Forum Maintenance Announcements

[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]

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]

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]

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]

No new features for forums.

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

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]

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 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]

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]

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]

Maintenance should now be complete. I am going to be testing for a while, but no major problems found so far.
Please let us know if you see new issues. This was an OS/kernel/service upgrade, not a forum software upgrade.

Thanks!

[number6]

Unplanned service interruption Sunday, July 28, 2024 from around 10pm pacific time until around 10:45PM pacific time.
Please let us know if you see issues with the forums.
There was no change to the forums software, just the OS.

Thanks!

[number6]

More forum maintenance expected over the next few hours. Service may be up and down occasionally during this time.
Trying to diagnose a bug presenting on chrome, chromium, edge but not on firefox.

[number6]

Ok, so an issue has been reported where access to forums seems slow, but seems to work fine on Windows/Linux Firefox.
A slowness issue was reported with Chome-code based browsers like Linux Chromium, Chrome, MS Windows Edge.

Slowness was most pronounced under the "Con Calendar" https://forum.defcon.org/calendar for affected browser.

As of "now" I have a work-around (I think) for the Windows/Linux chrome-based browsers, but there appears to still be a slow/hung issue when browsing using Sfari from iOS and maybe Firefox on Mac OS X.

Work to identify the cause on Apple device browsers is still ongoing.