SteelerFury Combined Forum

As B2B teased in an announcement two weeks ago, we've been working to get the old database merged in with the new database. What I initially thought would be fairly simple, got a little bit hairy, largely due to the fact that we have split an old forum from the previous database into two new forums in the new database. Complicating that further is that many users have re-registered in the new forums using new, or slightly altered usernames and/or new email addresses. This made the merges rather tricky as we obviously wanted to retain as much of the original post information as possible. Finally, after a good bit of tweaking and testing, I do think we're finally ready to run the merge for real (ie, on this, the live site).

So, to answer some questions:

Will the site be affected while the merge is taking place
Hopefully, no. I have set up a testing site that mimics this site and have been running test merges on that database. I have tested the ability to use the site while the merge was ongoing, and did not notice any issue. So aside from some possible slowness, I am not expecting any downtime with the site. However, if something does go wrong, and the site does go down, there is no reason to panic. I will be taking a backup of the database immediately before the merge. If everything goes wrong and the site catches fire, I will be able to restore the site from that backup and, at worst, we lost a night's worth of posts.

How long with the merge take?

I plan on starting the merge at 10PM EST. It should be done by the time I wake up tomorrow morning. You likely will not see much change until I get around to recycling the forum statistics as the site caches a lot of post information, and changes done directly in the database will not visible until that cache is refreshed (it's also possible that you'll see some weirdness with things like post statistics for users, and post counts for threads, etc, as I've noticed these numbers get updated in weird ways with phpBB).

What will be merged?

- All old Topics
- All old Posts
- All old Private Messages

Will every post and PM be merged?

Yes and no. Yes, every single post and PM will be be available, in some form, in the new site. However, as mentioned above, some elements of the merge were more difficult, and some even impossible with the data we currently have. I will be making a dummy user called "Legacy User". Any post or PM that cannot be properly merged to a current user will be mapped to that user, which will be admin controlled. This is done for the posts to ensure they will still be visible to everyone and keep the overall threads intact without any missing posts.

So why do this to PMs too? If one of you out there realizes that your data was not merged, we can still merge your data after the fact as I have added some additional fields behind the scenes to keep track of the user id that the post or PM was made in the old database. I will be able to use these fields to then map any current users back to their old user once I can confirm that person's old alias.

My data wasn't merged. Why?

You likely registered for the new site using a username that differs (even slightly) from your username in the old site AND used a different email. I was able to script the merge so that I can account one or the other...but not both. If your data was not merged, shoot me a PM with the following information:

- Current username
- Old username
- Current Email
- Old Email (if you don't remember, give me a list of emails you might have used).

Questions?
Either post them here or PM me.

Thank you for the gargantuan efforts from both you and Wil.

Have you forgotten about the Pens?

fractalsteel wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 02, 2019 1:34 am

Thank you for the gargantuan efforts from both you and Wil.

Have you forgotten about the Pens?

Haha. No, I've been following along. Been way too busy to sit down a watch a game and post about it, though.

UPDATE:

A little bad news....I was doing a final data integrity check before running the script and uncovered a couple posts that are being duplicated after the merge. Not a horrible deal, as I've only found a couple of them, and I think I have a fix applied to the script, but I want to give it one more run in my testing environment to ensure I didn't break anything else with the fix. But, unfortunately, I need to get to bed.

As such, this is getting pushed to tomorrow night.

I apologize for the delay, but I want to make sure this is done right the first time so we don't have to do it again.

Thanks to everyone on the back end making this site function

We got in a hole down by 10 points, the offense was dogshit with the game plan from the minds of Tomlin/Fitchner.

The 10.1 YPA we got from the QB position when our coaches were forced to open it up saved the game.

Hopefully I don't get screwed over again and get locked out of my account for two years. Nobody replies to emails or approves new accounts either.

Steelcody86 wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 02, 2019 6:29 pm

Hopefully I don't get screwed over again and get locked out of my account for two years. Nobody replies to emails or approves new accounts either.

This update won't be touching any user accounts, so you should be good.

Steelcody86 wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 02, 2019 6:29 pm

Hopefully I don't get screwed over again and get locked out of my account for two years. Nobody replies to emails or approves new accounts either.

Um, that has changed since I took over in September-- I've been approving/denying requested almost every day.

Have you sent me an email to which I didn't respond?

I know this is just football, and we all have lives outside of the internet, but this is really a great thing you guys are doing.

Much appreciated, for all involved. It's a great getaway, and I'm all about escapism.

Heartfelt thanks.

Alright, database is backed up as of 12/2/2019, 10:56 EST.

This will be our fail safe in the event something goes horribly, horribly wrong.

I will begin running the merge script momentarily.

I did decide to merge ONLY topics and posts on this pass. If that goes smoothly, I will then merge PMs tomorrow night.

See y'all on the other side

Merge is complete and looks mostly successful.

Old posts look like they're there and showing as I expected.

I will note that my power went out at some point last night. Clicking through some of the older threads, I'm noticing more posts assigned to "Legacy User" than I had anticipated. I'm not sure if there are really that many posts that weren't able to be mapped to current users, or if maybe the power went out in the middle of the part of the merge script that was updating those references (it was at the end of the script, and was the most intensive, so that's certainly possible).

I will double check that tonight, as well as run the merge for Private Messages to restore those. And, if I have time, I'll get to some of the individual merge requests I've gotten.

If anyone notices something completely wonky that I've overlooked, call it out. I have kept the linkages from new records to the old records for everything I merged, so I'll hopefully be able to fix anything that may not have gotten merged quite right.

steelafan77 is getting an error message when he tries to access the threads. He can log in and send me private messages but can't see the threads.

General Error
SQL ERROR [ mysqli ]

Lock wait timeout exceeded; try restarting transaction [1205]

An SQL error occurred while fetching this page. Please contact the Board Administrator if this problem persists.
Please notify the board administrator or webmaster: steelerfuryshow@gmail.com

bradshaw2ben wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 03, 2019 3:19 pm

steelafan77 is getting an error message when he tries to access the threads. He can log in and send me private messages but can't see the threads.

General Error
SQL ERROR [ mysqli ]

Lock wait timeout exceeded; try restarting transaction [1205]

An SQL error occurred while fetching this page. Please contact the Board Administrator if this problem persists.
Please notify the board administrator or webmaster: steelerfuryshow@gmail.com

He may have tried entering as I was resynching the boards. Have him try again.

Yep, that's what I suggested. I used a tool to browse the boards with his permission set and everything seemed fine.

I noticed that the link to private messages does not work on phone. Works fine on desktop.

bradshaw2ben wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 03, 2019 11:32 pm

I noticed that the link to private messages does not work on phone. Works fine on desktop.

Hmm, mine works on my phone. What device do you have?

And any word from SteelaFan77 getting into the boards?

Louis Lipps Service wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 04, 2019 12:11 am

bradshaw2ben wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 03, 2019 11:32 pm

I noticed that the link to private messages does not work on phone. Works fine on desktop.

Hmm, mine works on my phone. What device do you have?

And any word from SteelaFan77 getting into the boards?

iPhone... usually I tap the private messages alert area (that shows the number of messages)

Seems like 77 is posting today

Thanks Lipps! Appreciate your time and effort with this.

bradshaw2ben wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 02, 2019 8:30 pm

Steelcody86 wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 02, 2019 6:29 pm

Hopefully I don't get screwed over again and get locked out of my account for two years. Nobody replies to emails or approves new accounts either.

Um, that has changed since I took over in September-- I've been approving/denying requested almost every day.

Have you sent me an email to which I didn't respond?

My original account (Steelcody36) we evidently permabanned several years ago. I kept registering under different UN's, no dice. Then I finally got in 3-4 years ago before some work was done here, and I couldn't login again. Now, I'm back a 3rd or 4th time after 2 years.

Steelcody86 wrote: ↑

Sun Dec 15, 2019 4:41 pm

bradshaw2ben wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 02, 2019 8:30 pm

Steelcody86 wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 02, 2019 6:29 pm

Hopefully I don't get screwed over again and get locked out of my account for two years. Nobody replies to emails or approves new accounts either.

Um, that has changed since I took over in September-- I've been approving/denying requested almost every day.

Have you sent me an email to which I didn't respond?

My original account (Steelcody36) we evidently permabanned several years ago. I kept registering under different UN's, no dice. Then I finally got in 3-4 years ago before some work was done here, and I couldn't login again. Now, I'm back a 3rd or 4th time after 2 years.

Sorry, Cody... I didn't realize I had shut you out. Apologies.

man, you are playing with fire doing board maintenance on game day!!!!

Kodiak wrote: ↑

Sun Dec 15, 2019 10:56 pm

man, you are playing with fire doing board maintenance on game day!!!!

Two strikes so far. Third is the charm????

Not on purpose!!!

Some plugin in wordpress went grey goo this morning and started creating files at some outrageous rate. We think we have it fixed for the duration. It made 544,000+ files today (my hosting limit is 600K).

Now the admin part of the site is not working properly... so it's on to a new problem.

You guys should be good and posting should be unaffected for the moment.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

bradshaw2ben wrote: ↑

Sun Dec 15, 2019 11:07 pm

Not on purpose!!!

Some plugin in wordpress went grey goo this morning and started creating files at some outrageous rate. We think we have it fixed for the duration. It made 544,000+ files today (my hosting limit is 600K).

Now the admin part of the site is not working properly... so it's on to a new problem.

You guys should be good and posting should be unaffected for the moment.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

No biggie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmW-ScmGRMA

Now my entire moderation/admin section is not working and I can't post any new threads.

bradshaw2ben wrote: ↑

Sun Dec 15, 2019 11:14 pm

Now my entire moderation/admin section is not working and I can't post any new threads.

That settles it.

The steelers in a blow out.

bradshaw2ben wrote: ↑

Sun Dec 15, 2019 11:14 pm

Now my entire moderation/admin section is not working and I can't post any new threads.

So this means you don't currently have the ability to ban people?

Asking for a friend....

I gave him a timeout already.

Thanks for all the effort. I really appreciate it.