Moving servers...

[AlisterC]

QUOTE

Hi Alex,

Over the next two and a half weeks, NZFF will be moving from its current hosting to a new platform.

We will try to keep the boards online as much as possible, although there may be periods where the forums are inaccessible or do not fully function. Our aim is to have the forum working fully on the new hosting by the 3rd June.

We apologise in advance for any inconvenience this transition may cause.

Kind Regards,

Alex McLean (Alex)[/quote]

Hi guys,

Just thought I would post up the email that I just sent out to the board - for the benefit of people that have "allow emails from administrators" turned off.

As a quick aside, the current hosting expires on the 6th June, but the board will become inaccessible for 3-7 days later this week, or early next. To those who remember the long, stretched-out procedure last time; this time should be a lot smoother, as last year involved basically a change of board software - this time we are simply transferring the data across.

On a more cautious note, if there is anything that is desperately vital for you that is on the board, I'd recommend you back it up on your local disk. Theoretically the content of this board should transfer across seamlessly, but it's better to be safe than to lose something that you need.

If you have any questions feel free to post them here or PM me and I'd be happy to explain.

Alex

[AlisterC]

How do you think the screenshot contest voting will go? Will this be happening during the voting period?

[Alex]

Ah, good point Alister.

This may have to cut-off early and have the voting afterwards... - Although that would be up to Andrew.

Alex

[Alex]

Well guys, we're about 90% done - and there's no point keeping half the forum closed when we can do most things here...

There are some problems that you will experience in the meantime though...
One of these will be that the NZFF cookies won't hold - so you'll get logged out every x minutes (theoretically). This is because the nzff.org domain hasn't transferred across properly (I've just put in a redirect script...), so the cookies will be referring to nzff.org; which this page technically isn't.
This will continue to happen until the domain transfers across properly, which should be in the next 2-3 days.

If you pick up any other problems, let me know and I'll check 'em out.

Welcome back!

Alex

[Mattnz]

Woohoo, back online

Congrats to Alex, and whoever else put the work into this

[Anthony]

Very nice to have NZFF back.
Being offline meant I actually had to go outside this weekend ( ).

Thanks for bringing us such a great community.

Cheers
Anthony

[Charl]

Yes wasn't that a strange experience - no NZFF!
Well done Alex, appreciate the effort put in there.
Hope it doesn't happen too often, I'd have to plan my holidays more carefully...

[Stumpy]

One thing...the banner is linked to www.nzff.org therefore when I click it to return to the homepage I get logged out. Could this please be looked into

[Alex]

Hi James,

The logging-out issue is hinted at above with the cookie problem.

The problem is, the cookies (which keep you logged in) will be referring to www.nzff.org, but this page is actually at "http://web.mydns.net.nz/www.nzff.org/forum". This will continue to be a problem until the domain gets transferred over, which should be 2-3 days.

If you stay within the board, you'll get a personal session ID in each URL you visit within NZFF (a ~32 character alpha-numeric code), which will keep you logged in. If you close the NZFF page the session ID will expire, so you'll have to log in again.

So, if you visit "www.nzff.org", you're effectively navigating away from the page (as the session ID is no longer included), and will have to log in again. We can't link to a forum page with a session ID, because each one is different and generated when you log in. To stay logged in, just use the 'Breadcrumb Trail' (pictured below) instead of using the banner.



Hope this helps a wee bit, as I said, this is only a temporary problem, hopefully all sorted out soon.

Alex

[Stumpy]

QUOTE (Alex @ Jun 2 2008, 01:31 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hi James,

The logging-out issue is hinted at above with the cookie problem.

The problem is, the cookies (which keep you logged in) will be referring to www.nzff.org, but this page is actually at "http://web.mydns.net.nz/www.nzff.org/forum". This will continue to be a problem until the domain gets transferred over, which should be 2-3 days.

If you stay within the board, you'll get a personal session ID in each URL you visit within NZFF (a ~32 character alpha-numeric code), which will keep you logged in. If you close the NZFF page the session ID will expire, so you'll have to log in again.

So, if you visit "www.nzff.org", you're effectively navigating away from the page (as the session ID is no longer included), and will have to log in again. We can't link to a forum page with a session ID, because each one is different and generated when you log in. To stay logged in, just use the 'Breadcrumb Trail' (pictured below) instead of using the banner.



Hope this helps a wee bit, as I said, this is only a temporary problem, hopefully all sorted out soon.

Alex

Ahh ok thanks for that. No biggy just wasn't sure if it was overlooked.

[ardypilot]

QUOTE

Yes wasn't that a strange experience - no NZFF![/quote]
I know what you mean- me and all my mates reactivated our World of Warcraft accounts from 2006 and started playing that instead... while we were offline, I didn't check the avsim frontpage once for new downloads, let alone fire up good ole' fs9.exe

Last edited by ardypilot on Mon Jun 02, 2008 5:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Alex]

Just a quick note here, the 'nzff.org' domain is in the final stages of the transfer, and might not work fully over the next couple of days.

To continue getting through to NZFF, we recommend that you go to 'http://www.nzff.org.nz', or the temporary URL that is currently being used.

Feel free to email me at alex@nzff.org.nz if you have any problems, or just reply in this thread.

Alex

[creator2003]

just a quick note i typed in nzff.org and got redirected to a horde login page and enter my user name and password and was told in was all wrong only just thought id try the old 20.... ip and managed to find the board again this mite be happening to alot of others at the moment so heads up can we fix it plz ...or i take it its proberly happening now ...
mike

[Alex]

We're aware of this, not a lot we can do at this stage - something we needed to do, as the domain hasn't transferred over yet.

Action taken was getting rid of the domain on the old hosting (which expired two days ago...), but ISP's haven't refreshed their caches yet - so still pointing you to the location of the old forum, where the forum isn't.

Hopefully things will clear themselves up in the next couple of days (this seems to be the norm with domains), back into the business week - if not I'll get on the horn and see what's happened...

Alex

[creator2003]

Yup cheers mate im sweet now i can still get my daily fix with the way i got in hope other still work that bit out aswell ,thanks heaps ...

[HardCorePawn]

Can you clarify a couple of things...

1. We should have both www.nzff.org and www.nzff.org.nz domains?
2. They should both be showing the new forum location? (via Virtual Hosting?)

At present, www.nzff.org resolves to nothing (and has done for a couple of days)... I have tested this using several different ISPs (including one in australia)

nzff.org.nz is redirecting to web.mydns.net.nz, which is good as it allows forum access, but bad because the cookies are still not working correctly...

Are our hosting providers and domain registrants working on this? I would have expected it to only take a day or two...

[Alex]

QUOTE (HardCorePawn @ Jun 11 2008, 08:30 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

1. We should have both www.nzff.org and www.nzff.org.nz domains?

Yes.

QUOTE (HardCorePawn @ Jun 11 2008, 08:30 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

2. They should both be showing the new forum location? (via Virtual Hosting?)

Yes, they should. Nzff.org.nz is showing the new forum location, nzff.org is showing the location to some.

QUOTE (HardCorePawn @ Jun 11 2008, 08:30 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

At present, www.nzff.org resolves to nothing (and has done for a couple of days)... I have tested this using several different ISPs (including one in australia)

That's correct - some ISP's appear to have started working overnight - other's haven't. The underlying issue was that the registrar for this hoster had not changed the DNS servers, so domain was pointing to the wrong place, which is now fixed.

I've just got off the phone to the techies - It seems that Ihug, Maxnet etc should work, but most of Xtra (and a couple of other ISP's) hasn't updated yet. The others should come across soon - if not I'll keep following it up.

QUOTE (HardCorePawn @ Jun 11 2008, 08:30 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

nzff.org.nz is redirecting to web.mydns.net.nz, which is good as it allows forum access, but bad because the cookies are still not working correctly...

Exactly, when nzff.org comes up nzff.org.nz will redirect there and things wil proceed as normal.

QUOTE (HardCorePawn @ Jun 11 2008, 08:30 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Are our hosting providers and domain registrants working on this? I would have expected it to only take a day or two...

Yes, we're working with the hosting support (who are working with the registrants) to sort this out.

Alex

Edit: nzff.org is working for me now... I'll wait till tomorrow arvo before changing the links over, in case some ISP's are still not forwarding traffic properly...

[HardCorePawn]

woohoo... the www.nzff.org domain is now working properly (redirecting to web.mydns.net.nz) for me (ISP == Xtra)...

[Alex]

I've switched things over to run on nzff.org now, not the temporary URL.

Theoretically the cookies should work from now as well. However I wouldn't be suprised if some people had to log-in over the next couple of days due to the ins and outs of individual systems.

Feel free to post in here if you are having difficulty logging in, or staying logged in, or if you notice anything that's not quite right.

Alex