For the current server that is.
The server that has hosted the site from the beginning is in desperate need of upgrades. Unfortunately to do that on the existing server is not the best path, and instead moving to a new server is underway. The new one will of course have more processing power, memory, disk space, speed all the goodies you get with new(er) hardware. We are currently very tight on storage and memory so getting some breathing room will be nice.
Also being updated is the server software, the version we are running is EOL. That means its difficult to patch for security and newer versions of the most important software does not want to run on it. We are now 3 generations back and trying to upgrade that "stack" to the most recent is just ugly.
Since that is not enough, the version of the forum software we are running is also EOL, so that will be updated to the most recent as well. There will be some subtle visual changes, and some new features, but nothing that I would call major in terms of how you use it. Everything one normally does should be no different.
Lastly we are trying out a new version of the "media" area. Now this is a different software so the interface will be different, but then again the current Media section has a large collection of delightful quirks. This will likely be after the move, but its something being worked on.
This weekend is the target to move, which means the site will begin to display an "in maintenance mode" page. Steve has done as much as possible to prepare for the move so the downtime *should* be only a few hours. The new server has a new IP address, as such name servers need to be updated. Depending on your host that can take some time, up to a day for some, nothing to do on your end it just happens.
After we are back, I'd expect some issues that will need to be resolved, email comes to mind, as does search. Those can't be fully prepared ahead of the move so do expect some glitches here and there as things come back to life.
Carry on.
Many thanx for all the time and effort you guys expend making this Forum such a nice place to hang out.
Thank you! It's such an amazing asset for Foretravel owners to have the forum available at no charge, a place to go where "friends" help friends and all without annoying adverts or politics.
All your work and moderating is really appreciated,
David
Thanks for all your hard work keeping things running smoothly
If you guys find yourselves in a bind, I have a lightly used fully managed server in a top tier data center in Chicago that can assist. Just let me know.
Do you need some member financial support to cover the costs?
I'd be happy to contribute to a go fund me or paypal to help defray the costs.
See replay # 5
I will also be happy to contribute if needed.
Regards
Klaus
Same here!
Yes, thank you seems so insufficient, but we appreciate you, your efforts, and expenditures. Please let us know how we can help! I'm sure we could raise funds quickly via a GoFundMe or similar effort via the Foretravel Owners Facebook group if money would help. I also know a particular member who may share some of your technical expertise who might be willing to help, but would want to ask before I volunteer him. Pleas let me know if either of those would help, or anything I could do to help.
Thanks again!
Same for us.
Me Too !!!! Any Expense should be shared, more than willing to contribute......... ^.^d ^.^d ^.^d
Thanks for all that yall do to keep the forum going.
As a suggestion would it be possible going forward to break out the technical forum into different categories such as drivetrain, suspension, electrical, plumbing (including aquahot) ? I know it would be a tremendous amount of work to re-categorize older posts but would make searching much easier if you could implement more categories for new posts.
PM me if you have any questions.
"Steve has done as much as possible to prepare for the move so the downtime *should* be only a few hours."
I love optimists.
"After we are back, I'd expect some issues that will need to be resolved,"
As in what to do with what's left of your hair?
I agree, where do we donate to the adult beverage fund?
Good Luck with the move. None of this is life safety.
Good luck with the upgrade. I hope all goes well. Not a easy undertaking ^.^d
A huge shout out to you both for all you do to keep this great forum up and running! Just one more reason to own a Foretravel!
Thank you, thank you!
Thanks for the ongoing effort and support. We all share in its benefit. Like many, I would lend support if it was accepted, no strings attached.
To paraphrase Winston Churchill, This is the beginning of the end that leads to a new beginning and new future.
👍👍
Truly appreciate the heads up Michelle. As the rest of the monthly crew above I would also be interested in helping. Who wouldn't let me spend so much time here? We like to see more space in the personal message box although I know that I should go back and trim... As should a lot of us but I find it's difficult to get rid of old messages that maybe one day I might want to read again LOL
When you said to keep the quotes short, etc, I was wondering if site's memory was limited. Your work is appreciated and I know most of us would like to chip in to help so just ask.
Hope the new site will continue to have spell check. :D
Thanks again for the fantastic job you have been doing.
Pierce
I have done a few migrations like this and understand how much work and finesse is involved. Thank you and good luck. Count me in for a donation too
I echo what all others are saying. Count me in too.
I've done a few migrations lately and it's amazing the things the pop-up and bite you in the butt! Hope yours goes smoothly.
Looking forward to a brand new shiny server! :) Thanks for all your hard work!
see ya
ken
Thank you so much!
At one time there was an inconspicuous button we could click on to make contributions. That may not be available anymore.
But the Amazon link is on the welcome page, that may help some. We just need to use it.
Another forum family willing to help with new server cost.
I too would contribute something to make sure this forum doesn't end up like beamalarm did (sorry I don't like the revisions and broken links).
We'd be more than happy to contribute to the expense/adult beverage fund.
Thanks for a great forum!
We would be more than happy to help pay towards the cost of the forum, our village newspaper comes out every Thursday ($1.50) for 12 pages that are eagerly awaited reading to see who is doing what and what's happening locally.
I spend much more time reading articles on the forum, I learn more from it than from our village newspaper, the forum is required reading to solve the simplest of repairs I undertake on an aging 99 U270 that I love having. All those names: craneman, juicequeezer, redtractor, Pirolet, Roger, Protec racing, pierce and Gaylie and sooo many more graceracer, Wolfe 1, Michelle, and all of you who log in, are all part of an amazing group of people who I look forward to hearing about and from when I log in for a quick look during the day as I am sure many others do.
Surly this is worth financially supporting, $5, $10, $20 is so much less than I pay for that weekly newspaper! Please don't feel you cannot ask for help, it's what we all use the forum for, Count us in.
David & Emma
Was wondering who is shouldering the forum ,,now I know. Thanks for your expertise and hard work! I'm in with a donation just say when and where....
Glad the site is back online. I missed you guys
It's Alive. Great work.
Thanks for all you do. I would be happy to donate.
They must of paid off or locked up Murphy. Less than 16 hours was amazing.
Or, once you've reached a certain age you know that the fastest way is slow and methodical with lots of written notes.
Congratulations! On surviving the up-grade.
If you are reading this, you know the site is back. As always there were some unexpected difficulties that took a bit of time to resolve but we *believe* most, if not all, of the major functions are working. The forum may have been down less than a day (and thank you all for your patience while it was), but the effort was many weeks of "behind the scenes" testing in hopes of minimizing the disruption.
As you find problems and errors please let me know here or via PM so that we can address them. Steve expects several theme glitches on various pages. The updated theme works fine with the base software, but we have quite a few addons that have some difficulties with it.
Steve has not installed the new media section software, this is still the old version for now, just to much else going on ATM.
We know there are some theme quirks that need to be taken care of, and Steve has not had the chance to test things on mobile/pad devices. The site is not (yet) running any compression or CDN for the data it servers, this is just to allow Steve to fix things quickly.
So welcome back and stick with us while we get everything ironed out.
Thank you so much for all you guys do.
Scott
Thanks so much for all the work. Site is screaming fast! Please let us know how we can help fund the site.
Looks great to me! Everything I use on a daily basis seems to be working fine.
Did the site always have the quick reply box at the bottom. Never noticed it until today.
Looks fine now. It's like if you only have one car. You take it for granted until it gets repossessed. ;)
Thanks for the ultra quick work. Good thing you didn't have anything else planned for the weekend.
Pierce
On both my phone and iPad screen defaults to left side of screen losing 20% on right?
Same as dsd on 20-25%.
Looks great, please know your work is appreciated.
I do have about 1/4 of the screen width blank, on the right side of my Android phone. On my windows laptop it is ok, going all the way across. The top menu choices and the bar all the way at the end, go all the way across though on the Android.
Michelle, I noticed that the pic I had with my sig is no longer there, is that going to be a thing of the past?
I to would like to express my gratitude to what you and Steve have created here, I have met lots of forum foretravlers and hope to meet more.... This is a great place!! Thank you!
Keith
Noted - thank you. That is something to fix.
Great job on the migration. If you need an idea of how valuable the forum is, go check on the Facebook group; the sky was falling today.
The right hand margin issue was present for me on my iPhone earlier but is no longer an issue.
Michelle:
Thanks for all the hard work you put on this forum. This forum is what makes Foretravel ownership special.
While I was trying to upload some picture to my media library, I keep getting database error.
can you take a look?
Michelle, looks great this morning. Thank you for all your work.
Wow !!!! logged into Foreforums and Look what I found, Amazing !!!! Thank You Steve and Michelle...... ^.^d ^.^d ^.^d
Will do. I think it's an underlying issue with the existing media section (which we did not change). That entire section is in queue for a major upgrade so try to be patient :)
Why is the new format so light colored? Really light compared to the old format and all my other applications are still the way they always were. Just not this forum.
When Andy 2 told me about Foretravel, he said "...now go inside and Google it..."
The forum came up
I read some posts, turned to Amy, and said "....we're gonna own one of these...."
Visiting the forum, a few times each day, is part of my regime
Thank you for making this exchange of ideas and knowledge possible
Much appreciated
With us, we'd been researching WanderLodge and Fleetwood Bounder, because my brother has one. Then one day Lynn said "Have you thought of Foretravel? They have a good reputation." He set me up to look at an FTX, and the FTX had everything except a Dinette. The next one was this U225 and Lynn said it had semi-monococue frame, torsion bar suspension and a cedar wardrobe. 1,400 mile return trip in early February and we moved in March of that year. Not enough trips since then but vaccinations are on the way.
This forum? It's the community of like minded souls we need for information and conversation. We have interesting skill sets, so we offer help whenever we can so do.
Thank you Michele and Steve, and once again congratulations on a smooth transition and up-grade. Better you than me.
I see any attached photos come up as thumbnails now. Excellent!
Pierce
With the new server, is there any chance of increasing the capacity of our individual PM mail boxes? That would be nice.
I have to discard older posts as well, maybe a way to download our individual PMs to save and then remove older ones to free up space would be nice.
On your iPhone click on the arrow pointing to the right that should fill up the screen.
Michelle:
What an amazing job you are doing for us all with the website! We are grateful. Please count me in with all the other forum members should there ever be a need to contribute in support of the site.
FYI Steve is aware of the intermittent glitching with quoting not formatting (showing BBCode instead) and it's being looked into.
Thanks for all this work. Please let me know if funding is needed and I will chip in.
Keith
WOW My personal Forum (PM) mailbox capacity just roughly TRIPLED in size! Thank You Steve and MIchelle! b^.^d
I previously had my profile set to display posts in descending order so the most recent post in a thread was at the top. I cannot seem to find that option now. If it still exists, please advise on how to find it.
And like others have said, we really, really appreciate all the efforts from Michelle, Steve and the moderators for this awesome forum.
Steve seems to recall that was actually removed from the last version of the forum software, and he had "hacked" the code with remnants from a prior version to make it work. He doesn't think that's going to be possible with the new version (it's something like 8 years' newer), but he's aware of the request.
This might help others. I just signed in to the Fourm. Upon doing so. I was able to have full access to the new system. It was working fine pre this new sign on. Except was missing bookmark and other features. All is well. Super work by our support team. Mark
Yes, ours was at 99% and now at 28%. Keep those PM letter bombs coming!
Has anyone tried to attach a photo to a PM with the new upgrade?
Thanks again for all the improvements.
Pierce
Due to security concerns, attachments via PM or e-mail will not be supported.
The PM system is not and never has been intended to be a repository. It costs server AND backup space to retain those messages, both of which we pay for. We strongly prefer and recommend people copy the information in a PM and store it on their personal machine.
I can see the reason behind that. Attachments with photos take a lot more room than text.
Using our regular email addresses and communicating that way only takes an extra step so no big deal..
Thanks for the reply.
Pierce
I have had two replies to PMs get hung up going back through Foreforums. Using iPad
That was fixed today.
There were issues with e-mail processing yesterday.
THANK YOU
FYI - we are aware of the photo compression issue where uploaded images are getting pixelated. Steve is investigating