General Forum Issues & Updates

[Blue]

Hey all, I wanted to let you know that we have been seeing some forum/server issues over the last few weeks.

The "Account Suspended" issue is an issue with the Host Server company. Kym is in the process of moving/upgrading hosts and that issue should be resolved soon.

The massive increase of spam is related to the new forum upgrade to the latest forum version. Unfortunately, some of the anti-spam modifications which had been installed on the older version no longer work with the newer version.
Combusken and I will continue to remove spam and ban the abusers as they post, so you can expect the spam attacks to be cleaned up quickly.

Over the coming weeks, I will be testing out new anti-spam measures which I expect to reduce the amount of spam we are seeing right now, so please be patient.

Planned Queue for fixes/upgrades

1. "Back office" upgrades. Too boring to post here – in process (going very well)
2. Increased anti-spam measures – Done
3. Tapatalk Support (for easy reading/posting on smart phones) – Done
4. Marking edited posts as a "new post." (mark as unread) – Done

If you are experiencing any bugs, please report them here: Bug Reports
If you have suggestions for improvements, please post them in this thread started by Siniri: Forum Improvements

Thank you for your patience and understanding while the forum upgrades are underway.

Thanks,
Blue

[Blue]

2013-04-16 Update:
New users now must have their first 3 posts approved by an administrator (me). Until these posts are approved, none of their posts will show up. This includes the spammers who have been blasting us with 31+ spam posts at one time. None of those posts will show up

There are a few additional internal issues that need to be resolved. Kym and I are working on fixing these as they come up. If you experience "General Errors", please PM me with the error you see (cut and paste will be great), and what you were doing immediately before you got the error.

2013-04-18 Update:

• Tapatalk support has been added
• Fixed mod that disallows users with < x posts to be able to post links. (This also stops many of the autospammers!)

2013-04-22 Update:

• Updated/Strengthened Captcha to help prevent autobot spammer signups
• Fixed "spoiler" tag
• Fixed Logo Size

2013-04-22 Update:

• Completed the update of timestamp for edited posts (Last in thread)
• Upgraded Arcade to 1.0.RC1 (more upgrades coming)
• Banned users now have a line through their username (example)

2013-04-29 Update:

• Upgraded to new server

2013-05-02 Update:

• Continued Arcade Upgrades 1.0.RC2 -> 1.0RC7 (more upgrades coming)

2013-05-03 Update:

• Upgraded Arcade to 1.0.RC10 (more upgrades coming)
  ** Arcade now working with this upgrade! **

2013-05-06 Update:

• Upgraded Arcade to 1.0.0 (more upgrades coming)
  ** Sound now appears to be working! **

2013-05-08 Update:

• Added Bug Report forum here

2013-05-09 Update:

• Seriously have no idea what is going on with these new server problems. Kym is aware of the issues.
• Added links to Main Site and NeoDex in the header

2013-05-09 Update:

• Re-installed the Gender Mod - but it shows up double everywhere...
• Kym moved us to a cloud server! Hopefully this will be stable!!

2013-05-14 Update:

• Forums moved to a (different) new cloud-based server (took 24-48 hours to migrate)

2013-05-15 Update:

• Finally fixed the Gender Mod. Now working properly.
• Quick Reply fixed
• Added automatic mobile support for smartphones (Android tested, iPhone tested by DHK)

2013-06-01 Update:

• Upgraded Arcade to 2.0RC1 (more upgrades coming)
  ** MAY HAVE BROKEN ARCADE AND OTHER AREAS OF FORUMS **

2013-08-27 Update:

• Site crashed during server migration of NeoDex. It appears that the database was overwritten by old data.

2013-09-08 Update:

• Restored database from valid June 3, 2013 backup. Lost posts from June 3, 2013 through September 8, 2013
• Forums semi-stable and should be safe to post

2013-09-09 Update:

• Began repairs to Arcade: Installed 2.0RC1, heading to 2.0RC5 (latest), but not currently functional
  Note: Arcade will be down until this is completed
• Multiple bug fixes
• Restored off-site links in header
• Forums stable and safe to post

2013-09-10 Update:

• Upgraded Arcade to 2.0RC2 (Arcade still down)

** PLEASE POST IN BUG REPORTS IF YOU FIND SOMETHING BROKEN **


~Blue

[Blue]

2013-09-08 Update...

Very sad to say that in the process of fixing the NeoDex, three months of posts on the PPT forums were lost. The posts from June 3rd through September 8th appear to be gone and completely unrecoverable. This is truly upsetting, as we lost the tail end of the ACIII and the Obelisk post-war 4th through the 6th skirmishes, and some great gloats/cries. The database was restored from a backup created June 3rd, 2013 which was thankfully not corrupt.

I restored all of the phpBB files that I had backed up on August 21, 2013, but unfortunately the files don't exactly match the data... So, this means there are bugs.
Since the restored database is from June 3rd, I restored the forum files from my June 15th, 2013 full file backup. The arcade still has problems, which are likely to be causing problems here and there. Please post all bugs found in the Bug Reports area. Please make a new topic for each bug found.

~Blue

[Blue]

2013-09-09 Update:

The NeoDex appears to be working properly now! Huge Thanks to Crimsonfox for finding the bug!!

ETA: Arcade became corrupt/unstable after restore. I am in the process of fixing these, but the arcade is so heavily integrated into everything that you will see some odd things for a while. For example - two Arcade links in the header. It also caused two gender tags in posts, the list is long, but I think that it will be OK day to day for now.... ah yes, the arcade will be down and/or unstable until I get this resolved. Since it's broken anyway, I will be upgrading it to latest and greatest.

ETAA: Updated first post.

[Blue]

2013-09-12 Update:

Thanks to Daze's inspiration, I have been able to grab the majority of the posts we lost in the Altador Cup VIII, Daily Dare 2013 and the Battleground of the Obelisk (split 2) from various web caches. There are two pages missing (pages 2 & 3) from the Daily Dare 2013, but otherwise they are all pretty much complete. I need to manually insert these into the database and modify the timestamps, but over the next couple of days weeks I will get these put back in so we will have the history. The topics I am restoring will be locked during the actual restoration process, but I will unlock them when they are updated. If they are not locked, feel free to post in them.

It is OK to post in any of the above topics that are not locked.

2013-09-18 Update:

• Daily Dare 2013 Thread has been restored!

2013-09-23 Update:

• The Altador Cup VIII Thread has been restored!
• Battleground of the Obelisk has been restored as well. Both Split 1 and Split 2

2013-09-24 Update

• Neopets Gloats and Cries restored
• Second NC Mall Sixth Birthday Goodie Bag has been restored

This completes the restoration for items for which I am aware. If there are others that may have been missed, please let me know as soon as possible.

[Blue]

2013-10-11 Update:

Received a notice that the forum software has an available update.
Also received a notice that the Arcade has been updated as well - actually twice in the last 3 weeks...

Part of that also indicates the end of support for the forum style we have been using forever
As you can see, I am testing the "closest to" style.

Please provide feedback on the style here.

I'm not a huge fan of this change, so this may revert back to as-was sooner than later, but I'm interested in all y'all's opinion.


2013-10-18 Update:

Went back to the subsilver2 style. Even though subsilver3 could be tweaked in somewhat to be similar, it was still just too different to be comfortable to everyone.

[Blue]

Had a few bumps over the last couple of days. Lots of database errors, crashed tables and ultimately a crashed SQL server. After a couple of days with tech support, the problem lied in the allocated size of the /tmp directory on the server. It was a wee bit too small and was causing the SQL server to crash. This meant no working forums for us. The nice server support people reallocated and increased the directory size. We are back in business

[Blue]

2014-02-24 Update:

I just nuked the Arcade. It had been causing a lot of problems, including lately, the ability for new users to sign up.

Because the Arcade had hooks into just about everything throughout the forum back-end, it is possible that some things may not be working properly. Please let me know by posting in the bug report section.

[Blue]

2014-03-02 (~6pm NST) Update:

Server ran out of disk space, subsequently crashing a couple of tables. Oops

All fixed

[Blue]

2017-12-25: (Merry Christmas!)

Server host was doing "a little maintenance", starting Friday 12/22/2017. Supposedly all was to be back up by 8am on Saturday 12/23... Server was down until the wee hours of Monday 12/25.

[Blue]

2018-01-01: (Happy New Year!)

Ugh. Server appears to have been configured with incorrect misdirects, effectively taking down all of Pink Poogle Toy (main site, forums, Neodex, the whole Pink Poogle). All complete with a misconfigured account login so I could not get in for a while. I finally figured it out tonight and we seem to be back up and running! Hopefully, this is the last outage for a long, long time!

[Blue]

2018-01-08: Finally back up(?)

All I can say is, "Wow." The Web Host's upgrades have been a nightmare. Without going into the gory details, the upgrade also included moving our long-standing fixed IP address to another fixed IP address. Our old one was hard-coded in the depths and the misconfiguration was wreaking havoc. Hopefully fixed this time!

Update: Pink Ink has been resurrected

[Blue]

2018-03-29: New SSL Certificates

One benefit of the new server(s) is that the SSL Certificates now work as they should - no more security exceptions needed on the user site to use an https connection. It just works now. Feel free to update your pinkpt links to utilize a secure https protocol when signing in and doing whatever