I'm currently working on shifting the forum over to the new server at sumean.com and migrating the forum database to sql server.
The new webhosts don't have any upload components at all, and they sorta expect people to utilize asp.net for any uploading needs. This forum requires components however, and they have no plans on providing a componentless solution, so what this basically means is that when I move the forum over there, you can't attach / upload pics or avatars anymore.
I'm hoping people will register for a Sumea profile to upload their work, and linking / embedding it in the forum once the forum has migrated, and if you haven't uploaded your avatar, please do it soon.
Yeh, I was expecting the worst, but the forum migrated pretty well. It's running on the new sql server database, all the posts from over the years migrated across without a hitch, and the forum is blistering fast!
However, the price of all this is that you can't upload and attach images to the forum like you could before. The web host / this server doesn't have any upload components installed (and not likely ever to), so that functionality can't be used unless the forum creator makes an asp.net 2.0 option to upload files or writes a component-less solution, or I hack something up together.
I don't know if it has anything to do with this, but I had a really hard time registering on this particular forum.
It simply wouldn't work. I had the idea to change the cookie settings in Firefox 2.0.0.4 from "keep them until they expire" to "keep them until I close Firefox", then I managed to register...
Yeh, it's the new server and partly the forum's fault as well. The server doesn't keep sessions for longer than 5 seconds (which absolutely sucks), and the forum software needs to use sessions with new registrations for some security reason.
There's no other solution other than to look for new and better web hosting, which is what I'm currently researching. Yeh, it's a pain since I have to pick up and move everything again, but this current webhost blows. The database is always down, I can't use sessions or application variables, there are no asp components (so the functionality to upload and attach pics in the forum is gone), and most of those reasons are why I haven't migrated sumea.com.au to the new server. I have about 6 months left with the new webhost, so by the time that is up, we should have migrated elsewhere and all those problems should be gone.
The forum has been down for the most of the last two days, and occasionally before then. I've been sending emails to the webhost about it, and it takes them a whole day to fix it before it goes down again. :/ I'll just keep sending them support tickets until they get the message to fix the source of the problem, rather than, I'm guessing, rebooting the server.
I also requested they do something about sessions timing out to quickly, since I'm getting a lot of emails from people wanting to register a forum account, but cannot. Members are also having problems updating their info in the forum because of the sessions problem. It looks like they normally give a tiny amount of memory allocated to each website for sessions, and they've finally increased mine, so hopefully that should all be fixed now.
I'll still move the forum to another webhost when the lease is up though.
Well, that was a bit disappointing.
Yep, the forum was down for the last four or so days, and the webhost acknowledge that something is wrong at their end. They're planning to move our databases to a new server, and well, they actually haven't yet. Which probably means a bit more downtime when they do move it across.
The big move has happened, and the forum and databases are on a new server. I can't seem to get on forum.sumean.com though (it chucks up a password prompt so I have to visit the forum via a preview directory). I'm guessing the dns hasn't completely propogated yet although I can see that a few of you on here ok.
Ok, the forums have been moved. I will be restoring the look, adding back the modifications we had, and updating the links on the site which had links to the old forum so it's all back to normal. We lost a few daysworth of posts though. If anyone could test the email to see if it works? Let me know if you can send yourself a forum email. I've been having trouble setting that up, but hopefully it should be ok now *fingers crossed*.