Planned forum software upgrade completion and service disruption

As previously announced, the GPWA is upgrading the version of the vBulletin forum software we use from version 4.1.3 which was released in April 2011 to version 4.2.1 which was released in April of this year. The original announcement was here: Planned forum software upgrades and temporary service disruptions.

The upgrade process will be completed this Monday, August 5th. We expect the forum to be unavailable beginning around 8:15-8:30am EST (1:15-1:30am GMT) for up to 30 minutes. Other parts of the GPWA website should operate normally.

Some known defects will be fixed as part of the upgrade process. For example, the "Mark Forums Read" function does not currently work, but will work after the upgrade is completed. We are also making a few tweaks to the navigation on the GPWA website. Currently some functions are only available within the forum section of the site, and after we have completed the upgrade all function will be consistently available throughout the site. For example, the number of notifications (private messages) will be displayed in the header area of the site, and will be visible even when a visitor is not within the forums, and it will be possible to link to view private messages from the header area throughout the site.

Michael

Good to hear, maybe with any luck it will fix the speed issues I have been experiencing also.

Rick
Universal4

didn't want to say but as Rick has mentioned the speed, sometimes it destroys me in the brain waiting for the forum to load....

..and i am the Pope ;-)

-disclaimer - I am not the Pope and that lad in the other thread is still a piece of thieving ****

Dang it....and just when I was seriously considering that New York trip....

Rick
Universal4

Looks like there are a few problems with the update. Maybe it is good if we all put the problems we see in this thread? I can imagine that is easier for the team to solve the problems:
-All messages and forum topics are text-aligned center
-The WYSIWYG buttons are not visible

Quote:

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Originally Posted by boljoro

-All messages and forum topics are text-aligned center
-The WYSIWYG buttons are not visible

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The centre alignment = headache. The buttons are not visible, however you can mouseover them and on mouseover the function of the button shows (also = headache).

I have reported these issues.

The centered text makes my head hurt!

Glad I am not the only one that found this alignment of the posts weird. Don't get the purpose of this icon above my posts either.

Found a bug - not sure how or why I noticed this but in the menu the 'my profile' link is showing as: https://www.gpwa.org/members/member_details.asp?id=$bbuserinfo[userid]

things look fine on my end. It will get bit of time to get use to new layout, but it definitely looks more neat and modern.

We are busy working on issues introduced during the migration to the new version of vBulletin.

The most severe issue that we have found and fixed was related to creating and replying to posts using Internet Explorer. The third party plug-in used to perform editing for posts invoked styles in a way that caused an IE system limitation to be exceeded. We have made changes to our implementation of vBulletin to reduce the number of separate style invocations, and in that fashion have eliminated the issue. We did most of our pre-deployment testing with Chrome and Firefox, and while we did also use the forums with IE, our testing in that environment evidently did not extend to making test posts.

We do agree that text should generally be left-justified rather than centered. We had uncovered that issue during the test deployment we had done earlier before doing the deployment to production earlier today. But a mistake during today's deployment caused the situation that has been in production today. We are currently working on correcting various instances where material should be left-justified rather than centered.

We will provide more updates as additional issues are addressed.

Michael

It's good to hear the IE issue was fixed, that's why I called Anthony right away since I knew how large of an issue that could turn into.

I have not had too many problems replying or posting with Firefox, and I haven't had the chance to try Opera yet but will when I get through with all new posts.

Can anyone that has a computerwannabe (You know a mac) try replying to a post as well as sending a test pm let us know if you experience any issues?

Also, not sure if anyone in the office has tried posting from a mobile app, but if not it wouldn't hurt.

Rick
Universal4

We have now dealt with the worst of the instances where text was centered rather than left aligned.

1. The list of posts produced by today's posts, new posts, and searches now have the thread name information left aligned.
2. Signatures underneath forum posts are now left aligned.
3. The text for poll choices is now left aligned.

The following two alignment issues have yet to be addressed:

4. The thread title in the first post of each thread still needs to be left justified.
5. Also, in today's posts, new posts, and searches, the alignment of the forum name in the rightmost column is a bit bizarre.

If there are other alignment issues, please let us know. We will also do a more thorough review on that front, but right now just items 4 and 5 are on our list of alignment issues remaining to be addressed.

Michael

OK, the mark forums read link worked, so now people can read everything that is new, and as long as they click that link they can return 5 minutes later and not have all the threads they just spent an hour reading showing as new posts again....

Will test posting and responding in IE 7 and IE 8 shortly.

Rick
Universal4

Post test using IE8 on Windows Vista, reply box appearing correctly.

Rick
Universal4

Edited to add: Edit after post in IE8 successful.

Post test using IE7 on Windows XP.

Rick
Universal4

post test using Opera on Windows Vista

Rick
Universal4

will dump test posts after the fact

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MichaelCorfman

We have now dealt with the worst of the instances where text was centered rather than left aligned.

1. The list of posts produced by today's posts, new posts, and searches now have the thread name information left aligned.
2. Signatures underneath forum posts are now left aligned.
3. The text for poll choices is now left aligned.

The following two alignment issues have yet to be addressed:

4. The thread title in the first post of each thread still needs to be left justified.
5. Also, in today's posts, new posts, and searches, the alignment of the forum name in the rightmost column is a bit bizarre.

If there are other alignment issues, please let us know. We will also do a more thorough review on that front, but right now just items 4 and 5 are on our list of alignment issues remaining to be addressed.

Michael

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The reason I looked for this thread was to report the text alignment being centred.

It's still looking that way for me in FF18.0 and IE10. Chrome is the only browser that is working properly left alignment.

Cheers

A other small issue:
In each thread you have a button "Reply to Thread" at the top of the thread. This button overlaps with the thread title underneath it.