Gentlemen, Ladies and Lords,  As from the early hours of Saturday 28th December 2024 I will be undertaking engineering works on the Coffee Shop forum. For most work we do, we have sufficient resources to enable the Coffee Shop to remain running, but in this case I need to be working on the pointwork at the "station throat" and the forum will not be available

Some research will be needed in the process of the works - I will be as prepared as practical ahead of time, but never the less there will be some unknowns which crop up over the weekend. For a worst case scenario, the forum will be back online by the early hours of Monday 30th December ( if I have had a real struggle, achieved nothing but extra knowledge, and had to put it back "as was" ).

It is probable that you will need to log in afresh to the Coffee Shop once we return - please ensure your personal details are up to date by midnight on Friday 27th December so that we can send you news while we are down if we need to, and help you with account recovery if necessary.

A status page at http://status.firstgreatwestern.info will keep you updated over the weekend. I intend to post comment there on progress about every 12 hours.    Recent public posts made prior to the stoppage will be available to read at https://www.greatwesternrailway.info/recent.html thought the weekend, and you can navigate from there to read much other recent public content too.

The works being done include adding the ability to access the forum in both read and write mode through https (secure) protocol in addition to http (regular) protocol.  Technically, I don't believe there's much of a problem with us using the old protocol - we don't collect personal ID or financial data.  However, virus checkers barf at us using the older protocol, and search engines downrate us too.  It's a step we have long needed to take, but the maturity of our software base means that it's far more of a technical challenge than it has been for loads of other sites I have already switched!


Edit note: Corrections to typos for days of the week. CfN.

 
I would say the alternative URL counts as a diversion rather than a FRS (Forum replacement service).

Of course Murphys law of IT upgrades will apply. Like the time when(On the Friday of half term) I had just started a 3 hour job to upgrade an email system for a group of colleges. 10 minutes in the Principal's PA rang to say she had just opened the letter from Ofstead announcing we where getting a full Inspection starting on the following Monday morning.

Or the time I had arranged a 3 day shutdown of the Virtual learning system. This was well publicised on the home page of the system as well as by Email to all staff and students. But just after I had started to migrate the database there was a desparate phone call from one tutor who had arranged for his students to use the system for a major catch up workshop because he had been off sick for some time.

 

Unusually for me, I resisted the temptation to make too much fun / light in the initial announcement in the interest of clarity. Yes, Murphy's law may strike.   I have done a risk assessment and there's a significant chance of certain things including some unknown ones going wrong with pretty severe immediate outcomes.  So I have an option B in place and mitigations pre-planned and available if need be.

 
Pinging this topic ...

The forum will be running as normal until and including 27th December.  On past form, traffic tomorrow (25th December) will be much less than on a normal Wednesday, it will build back a little on 26th and be almost normal on 27th.

We will be offline on 28th and probably 29th December - with occasional engineering updates during that period at http://status.firstgreatwestern.info . 

Service will resume by the early hours of 30th December and will continue for the foreseeable future. Members may need to log in again, and you are strongly encouraged to check that your email address is up to date so that our admins can get you up and running again if there are any issues / forgotten user names and/or passwords.

 

Preparation and planning suggests I may need to make changes on the status server too - I already broke it briefly and repaired it on Monday.  If you find that the status server is "out" as well for an hour or two, please don't worry.

 
Sharing text of a social media post I have just made to remind people ... and using it to bump this thread too.

As from the early hours of Saturday 28th December 2024 for up to 48 hours, the Great Western Coffee Shop forum will be offline for maintenance as I (the geek who does the server and code stuff) take a major step in moving the "18 week" project from 2007 into its 18th year.

Preparations works have been done - however there are certain issues that need research and testing on the day, so there is no 100% guaranteed outcome.  What I can tell you is that if my work fails, at worst it will be back "as is" by Monday morning and you'll see no differences (because, at worst, there won't BE any!)

Over the weekend ...
1. I will update the status page at least every 12 hours at https://status.firstgreatwestern.info to keep you informed
2. The majority of public content will remain available most of the time via https://www.greatwesternrailway.info/
3. The main site at http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/ may be up and down as I test but please note that anything you post may be lost.  I WILL start with a database backup so if I screw up completely past content (25,750 theads, 353,583 posts) can be restored if need be.

 

Oops 

 

Corrected.   Shows my enthusiasm to get the job done!

 
The Coffee Shop is going offline for maintenance work.  See http://status.firstgreatwestern.info for updates.
You may also find the forum available at http://worker.firstgreatwestern.info in read only mode for much of the time.

We will be back by 03:00 on Monday 30th December at the latest.

 
A further test piece

 
I almost prefer it without the CSS…

 

Hmm ... 

 

Aha! Just tried the 'like' button...

 

The first 95% of the work takes the first 95% of the time - the final 5% will take the second and third 95%s of the time

 

{like} ;-)

 

The test forum has been running like treacle (or more like tar) overnight - and I have just found what I think may be the cause.   I am leaving it to run for an hour or two to be absolutely sure before I do anything else.

Known issue that I will then look at
- The "like" system is failing to allow new likes
- The buttons and helpers at the top of new post submissions are not working
Both of these are Javascript options / internet security does not like code being passed from the backroom server to the front of house server and some code changes are needed but I need to be sure the other stuff ir right and not treacle first.

Postings, personal messages, etc, posted ARE being added to the database as normal so you can carry on ...

 

It seems that I have managed to melt the tar and performance issues and it's running much better.  Google has found the new https rather than http site and is enthusiastically indexing us.

Like sorta-works.   Security issues mean it gives you a blank page back rather than updating the existing one, so you need to refresh to see that you have liked - a bit irritating but such a key feature to bring back as soon as was practical and in doing that work I have other exciting stuff on the new server.  I have capitalised the word LIKE to alert you to the fact it's a bit different at the moment.

Buttons and helpers at the top are working, and I have now managed to upload a new avatar.

Lots still to do in various places but corefunctionallity is back - and thanks for all the confirm of the various browsers too.   

 

Great effort Graham - just shows what can be achieved when you have Sunday in the working week!