frostfire

Ok, now we're getting somewhere. Can't decide which looks better on the site tho. The colored one may be "too much"... but the white one makes the mouth look over-colored. Thoughts anyone? The white background one will look like this (had to screenshot it from the test forum, since this page has a white background and you cant see it here)

Another note to self: When hiring a random barely-english-speaking guy from fiverr.com to redo your logo, make sure you are very explicit with what you want. Sent him our current logo. Told him to make it almost exactly the same, just updated to be more modern and with a color scheme to fit the new forums, and I provided him a link to the test forums to see the colors there. The test forums were at ptalk.servingtulsa.com (which is now down, obviously). Here is the logo I got back lol. Lets hope round 2 goes better. Asked him to add shading and perhaps change the colors a bit. Its too... well... too something. I'm not a graphic artist. Oh, and I asked him to get the fucking name right. Idiot.

The time is come... Pattayatalk is getting a facelift. Or maybe beer goggles. Or both. I will be taking the current site down at some point on Saturday Dec 15 (no set time - just after I wake up), and I will be doing the upgrade to the latest forum software. I expect the downtime to be less than 6 hours, and with any luck only about 2-3. If any unexpected issues arise during the transition, I will cancel the upgrade and re-activate this website. After the upgrade, the URL for the forums will change slightly, but going to either www.pattayatalk.com or www.pattayatalk.com/forums will automatically forward you to the new URL. I do not want to give out the new URL just yet because I do not want any traffic at all hitting it until I know the upgrade worked, but I can tell you that the URL will be on the pattayatalk.com domain and will be just as easy (if not easier) to remember... Immediately after the upgrade the web page that is currently at www.pattayatalk.com (the FLB Bar one), will be gone - but the new website may not be in place yet. Eventually there will be a landing page there for the pattayatalk forums that will include some information, a memorial page for Martin and various other links and services for expats and tourists alike. That website is in development now, but I doubt I will finish it by Saturday, so I will simply forward all that traffic directly to the forums. If you try to visit any pattayatalk.com domain URL while the upgrade is happening, you will see a blank website with a simple warning saying that the website is down for maintenance. Once the site goes live, you can refresh the page to be forwarded to the new forums (hopefully). I am also going to hire a graphic artist to re-design our pattayatalk logo. I will use the same exact theme, but update it a bit for a more modern look. Until that is done, the new forum will not have a logo, but instead just say "pattayatalk.com". Will keep this notice up for the next couple days as an advert, so it will be very visible.

Yes, very easy. I suggest you complete the registration process and become a standard member of the forum. You will see much more content, including stuff you will want to know before moving here.

Ok guys. Todays update went much better and faster than the others, mostly because I am pre-empting all the errors now with a script that I run before and during the transfer process that kills the errors at the root. Total time for this latest upgrade was only 3.5 hours. Not bad considering the file transfer alone takes almost 2 hours. Now the fun part. I need some of you to try to break it. I am going to make a post in the secure section (this is in the open section) with the URL for the test site. What want from you guys is to take a look, make a test post. Look shit up. Try to break it, or just give me feedback on the look of the ugly ass default skin. Ill make that post in a few minutes in the Members Bar.

Hmm. Good ideas. New forum title? Lets revisit that idea once I get us moved. And on that note, I am in the middle right now of the last test-transfer. I know I have done a lot of these, but each time I have found new issues... so ill continue to do them until all of the issues are solved during the process (and not discovered for the first time). With any luck this one will do the trick, and if so I will leave the test site up tomorrow for the mods to play with for a day or 3, then do the move for real. ITs very close now... I suspect all issues will be fixed by my scripts this run. I hope. lol.

Likely lack of testing. I've spent well over 100 hours on this already... And I am pretty good with this kind of stuff. I can only imagine how someone without a 30+ year history in IT would handle it. I am trying to make sure i preempt most if not all of the issues that will come up so that hopefully there won't be any lol. As far as hardware goes that won't be an issue. The server it's on is empty and has way more resources than any single website could ever use. Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

Its never quite that simple is it? Support was stopped on this version almost 2 years ago, and there are 32 known script attacks that this version is open to. 12 of those have been noted in US-CERT notifications. Furthermore, we have had almost 1000 fake registrations per week over the last several months. My own scripts are killing most, but not all, of those. Its just a matter of time before someone successfully kills our site with one of the script attacks, and then we will all wish I had updated it. On top of all that, the server this is on right now is not set up properly. Martin did all the setup himself, and while he was fair with linux, he was not a security expert. We really do not have much of a choice in the end. We have to upgrade. I know not everyone will be happy with the result, but there is nothing I can do about that.

once we get moved, absolutely. When we first switch over, we will be on a stock template. No customization at all, but with the same forums and sections you can see today. After the move, I am open to any changes that make sense. Will also be buying an SSL certificate which is something martin never had. that will allow people who chose to the ability to log in via facebook, google, etc. I will also be trying to find a global chat app of some sort that will let us have a live chat feature for anyone who is online. That will happen fairly quickly after the move. Also ill be redesigning the landing page, and adding a memorial page for Martin... and likely a few other things.

Once I get the website moved to the new server (that is part of the upgrade process), there will be a new website going up that will include something for Martin. The current landing page at www.pattayatalk.com is way out of date, but a technical issue is stopping me from updating it where it is right now... another of the reasons we need this update :)

That's exactly why I have taken so long to do it. Its not critical... but it is needed. While the site is working, it has a lot of security holes, and the newer versions are quite nice... and we pay for it, so we should be running it! (yes, I pay them every 6 months, like Martin did before). More on the update. I am fine-tuning the process now, but it appears that I will be hard-pressed to do the full upgrade in less than 6 hours. I started another test run today at about 1am Thai time. its 7am now, and I think its just about done with the final portion of the upgrade scripts... after which there is about 30-45 minutes of configuration changes to make before taking the site live again. I know I can shave 1 hour off that time, perhaps 2.... but no more than that. I am going to do one more full port over tomorrow and time it, and assuming I do not run in to any errors, I may do the for-real update the day after. When I do the upgrade, I will try to keep this site live but in read-only mode - no posting. I am not sure that will work, so it might just say "offline for maintenance". When all is said and done, the forum will look quite a bit different. Our skin will be gone, and our logo as well, temporarily. I may hire someone to make a new logo - same theme, just higher resolution and perhaps a little more with the times. But the posts will be here, as will the reputation system, users, permissions, etc. Everything we need. hopefully the new look/feel doesnt scare anyone away. it is different... but better in many ways, once you get used to it. Frosty

And another quick update. Spent all day on this for the first time, and with good results. Found all the issues stopping the upgrade (again)... I am happy to report that their latest version actually fixed over half of the issues I had last time! I did send them a report about that when I was going thru it, and it seems they put in some very good fixes, which is great! Unfortunately they missed one huge glaring and stupid issue right from the start. For you developers out there, get this. Their "Get ready for IPB4 test script" did not test to make sure json was enabled on your php installation. My initial issues were because json_decode() was failing. Apparently its not installed by default with LAMP on CentOS7, and their script to test your servers compatibility did not test for it. So I sent that in to them, along with a list of the other errors I had to fix by hand. SO far so good. Now the bad news: The total upgrade process including the copying of the data is going to take 3-6 hours, during which time the site will be down (in maintenance mode) to prevent anyone posting anything. I was thinking about waiting until Christmas to do it to minimize the impact, but I suspect with all the custom steps I have to do that It might be best to do it right away as soon as I feel confident in the server working properly and all the little pieces fitting together right.... so do not be surprised if I take the site down suddenly in the next few days to handle the upgrade. Not much I can do to warn you... I might post under the FLB Bar facebook group when I start it. Many of you are on there. Other than that, just keep a eye open for everything to look different all of a sudden lol. Frosty

As many of you may remember, a while back I took over the forum with a promise to get us upgraded (finally) to the latest IPB software, which offers a range of new options and features. I got a test copy of the board working after a successful upgrade some months ago that we tested a bit and announced ready to go... The only problem being the skin, which I worked on when I had time over the last several months. Well, low and behold in that time another version has been released, making the last obsolete.... and the new version does not like us very much. It seems it thinks we are worthy only of a 500 server error and nothing more. (no logs, no way to find the root of the problem, etc). lol. Today I was cut off from IPB's tech support with them saying that they would agree to perform the upgrade on our live site only, and not on a test site that I set up to make sure it works. I am simply unwilling to do that at this point for a number of reasons, the foremost being that I want this site moved to a server with more resources (more RAM and HD space available). I am going to continue working with it over the next few weeks in hopes that I can find and fix whatever issue is causing the errors so we can move forward with the live migration. Once that time hits, I will try to warn everyone ahead of time and schedule it to minimize downtime. So... the fight continues. Frosty

Ooh, great thread. How did I ever miss this one?

Hi guys, I am eventually going to sticky this thread, but need some info from the group. I want numbers, emails, etc that may be important to a visitor to Pattaya. I will start the list out, but please add to the thread and I will update this original post. Royal Thai Police: 191 Tourist Police: 1155 (cell) Immigration Police: 1178 Highway Police: 1169 General info for Pattaya City (like a city operator): 1337 (then 9 for english) Bangkok Pattaya Hospital: 1719 Fire/Rescue: 199 Pattaya Sea Rescue: 038-488-134

Provided it works correctly, yes you can. But don't count on it always working. It has intermittent technical issues, and is sometimes down for no obvious reason.

You do not need a new sound card unless you are doing advanced audio stuff.... unless of course the low volume issue is due to a bad sound processor, and with a 9+ year old motherboard that is surely possible. Even that though should be fixed with a good set of speakers. In fact with an older motherboard like that I would suggest putting your sound output in windows to 20% or less and using the speakers amp to increase the sound level. That should increase the sound quality as well.

Totally depends on how important good sound is for you. I have the Logitech Z906. Its quite spendy, and as far as I have been able to find there are none for sale in Thailand. I had to order mine from hong kong. But.. the sound quality is unmatched. The surround sound for movies is awesome, and for gaming you can actually hear the direction something is coming from. Doesn't get much better. For a still good quality but cheaper option, take a look at Creative Labs stuff. They sell them here, and most are fairly cheap ( I think the Logitech cost me about 10k baht delivered.

Ya. Its new home is on a monster server. Over 100 processing cores and 512GB of RAM. Its a real beast. On top of that, it appears the old servers RAID controller has been failing for some time. The packet loss was pretty bad by the time I noticed it, which undoubtedly has been sucking up "speed" from all the servers on there. New controller will be delivered in about 8 hours and will get it swapped out.. .but ill leave ptalk on this bigger server. :)

Nope, wasn't you. Was a failed RAID controller. Damn things cost a right fortune too. :/ grr. lol. Oh well.

Server is back up now. 98 minutes. Sorry about that. Took insanely long to copy the drive over. But done deal, and this server should be quite a bit faster as well. At least it better be. It cost 10x more lol. :)

Hi guys, Just got a notice that the server I have the PattayaTalk VPS hosted on has a very critical piece of hardware that is failing. Usually when something like this happens I use a feature called Migration to move the server from one physical machine to another with no downtime (it quite literally keeps the server running while its being moved). The issue with that method is that it takes a really long time (like 12+ hours), and from my testing I do not think we have that kind of time available before the server fails. To that end, I am going to manually shut down this server and move it to another server and bring it back online again. That process is much faster, but will still result in some downtime - perhaps as much as an hour, but hopefully more like 30 minutes. With any luck most of you will never notice, but undoubtedly some will - it is my hope that most of those users will see this notice and not worry :) This will be happening in the next couple hours. Not sure of the exact timing as I need to prepare the new server and all that jazz. I will post a update to this thread once the move is complete. While the move is happening this whole domain will be unavailable. Frosty

Pretty sure thats the ... is it a goat? ... that is always sitting at the 7-11 opposite the open air market on soi khow talo.

Did great for a few days as I expected, but nothing since :) Its all good tho. It is taking me way too long to get technical shit done on the site. Now I know how MM felt 555.

As part of the upgrade process I am going to change servers as well. I am not a linux person. But the version of Linux martin had installed here is very difficult to work with, even for linux (lol). The test server I set up with a basic linux OS is much easier to work with and diagnose issues on, and I will create a new server (more powerful) with the same for our final server. Thats going to happen in the next couple weeks. With any luck that will make these issues go away.