Forum Maintenance Announcements

[number6]

We have some planned maintenance to the DEF CON forums starting today from noon Pacific Time lasting 4-6 hours. I am expecting forums will probably be up and running most of this time.
Near the end of that 4-6 hours will probably some interruptions lasting 20 minutes or more.

[number6]

We had a report of broken display of content on the forums. It was tracked down to some accounts requesting use of a no longer supported style.
I just mass-moved all user accounts that had specified a broken or unsupported style to use either forum default or a new style for new forums software, or a legacy style from the last major version.

If you notice the appearance inst the style you expected, you can try any of the others that are available now. We will try to add more or at least a replacement when we have time.

[number6]

The planned maintenance window is now closed.
The scope of the problem has been diagnosed.
More testing will be required on a non-public forum server to find a remedy.

[number6]

I believe I have found the cause of one of the problems. I am announcing a a maintenance window:
On Wednesday, June 12, 2024 starting at 2:00pm PDT, and lasting until 8:00pm PDT, expect a few periods of down-time.
If it all works as expected, the total down-time could be less than 1 hour, but unexpected events are unexpected.

[number6]

The work I had planned for tonight is complete.
I know of at least one problem, but will work on that tomorrow.
Expect a 4 hour window of service in which, you may see four or five, 0-5 minute service interruptions while I try to diagnose the problem.
Please let us know if you see issues.
Thanks!

[number6]

Forums software has been upgraded. Few user features to comment about have been added:
* Email notifications from forums now have an unsubscribe link
* Web Application Manifest ( if supported by device browsing site.)
* Search engine optimization to help search engines index content.

We still have a few problems to sort out.

We are still in a maintenance window...
Access to forums is expected to be available most of this window.

[number6]

No new features for forums.

Forums running a new PHP. Please let us know if you see new issues.

Thanks!

[number6]

Maintenance planned for today starting some times at around 4:00pm until 5:00pm PDT, June 6, 2024.

If all goes well, total down-time will probably be around 5-15 minutes with 2 different 5 minute interruptions within that hour window.

[number6]

Changes since major upgrade:
(Cosmetic/appearance)
* New default fonts
* Changes to default colors
* Changes to icons
* New themes provided (we have not made them available as we have not tested them yet: if they look good and work well, we will make them selectable. If they are better than what we have, we will make them the new default)


Feature changes:
* Reactions: when you looks at threads, you may see a large oval, present white bubble with light gray smiley. When selected, people can provide emoji/emoticon reactions to a post they see. This appears to replace the older, simpler "like" with only a thumbs-up choice.
* (Admin) new reaction manager: so we can add our own DEF CON reactions.
* New avatar system


Behind the scenes:
* Project seems to be moving away from inline javascript, but they have a long way to go. (inline javascript is problematic. A "better" choice for javascript has been to have it all served from files, where those files can be hashed, and then other tools cal inform web browsers of the expected hash values for published JS files. It looks like we can't do that yet, but maybe some day.)


There are some other features which we are not using, which have not been included in this list.
If Jeff decides to use more features available, there would be announcements about those with details on use.

Again, please let us know if you see problems after this upgrade to forum software.

[number6]

First issue found:
I found adding a "comment" to an existing post resulted in no action until I asked my web browser to "force reload page without cache"

If you notice weird problems, please logout, clear your browser cache for "forum.defcon.org" clear cookies for "forum.defcon.org" then login again, and re-try the action with weird problems.

Thanks!

[number6]

Forum maintenance is complete.
This is a major upgrade to forum software.
A but more work will be required to track down weird issues.
If you notice problems, please let us know.
We will include a list of changes and features soon.

[number6]

We have another maintenance window today starting at around 3:00pm PDT, which if all goes well, may last 1 hour, ending at 4:00pm PDT.

[number6]

During the window of maintenance on the forums , access to the forums remained up and available.
It was only from 1:00pm PDT to around 1:05pm PDT, and around 5:30pm PDT to until around 6:05pm PDTand then from 6:21pm PDT until 6:24pm PDT that we had to interrupt service.
We upgraded the OS, the kernel, ssl libs, and PHP.

So far, no problems have been found.

Please let us know if you see issues.

Thanks!

[number6]

Expect a few interruptions over the next 6 hours. The forums will be up most of the time over the next 6 hours.

[number6]

Hello everyone,

We again have plans for maintenance to the DEF CON forums. Service interruption may last 6 hours depending on how well things work out.
Maintenance expected to start: Saturday, May 18, 2024 at around 1:00pm PDT lasting until up to 7:00pm PDT if all goes well.
We'll have more details on any changes after the maintenance window.

Thanks!