frostfire

ok, it took a few days longer than expected, but the new portal site is up on pattayatalk.com and undergoing testing - and expansion. I added a ton of content, but its mostly AI generated for now - I will be expanding on that and fixing minor issues over the next several weeks. For now, the forum itself has not been changed - ill start working on those changes this weekend and update here when they are in place.

Hello everyone, We’re working on an upcoming update to PattayaTalk that I wanted to give everyone a heads-up about. New PattayaTalk Portal (Root Domain Change) In a future release, pattayatalk.com and www.pattayatalk.com will no longer simply forward to the forums. Instead, the root domain will host a portal-style landing site that will: Act as an information and help hub for visitors to Pattaya, Bangkok, Phuket, and other major destinations in Thailand Serve as a central repository for Thailand-related information Link directly to relevant public forum posts and discussions Promote the forums and help introduce PattayaTalk to new visitors The forums themselves are not going away and will continue to live at forums.pattayatalk.com exactly as they do now. The goal here is visibility, organization, and growth — not disruption. Forum Access Policy Change (New Members) We’re also simplifying how forum access levels work for new members. Previously, access to the members-only (private) areas required sending a specially formatted email to the forum administrator. Going forward: Members-only access and other access levels will be granted automatically Access will be based on reputation and post count No emails, no manual requests Important: This change does not affect any existing members. No one will be downgraded. Reputation will not be used to remove or reduce current access levels. This is strictly to make it easier and more transparent for new members to become full participants in the community. Moderator Tools We’ll also be adding additional moderation tools to make content moderation faster, easier, and more effective for the mod team. More details will follow as features roll out. Thanks to everyone who’s helped make PattayaTalk what it is. This update is about building on that foundation and setting things up for the long term. --Frosty

Upgrade has been completed. Please let me know if you see any issues. I am sure there will be some - this was a huge update. I may need to re-vamp the theme as well! --Frosty

Going to start working on this again now guys... might be some ... weirdness as I incrementally update all of the different packages to try to bring things up to date. Will try not to break anything too badly 🙂

Attempt 1 failed haha. Server is back up for now. Going to try this again tomorrow - or over the weekend, after researching the issue that popped up. Will update here as soon as I start the process. --Frosty

Hi Guys, Got a fairly strongly worded email informing me that my neglect of updating Pattayatalk needs to come to an end (haha). Its quite a bit behind in its security updates, so I am going to do a massive update today. With any luck at all the downtime if any will be minimal, but this update also moves us from PHP 7 to PHP 8.3, which is a huge jump... so I expect things to break. Once the site is back up I will post again here - and if you see anything broken, please yell out! --Frosty

Just about to hit the sack when I got this notification, so I wont put a lot of work in to this... just too tired and there are a LOT of lessons learned over the last couple decades of living here (almost anyway. Somewhere north of 15 and south of 20). I agree with all that Forcebwithu said, but ill add to that this: For the last 18 months or so, I have seen zero dangerous spikes in the electric grid. My main workstations are super expensive and almost none of the parts can be bought in Thailand, so I am very careful with them. I use a 3000va Smart UPS for that and it monitors the line voltage, sinewave, etc and adjusts the output as needed, but also gives me reports on any issues - and there used to be a lot of them. In the last year we have had 2 complete outages and one time we had the loss of a single phase (down to 110 from 220), but the "health" of the line has been really good for the last 18 months or so. So much so that I would go so far as to say that you only need to protect really expensive equipment now. When the UPSs at my factory died a few months back I just replaced them with cheap versions, and may let them go completely next time and just use surge protectors (which you should always have - surges can happen even on state of the art grids). For pest prevention I tend to use Chris of Termite Tech Thailand. (or previously of that company anyway. I think he has branched off. Happy to give you a number on request). He comes out to both my home and factory once every 3 months and never has to come back in between sprays, though he will do for free if needed. For me it has not been needed. Its well worth the cost, which is not very expensive. If you don't have the phone number of a Thai "fix it" guy, find one and keep it in your phone. You will run in to an issue that you can't fix yourself, and having a guy that will come on call is a must. Same thing for the gas/water guys if you cook or have a water tank. Keep those numbers handy. I am sure there are a thousand more.... if I get some time ill write them up haha. Frosty

ok, ill look in to it. I know there is a big update for the board needed... and I need to finally upgrade the server hardware. I think its time I do that lol.

This says posted on May 2, but I just got the email notice. Anyone else? And Gary, check your DMs if you have not already.

Just sent you a DM

I think I resolved this. Let me know if you see the issue again. Also, I did not get a notification for this message, so if this kind of thing happens, do not hesitate to call or email/message me outside ptalk if I do not reply quickly.

Will check in to this.

This is a much faster server... but it seems to have broken tapatalk. I am working on that 🙂

Ok, site back up and on its new home. Please report anything at all that looks weird! Sorry that took so long! Frosty