what it is worth, is give these guys the time to upgrade the forum, things seem to be ok at the moment anyway.

Otherwise you could be in for a big headache. And I also worked long and hard for my posts also, I like others would not want to loose them.

Rico · August 21, 2007, 04:23:45 PM

Yep - agreed. Like I said above I'm going to give them some time. I think it looks like it will improve. Thanks for the input guys & trust me, I have no desire to do all the work that might be involved in moving the forums and/or the site.

billybob476 · August 21, 2007, 05:15:55 PM

I guess having 22 posts I don't feel the same attachment to my post count as others.

jedijeff · August 21, 2007, 06:39:35 PM

For what it is worth, my websites that are hosted on powweb also had some problems today. I know the MySql servers I am on are due for an upgrade tomorrow, so I am hoping things go well.

I know when I first setup my sites back in late winter early spring, for about 2 or 3 months, my sites were really slow to not accessible. I to was like you Rico, would send them emails, with no real answers. I was pretty frustrated as well, and was thinking of moving my sites. Over late spring and into summer things have been a lot better, with occasional slowness. Both my websites are not visited very much, and I account a lot of that to the high unavailability or slowness of them. I run our cities collecting forums/sites, and have never been able to get that going, and probably will shut down when the domain name expires, as I think a lot of people were turned off due to not being able to access. My podcast is low, but I think that I can salvage. I guess I feel disappointed with the Web Host, as I feel they played a large part. I can see where you have the same frustration Rico, as you are trying to grow this and Powweb is not helping as of late.

On a side note, I run a trimmed down version pf phpBB with phpnuke for my collecting site, and to be honest I don't really like it. I hope the full version of phpBB is a lot better, as I think SMF is pretty good. I use it for my Podcast site, and it is a lot easier to Navigate and Administer.

Rico · August 21, 2007, 07:39:16 PM

Thanks for the input Jeff. Sorry you have been having trouble too. I feel bad because I think I steered you towards Powweb. It's funny, but it's only very recently that they have been giving me issues. But I will get it resolved one way or the other.

jedijeff · August 22, 2007, 05:34:26 PM

Hopefully things will get ironed out for you Rico. No worries here Rico, Powweb for me has gotten a lot better over the past few months, so I will monitor how it is for the remainder of the year. It seems like problems jump form server to server with them. Whatever you decide Rico, I am hundred percent behind you.