Some Downtime Due in the Next Day or Two.

[Robert]

I'm going to do some essential upgrades and maintenance on the software that runs this forum over the next few days. Nothing serious and hopefully nothing that will involve much downtime.
I'm just posting this up so you can expect it when you see it.
I'll post again when it's complete.

[Robert]

OK. It's done. There were only 2 short disruptions at times when there were not too many users. That should be it for a while.

[yorta2]

Good on you, Mate. Didn't even notice it, nor the changes.

[Robert]

None of the changes will have resulted in tangible differences to the user experience, they were all "back end" stuff.

However, I will be implementing some other changes in here which may be noticed. They are:

• Advertising in the forum (donations have been sparse and no one wanted to buy the forum off me, just offers to host it for free, so ads will be shown to non-donating members).
• Some tightening of the moderation rules and usergroups to prevent more spam and hopefully make life easier for the mods.
• Some other stuff I've not thought about enough yet.

Most of you should not notice any difference ('cept maybe the ads). Most of you don't use 95% of the features in here anyway (user reputation, social networking, user albums...).

If anyone does notice anything strange or broken, please post it in this thread.

[pangit]

Rob,

I've noticed that I have to log in every day, whereas previously I didn't. Is that intentional for security?

[Robert]

No, I don't think so. It may just be some sort of cookie issue? If you tick the "remember me" box when you log in, you should stay logged in. Have a try with that and let me know if you still have probs.

[Robert]

There are some more software updates I've got to do over the next few days. Not too much that the end user should notice, but a bunch of security stuff and anti-spam stuff (including some better prevention of private message spam which this forum has been a target of a few times over the years.)
I'll do it some time between now and the next few days, so if you see the forum go off line, don't worry, go outside and play for a while instead. It will be there when you come back later.

[neil]

Originally Posted by pangit

Rob,

I've noticed that I have to log in every day, whereas previously I didn't. Is that intentional for security?

Fine my end pangit.
I click on biofuels in my bookmarks and I'm logged in automatically
Have not had any problems even with the recent maintenance.
Hope this helps

[pangit]

Hmmm, maybe it's my browser, although I've checked my cookies/security settings and they haven't changed. I also check the "remember me" box every time.

Unless it's happening to other people then I wouldn't worry about it.