ANNOUNCEMENT: Autoshite Maintenance Downtime

[Pillock]

We've been told by our hosting provider that they're going to be doing some maintenance on the servers this site lives on. This means that there'll be a couple of days at the end of April / start of May when the site may be inaccessible for long periods of time or slow to load whilst things get rebuilt.

Because of this, we've decided to make the site offline during those times, as it will be frustrating for users to get halfway through a post and find it's died, and instead concentrate on an upgrade to the forum software and SSL. This means when it comes back up, we'll be running the latest, most secure forum we can (the current version hasn't been getting any updates for a while) and also the site will be https:// so the "Not Secure" message will disappear.

We know it's not great to lose access to the beige for that time, however doing the upgrade at this time means that nothing will be lost as we can take a backup and know it's bang up to date.

For those who just want the facts:

• Autoshite will be offline, and redirecting to an information page from 12 midday on Tuesday, 30th April until 18.00 Wednesday 1st May.
• This is due to our hosts doing techy stuff that means our servers will be unplugged for hours at a time.
• We're taking the opportunity to upgrade the forum software during that time
• Your existing username and password will still work afterwards, and you won't lose any PMs or forum posts.
• The new forum is still beige.

[Jim Bell]

.05 seconds after the upgrade the forum became self aware. Before the mods could pull the plug, the sentient forum had hacked all members eBay accounts and purchased every head gasket and wheel bearing on eBay. The human race as we knew it was now at war and could only lose.

[inconsistant]

Mmm, herterterpuss.

[egg]

Thanks for the info, will easier photo upload functionality come with the upgrade? Thanks.

[NorthernMonkey]

You mean I’m going to have to do some work?!

 

Feck. Not keen on the thought of that....

[Tamworthbay]

The 30th you say? Just happens to be a late night at work where I won’t be home until about 9, that’s dropped lucky!

[Pillock]

Thanks for the info, will easier photo upload functionality come with the upgrade? Thanks.

 

There's no huge changes but the interface is a bit friendlier and it's easier to embed an image from elsewhere on the internet. Is there a particular bit that causes you hassle?

[egg]

Not particularly, I have a vague recollection that when the board (temporarily) upgraded under Dave's watch before reverting to this version of the software you could for example just paste a link (like you can with youtube) to a picture rather than having to click on 'insert image' enter the URL. It's a very minor point, but I have noticed others mention it as well.

 

But it sounds like that it what is proposed.

[UltraWomble]

SWEET JESUS CHRIST

What the hell will we do????????

 

Im going to have to talk to the wife or something.

[Saabnut]

SWEET JESUS CHRIST

What the hell will we do????????

 

Im going to have to talk to the wife or something.

 

Panic mode setting in - I don't have a wife, can I talk to yours?

[UltraWomble]

Panic mode setting in - I don't have a wife, can I talk to yours?

Please do.

Last time AS went down and I had to talk to her I was amazed to discover she no longer works in Woolworths.

I dread to think what I might learn this time

[Pillock]

Not particularly, I have a vague recollection that when the board (temporarily) upgraded under Dave's watch before reverting to this version of the software you could for example just paste a link (like you can with youtube) to a picture rather than having to click on 'insert image' enter the URL. It's a very minor point, but I have noticed others mention it as well.

 

But it sounds like that it what is proposed.

 

Currently, you can type [ img ] and paste a link to a picture and then [ /img ] and it will embed the image (assuming the remote site allows hotlinking, most do but some get stroppy).

I believe the new board will let you just paste the image link and it will detect it's a picture and embed it, exactly as you say and yes this is how Youtube links currently work.

 

There's still the uploader for using your own pictures.

[lesapandre]

Thanks for all your hard work so I can have fun on the site. Hope it all goes ok.

[Supernaut]

 

• The new forum is still beige.

 

 

*breathes a sigh of relief*

[chaseracer]

^ Exact pantone yet to be established.

 

[meggersdog]

I remember when the site went down for a couple of days a few years ago.Someone (fredtransit I think) started a topic "what did you do when the site went down" Hirst wrote some epic ramblings about downing a bottle of whiskey then going for a 100 mile drive in his Prelude stopping along the way to stab ramdom people to death.A typical really funny post of pure fantasy from Hirst . Atleast I think it was fantasy.

[DSdriver]

Whilst you've got the bonnet up and the wheels off can you see if you can fix the error message "There was a problem storing your reputation vote" that I get every time I "like" someone's post. Prettypleasethankyou.

[Pillock]

We've installed the grumpy mod that means you're not allowed to like anything. New forum will give you an an electric shock if you click that.

 

Only joking.... Hopefully it will fix it, if not let us know in May and we'll have a look!

[LightBulbFun]

I get "There was a problem storing your reputation vote"

 

only if I either double click on the like button by accident

 

or if i like a post then go back a page, then go forward again and try and like the same post again (because it does not show up as "liked" when ya do that, but its registered as liked on the sever)

 

otherwise the like button works perfectly well for me  

[brownnova]

There's no huge changes but the interface is a bit friendlier and it's easier to embed an image from elsewhere on the internet. Is there a particular bit that causes you hassle?

Uploading photos from your mobile is a pain, the mobile theme doesn’t allow uploads, so you have to go to ‘full version’ which is a bit annoying. Ability to upload photos from the mobile theme would be brilliant! Plus when you go back to mobile theme from full version the forum comes up blue.

 

Thanks for the heads upon downtime. Appreciate the planning that goes into these things!

[BorniteIdentity]

Uploading photos from your mobile is a pain, the mobile theme doesn’t allow uploads, so you have to go to ‘full version’ which is a bit annoying. Ability to upload photos from the mobile theme would be brilliant! Plus when you go back to mobile theme from full version the forum comes up blue.

 

Thanks for the heads upon downtime. Appreciate the planning that goes into these things!

 

This has always been my biggest gripe about AS; the 'friction' involved in actually posting content.  The easier it is, the more likely people are to do it.  With more and more people posting from mobile devices, it's really important that it's just a couple of thumb thumps to get stuff on.

[SiC]

Tapatalk makes uploading photos easy but then you're limited to having them externally hosted. So if they ever pull the plug on the photo uploads, quite a few threads will become picture-less.

 

It is possible to get Tapatalk to upload them as an attachment but you come back to the problem of incorrectly rotated images and the hassles associated with that. Hopefully that problem will be fixed in a forum update.

 

Tbh adding photo uploading in the mobile theme should not be that difficult. It's a case of copy and pasting the code from the main theme that does photo uploads, into the mobile theme.

[SiC]

Also surely this should be a good time to migrate to a proper cloud provider? Or setup the site to be virtualised at the very least.

 

Having a site go down because "hosting provider is working on the servers" is not something that happens anymore for good reason. A properly setup site should be able to be spun up on a new environment in minutes/seconds.

[MiniMort]

Is the new Autoshite gonna be compatible with my Acorn Electron?

[The Moog]

Is the new Autoshite gonna be compatible with my Acorn Electron?

You will need the 128k ram extension pack to be sure.

[DSdriver]

I get "There was a problem storing your reputation vote"

 

only if I either double click on the like button by accident

 

or if i like a post then go back a page, then go forward again and try and like the same post again (because it does not show up as "liked" when ya do that, but its registered as liked on the sever)

 

otherwise the like button works perfectly well for me

It could be all the biscuit crumbs and other crap under the click button. I am using a Toshiba laptop. I do seem to get problems with it going back two pages when I click the back arrow or it clicks through the drop down menus from the faves bar to whats on the page I am already looking at and I get a page from an advertiser. I'll have the lid off and see.

[egg]

You will need the 128k ram extension pack to be sure.

 

I used to dream about having the 'plus 1' expansion pack

 

[MiniMort]

I used to dream about having the 'plus 1' expansion pack

 

I still do. Imagine that: just plugging in a game cartridge and not having to wait 10 minutes for your game to load!

[dozeydustman]

Is the new Autoshite gonna be compatible with my Acorn Electron?

 

You will need the 128k ram extension pack to be sure.

 

What about my Spectrum 48k and C64?

[Felly Magic]

So the bonnet is being popped, and they are having a bit of a tinker finally after the head gasket blew ages ago,  bringing the EML on in the process, I take it the K seal didn't work. As Jim Bell predicts, the forum will go all Skynet on us, but I feel it would buy up every broken Renner on ebay using Billy Cavcraft and Dollywobbler's ebay accounts, then draw a big cock and balls on every post