System updates

This forum is for administrator/moderator updates on system status, updates, enhancements, etc.
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elc32955
System Manager
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Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2012 10:32 am
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Re: System updates

Post by elc32955 »

#24 - 8/18/15

OK folks, I've added a new sub-forum onto the system. It's entitled "Group Purchases", this is to enable us to coordinate any group parts purchases that the membership may want to make for our cars. Bill (NavyLifer) has agreed to coordinate this section, any questions please direct them his way. Also.... he sets the rules & payment terms for the group purchases.

Thanks & enjoy!
Eric
System Manager and your tour guide for the day. 2015 Caprice w/LFX, former NC DPS staff car. Partial hybrid G8/SS/Camaro SS interior mods, SS MyLink radio upgrade, 2016 Camaro V6 rims, GMPP Malibu chrome exhaust tips, otherwise bone stock for now.
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elc32955
System Manager
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Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2012 10:32 am
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Re: System updates

Post by elc32955 »

Folks,

In follow up to my issue #23 of July 24, I've re-enabled the Board email service effective as of yesterday. Hopefully the spam block has been cleared from all outside services on our mail IP, so we'll see what happens. I'll be monitoring the board account for error messages closely.

So this means you'll now start to again see messages from the system when following a thread, when you have a PM waiting, etc etc.....

Thanks
Eric
System Manager and your tour guide for the day. 2015 Caprice w/LFX, former NC DPS staff car. Partial hybrid G8/SS/Camaro SS interior mods, SS MyLink radio upgrade, 2016 Camaro V6 rims, GMPP Malibu chrome exhaust tips, otherwise bone stock for now.
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elc32955
System Manager
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Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2012 10:32 am
Location: East Central Florida
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Re: System updates

Post by elc32955 »

Hi everyone!

Just a quick item to inform everyone of, this morning sometime after midnight access to the system was cut off for roughly 10-11 hours. Everything is now restored & operating correctly, it turns out a fiber-optic cable cut and a corresponding server outage were to blame. There's not many things you can do when you have a piece of cut glass at a critical point unfortunately.

Thanks
Eric
System Manager and your tour guide for the day. 2015 Caprice w/LFX, former NC DPS staff car. Partial hybrid G8/SS/Camaro SS interior mods, SS MyLink radio upgrade, 2016 Camaro V6 rims, GMPP Malibu chrome exhaust tips, otherwise bone stock for now.
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elc32955
System Manager
Posts: 2718
Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2012 10:32 am
Location: East Central Florida
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Re: System updates

Post by elc32955 »

#25 - 1/1/2016

Well, nothing like starting off the new year with a bang! It seems we had three spam accounts establish a presence on the system on the 31st, and apparently these accounts made a few posts and may have messaged several users. I have deleted all the spam accounts, along with all posts that were made. I'm not sure if these accounts were IM'ing people and if so, that all the IM's were deleted, but hopefully so. I didn't receive any, so apparently they hadn't run very far down the list.

In order to mitigate this from happening again, I've reinstituted the EMAIL validator on new membership access (since it seems our previous EMAIL problem is now fixed) and changed up the validation questions required to get through the front door. If you recall, the reason we had placed registrations on automatic in the first place was a temporary measure while we were experiencing the email problems with the board. Now that it's fixed, there's no reason not to place the normal security back on.

If we continue to have problems, I can up the security even further to require a system admin to physically approve all new users. I'd rather not do that again, as at that point new members are dependent on me checking EMAIL in a timely manner.... Anyway, my apologies and hopes this will not happen again, however nothing is for sure in this day and age of sophisticated spammers.

In closing, if EVER you see anything funky going on with the forums or system please drop me or any other the other admins an EMAIL, we will probably see those quicker then a moderator request to alert on a bad message. You can EMAIL me directly from the main system page.

Thanks
Eric
System Manager and your tour guide for the day. 2015 Caprice w/LFX, former NC DPS staff car. Partial hybrid G8/SS/Camaro SS interior mods, SS MyLink radio upgrade, 2016 Camaro V6 rims, GMPP Malibu chrome exhaust tips, otherwise bone stock for now.
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elc32955
System Manager
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Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2012 10:32 am
Location: East Central Florida
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Re: System updates

Post by elc32955 »

Hi everyone!

Just a quick admin note, in the next week or so I'm going to be doing some system maintenance on the image file section. As you know, most of our old pic files from 2013 and into 2014 were blown due to a server move that didn't go quite right. What remains on many old posts is something that resembles psychedelic hash or a large blank space, the only problem is that the garbage that's left takes up system space.

SO.... as I find these pictures in the database I'm going to zap them as it doesn't make sense to leave them as-is. I'd encourage anyone that has pics posted in this timeframe to delete the garbage and reload your pics if you're still able to, there were some really excellent pics up. I'm working on getting my old pics reloaded as well.

And... if you're reloading, please remember our image file size guidelines.

Thanks!
Eric
System Manager and your tour guide for the day. 2015 Caprice w/LFX, former NC DPS staff car. Partial hybrid G8/SS/Camaro SS interior mods, SS MyLink radio upgrade, 2016 Camaro V6 rims, GMPP Malibu chrome exhaust tips, otherwise bone stock for now.
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elc32955
System Manager
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Re: System updates

Post by elc32955 »

Hi everyone!

Just an administrative update or two... I've been working with the Vendor forum sub-sections in the last few days. Changes I've made are as follows....

1) BMR Suspension now has their own vendor section.

2) RepliCast Wheels has had somewhat of a business downturn, they're still around but are Facebook only and are no longer actively posting on forums. All of their images were blown when they shut their website down last year and there was no content worthwhile to save there (just all old sale ads), so I've killed off their section.

3) Stainless Works exhaust was invited to re-participate in the forums but I've not heard anything from them, so their content has all been moved to the Exhaust sub-board and their separate vendor section deleted. If they come back in the future I may re-establish their separate section.

For the moment, house cleaning done!

Thanks
Eric
System Manager and your tour guide for the day. 2015 Caprice w/LFX, former NC DPS staff car. Partial hybrid G8/SS/Camaro SS interior mods, SS MyLink radio upgrade, 2016 Camaro V6 rims, GMPP Malibu chrome exhaust tips, otherwise bone stock for now.
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elc32955
System Manager
Posts: 2718
Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2012 10:32 am
Location: East Central Florida
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Re: System updates

Post by elc32955 »

Hi everyone!

Since we're now starting to see more users as more cars are cycled into the private market, I need to do some more forum work in order to accommodate our future needs & growth. I'm going to shortly be taking the for sale and wanted sections and splitting them up a bit. The for sale will now encompass two sub-sections when I'm done, one section for parts & components, the other section strictly for vehicles. The wanted to buy section will stay the same (for now). This lets us split the vehicle ads from the ads for selling other parts & pieces and helps to sort things better. I'll probably do this within the next 1-2 weeks when I get a little free time.
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EDIT - Follow-up, 3/7/16, 6:30 AM. OK folks, the updates are now done. You'll notice one new discussion topic in the general forum, this covers HVAC and vehicle cooling. I neglected to create a subsection for these topics when I first set up the forum in late 2012 so it's now done. The Marketplace has been overhauled as per above, also I created a general for-sale section for non-Caprice related items, cars, etc.. as those do come up from time to time. And you'll notice I've re-ordered the forum topics a bit by putting the discussion areas in pretty much alphabetical order as much as possible. Slightly different ordering, but all the same topics and discussions are still there.

Enjoy!
Eric
System Manager and your tour guide for the day. 2015 Caprice w/LFX, former NC DPS staff car. Partial hybrid G8/SS/Camaro SS interior mods, SS MyLink radio upgrade, 2016 Camaro V6 rims, GMPP Malibu chrome exhaust tips, otherwise bone stock for now.
Navy Lifer
Administration Staff
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Location: Canton GA

Re: System updates

Post by Navy Lifer »

Folks, I'm not the expert on this, but there appears to be a number of recent posts missing, at least some that I know I posted....I've asked Eric to look into it.

Bill
CrashTestDummy
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Re: System updates

Post by CrashTestDummy »

Hmm, yeah, Bill, stuff from the weekend are gone. April fool's joke?!? :D
Gene Beaird,
Pearland, Texas
2012 Caprice 9C1
1992 B4C 1LE Camaro
2018 Tahoe PPV (her car)
1995 DGGM Impala SS
1985 Firebird - 310 LS1 C Prepared autocross car.
1980 Bluebird Wanderlodge
And some others
Do YOU have my SPID?
User avatar
elc32955
System Manager
Posts: 2718
Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2012 10:32 am
Location: East Central Florida
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Re: System updates

Post by elc32955 »

Hi everyone!

I was notified on Sunday morning that the hosting company that we use to house the NewCaprice site was in the process of moving servers and that our service needed to be migrated to the new site. This was accomplished sometime earlier today. The system appears to be running normally, the only issues I've noticed so far is that we appear to have lost a day or two of messages, starting from around April 1 forward to this evening. Those "MAY" be able to be recovered and re-synch'ed, not sure yet.

This is an activity that does not happen regularly, in fact it's only happened twice before during the lifetime of the system and it is a result of a data center move. I did make a post on Sunday morning announcing the pending move, however since the server is now moved that post vanished.

If you see any bugs in the system (other then missing messages) over the next few days, experience speed or performance issues, or have questions please EMAIL me. I profusely apologize for any lost content, this evolution is totally out of my control and I'm hoping any missing messages show back up when the systems are re-synch'd. But, no guarantee.

Bill, Gene, I really wish this was an April Fool's joke but it isn't.

Thanks
Eric
System Manager and your tour guide for the day. 2015 Caprice w/LFX, former NC DPS staff car. Partial hybrid G8/SS/Camaro SS interior mods, SS MyLink radio upgrade, 2016 Camaro V6 rims, GMPP Malibu chrome exhaust tips, otherwise bone stock for now.
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