And We're Back

MrsGrey

Sorry about the down time. Not sure what happened, but thanks to all (you know who you are) who tried to find a solution. It wasn't deliberate, that's for sure But we need to think about how we handle technical crises in future, because in this instance - lacking any expertise myself - I had to get outside help from an expert.

OldCastleSwift

Thanks for getting us back online MrsG. Felt a bit lost for a couple of days, I'll be honest.

Would love to offer some help but I have no idea when it comes to things like this. Honestly, how telephones work still blows mind, let alone 21st century tech.

alderz

I’m going to try and learn, but I have no real idea about coding, so if anyone else has experience it would be really helpful

MrsGrey

OldCastleSwift said:

Thanks for getting us back online MrsG. Felt a bit lost for a couple of days, I'll be honest.

Would love to offer some help but I have no idea when it comes to things like this. Honestly, how telephones work still blows mind, let alone 21st century tech.

I didn't do anything apart from ask various people for help... eventually hit on someone, with alderz's help, who could do the business.

We are going to need someone who can do what John did though - all the techie stuff, coding and so on. Whether that's a site member, or we hire external support... if we want the site to continue as it currently is.

DJ Hammer

Mrs Grey great that you got the site back up and running, I thought it was the end for a while. What about taping into the expertise of some of the West Ham threads on FB. I’ll check with a pal of mine who loves this sort of stuff, he’s not a West Ham fan and knows absolutely nothing about football, so he’s ideal, 😂

steve

So missed the site .Thanks so much Mrs Grey,However i would be no help ,Hardly know how to change a light bulb ,But thanks again am sure it was the last thing you wanted to deal with Mrs Grey

BubblesNeverDies

MrsGrey, if ever there was an example of "you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone", it was these past days of the site being down.
Thank you so much for getting it back and I'm sure Grey is looking down and saying "that's my girl".

And Alderz is also deserving of thanks for reaching out to the Vanilla community and of course those there that helped.

Huge thank you to all who helped restore the best West Ham forum there is.

COYI

Brother_Sledge

Agree with all of the above - felt quite bereft , Many thanks Mrs Grey, Alderz and others involved. I'm not too bad with metal , wood and masonry but tech is just a total mystery I am afraid.

Cuz1

I can lift heavy objects

Hamstew

Mrs Grey and others thanks for getting it back on. Especially as you have enough on your plate. With regards to help I could probably make the tea.

buffybegood

So glad we're back up and running, really missed it here.

Fortuneseeker

Thank you to all who got us up and running again. Apologies but I can't offer any assistance on the IT front.

jay_in_cpt

Thanks to Mrs Grey & Alderz... So happy it’s back on... sadly another technology challenged one here.....

heathrowhammer

Also my thanks to everyone who the site back up and running. Well done

Ace of Clubs

A big thank you to Mrs Grey and all involved in getting the site up and running again. I, like others really missed my daily read and all my West Ham friends. I am unable to help with the tech side of things but if outside help is required I am more than willing to help with any expenses incurred.

Lukerz

I have no idea about codes but will ask around my end to see if anybody is willing to help. Wish I knew more about this sort of stuff.

MunichHammer

Thank you for getting everything running again. I was worried that this was the end of the forum for a while, there.

MrsGrey

Munich ... I was worried people would think it had been closed down. But I couldn't let anyone know what was going on😭

MunichHammer

I expected some kind of glitch and I knew that it used to be the man himself who sorted things out when this kind of sruff happened. Since I had no email or other contact I knew it was wait and see.
Is there any other site where a message to the 606ers could be dropped? Like a post on the kumb forum saying what the problem is and that someone is working on it?

MrsGrey

Good point. I had actually closed Grey's Twitter account a day or so before. Erm, yeah. Maybe I'll create a kumb account for that. But, you know, kumb. I don't really want to be involved there ; hmm

Ravel49

I must admit I was checking Twitter to see if there were any issues here.

Do you keep a record of all the users email addresses when they sign up? If so could you send an email out and bcc all users for privacy saying there’s issues with the site?

MrsGrey

I thought about that, because all the emails are registered, yes. But I don't keep them separately from the site ( on a file on a home pc or anything) - and I couldn't access them because I couldn't get on to the site 😃

I imagine there's a way to get to them by going into the database on the server, but I don't know how.

I'd closed Grey's Twitter account a few days before, so I couldn't put a notification there...
I was racking my brains for a way of letting people know. I even considered using the old predictor mailing lists to at least let some people know.
If I was clever enough I could have changed the wording of the error message. But I'm not. :-(

IronHerb

I don't think we need an an email telling us the sites down, that's pretty evident. We also don't want to create additional admin for MrsG or whoever maybe covering that.

MunichHammer

I don't use twitter, so I wouldn't have got anything, there. And I don't want to create too much work for MrsG, either.
For me it was just the question whether the site was down for good or whether it was just going to be a few days.

I wish I knew my way around websites and forums, I would love to be able to help.

Ravel49

I just meant for updates.
If anything unexpected had happened and it’s being worked on, hope to be up and running again in the next few days.
Agreed don’t want to cause any more work though.

BubblesNeverDies

I Googled for problems with whu606 and found a link to the Vanilla forum where Alderz had asked for help and saw that help was indeed being given.

https://open.vanillaforums.com/discussion/38447/error-message

welovethehammers

MrsGrey, I'm not as active as a lot of members but I'm happy to do my best to help. I have experience with website maintenance but I tend to use pretty easy to use platforms like WordPress which takes care of a lot of the techie things in the background and generally gives me a pretty easy to use interface. Having said that, I do have some HTML knowledge - although pretty basic.

r_j

I know this discussion is a little bit older, but I wanted to give some more insights on what technical knowledge could be helpful.

This forum runs on a virtual server which means that the underlying operating system needs some maintenance. Those who know Linux know that the most important steps are doing a apt update and apt upgrade once in a while.

Everybody who understood the above can be a big help already

Before running that system update, a backup should be made. I have jotted down a simple script which packs all important files into one zip file that can be downloaded easily, so no further knowledge of the forum script is needed.
Not a good backup strategy, I know, but a first step.

Forum updates usually must be done annually and the upgrade steps are really simple. But don't worry about that: most of the time there should be help available in the Vanilla forum and I have registered an account here so that you can approach me directly since I have some experience with Vanilla.

ValiantIron

I can help.

I'm a professional engineer - not a specialist in this area, but I'm interested, have technical skills and run a Linux dual boot laptop for fun! Yes, I do recognise your commands. I would need to develop the specific tool knowledge required, but as you say that's what the forums are for.

I don't have much spare time, but am happy to do what I can to help.

Cuz1

I’m a techno phobe so if you ever have to ask me were in deep trouble 😂😂