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

HI guys. This got delayed for technical reasons, but I am starting on this right now today... will be taking the site in to offline more here in a moment, and will return it to service once the move is made. This may take most of the day today - I will try to have it done as fast as possible, but I expect it to take at least 6 hours to transfer the data. Will update this thread once we are live on the other server.

Hi Guys. Been a while since ive posted here.... sorry about that! Been super busy for the last year. I am getting some failing hard drive notifications on the server this site is hosted on, and I fear the backup is out of date. So I am going to move it asap. Not sure that will happen today, but it will be very soon... and there will be no further notice. When I start I will take the site offline and you will see a message saying the site is offline... and when it comes back up it should be on the new server, provided the hard drives last that long. ? Will update here as soon as this is finished. Frosty

It was about 2 years ago now or so. Its always been my intention on doing something like a landing page on the www portion of the site, but all the life changes that came with covid just blew that out of the water... tho I still hope to get around to it ? Sorry about the confusion... ill see if there is something I can do to forward those other possible addresses for the time being. Thought I Was doing that actually, but may not have been ? - its been one of those years.

Ya, this new (very temporary) server .... well... sucks. lol. By spec its not bad... but its shit hardware. My servers are still in route to the new datacenter, so it will be at least a couple weeks before I can get back on solid hardware again. Not much I can do about it until then

Ok guys I know we have an issue here... I am trying to find a workaround. Give me some time please.

@jacko is this still happening? Do you know a way to reproduce it reliably?>

Oh that's not good. Let me see if I can fix that.

Move is complete. for now. I already do not like this new server... The rushiness of this (yes, I just made that word up) forced my hand... but its up and working, and while it may be a bit slow - that part is temporary. Once I secure all my data (still have a dozen servers to go) I will post a longer explanation of why this move was necessary and my plan going forward - there will be another move at some point - back to my own hardware, but it will take several weeks I think. The hardware has to be shipped from its current location (Michigan) to California, where a good friend is going to revamp the servers and re-rack them in a new datacenter... at which point I can move all my shit back to them. The story is a fun one and ill tell it when time allows ? For now... we are back! Albeit a little slower. For now. I WILL fix that ?

ok guys. Last update on this one. The transfer took a LOT longer than expected... not entirely sure why. But it appears that I will need to take the site down during the sync as changes made here are messing with the restore over there. So in a moment I am going to take the forum offline and it will be offline until its up 100% at the new server... and I am sorry to say that the process could well take 12 hours. I will try to make it faster this time, but its kinda out of my hands - it takes as long as it takes. but the results will be worth it ?

Ya, this is still the old server. Next time it goes offline ill change DNS and sync up changes... the initial data copy is still happening in the background. Takes a minute to transfer 250GB of shit lol.

Server move is in progress, but the forum is live for posting... I will briefly take it offline again to re-sync data in a few hours once the large file base is transferred (its taking a very long time).