Unable to Access OR

kidterminal · **Posted:** Wed Aug 12, 2009 3:01 am

Dagorlad wrote:

Yes, but have you noticed that it's not down now?

Just wanted to let you know in case you weren't aware. it seem to be a pretty shoet span of time. :rofl:

Dagorlad · **Posted:** Wed Aug 12, 2009 5:41 am

Heheh, I'm only teasing!

Yep, it was down when I logged on this morning. For some reason, whenever our friendly neighborhood hosting company does any maintenance, they seem to disable our board. Very irritating when they do that with no warning!

kidterminal · **Posted:** Wed Aug 12, 2009 6:31 am

It was strange, I go to the web site with the menu bar but the main body was replaced with a message which said the site was down. Never saw that before.

Dagorlad · **Posted:** Thu Aug 13, 2009 12:33 am

And it happened again! I'll look into this a bit deeper - there may be something sinister going on, because it's not me that's disabling the forum.

JohnandTricia · **Posted:** Thu Aug 13, 2009 12:52 am

It's the terrorist's they won

Gorgoroth · **Posted:** Thu Aug 13, 2009 3:13 am

JohnandTricia wrote:

It's the terrorist's they won

Lol

hithero · **Posted:** Thu Aug 13, 2009 6:45 am

Also this forum doesn't exist according to the quick link from "Last Post"

Dagorlad · **Posted:** Thu Aug 13, 2009 11:55 pm

HitherO wrote:

Also this forum doesn't exist according to the quick link from "Last Post"

Do you mean the little 'page' and 'arrow' icons next to the topic title? Must've been a hiccup because it worked for me.

Anyway, I've raised a support ticket with the hosting company but they haven't been very responsive or helpful so far. I'll keep you all posted.

Dagorlad · **Posted:** Sat Aug 15, 2009 12:11 am

It IS our hosting company!!!
This is the transcript of the support ticket and replies I have received:

Me:
My phpBB forum was set to 'disabled' twice in the past two days. Both times it was not me that did it and no one else has access to this function. Is it a part of your maintenance procedures to disable databases or should I be concerned that someone is malisciously disabling my website?

Powweb:
Hello,

You’re using old version of forum application. If you want your phpBB Web site to be less spam-friendly, please upgrade the phpBB version. A new version of phpBB is 3.0.1 and it is released for a good reason: to cut down on security holes and provide you better functionality within the application. InstallCentral makes it easy to install version 3.0.1 -- visit InstallCentral and just click the "install" button.
phpBB 3.0 has a good built-in CAPTCHA system, which requires users type the letters or digits of a distorted image that appears on the screen before continuing to post. The goal of CAPTCHA is to create a simple problem that spam bots cannot solve -- but humans can.
If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to contact us through the Support Console in the Control Panel.

Me:
I don't have problems with spammers and so upgrading to phpBB3 isn't the solution to my issue.
What I am finding is that once in a while, my site has it's configuration values reset to disable access to the forum. The last time this happened coincided with some scheduled maintenance from PowWeb where the mySQL database was upgraded. I was wondering if this is something that PowWeb does automatically.

Powweb
Hello,

Thank you for your reply.

Your phpBB was disabled for sending spam registrations and posts. In order to prevent from this, we suggest you to please take all the necessary actions by upgrading your application to the latest versions

If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to contact us through the Support Console in the Control Panel.

Me:
WHAT???
"Spam registrations and posts?" What on earth does that mean?
You must give me some specific details of these 'spam' registrations and posts if you are going to make comments like that.

My phpBB installation has been heavily customised to suit my site's and my user's needs and to upgrade it to phpBB3 would mean a massive investment of time and effort on my part.
phpBB3 is vastly more complex than earlier versions and rewriting my customisations would mean a) losing my entire database of forum posts, b) losing my gallery of images, and c) losing my graphic designs, and I am simply not prepared to do this based on your above comments, especially not without any supporting evidence.

I have not had problems with spammers and hackers since I rewrote the phpBB login process myself. And I also rewrote the 'posting' scripts to prevent any 'spammers' from posting links until they are authorised to do so by an administrator. My site is a lot more secure than any off-the-shelf installation of phpBB2 and I've not had problems with hackers or spammers since 2007.

+++++++++++

This has made me very angry. They are trying to bully us into upgrading the site to a later version of the software, which I will not do unless I am forced to.

If we are forced to do this, the following systems will need to be rewritten from scratch:
The Article Library, the Galleries, OR Awards, the Home page and news system, the Gold and Ranking system, the chatbox, the list goes on.

And I'll have to figure out how to migrate our actual database of forum posts, personal messages etc into the new (and significantly more complex) phpBB3 structures.

Not happy!

Longbottom Leaf · **Posted:** Sat Aug 15, 2009 3:30 am

Wow, Alan. I'm really sorry that your having so much trouble with the hosting company. I can't stand when companies try to scare people into buying a service they don't need, it's simply wrong. I hope this can be sorted out without having to upgrade like they want. All of the changes that would require, sound as if they'd leave OR offline for awhile. I was bored with it off for a day, I can't imagine what I would do if OR were off for an extended period of time...

Anyways, I think I speak for all OR members in thanking you for all the work you do around here, such as dealing with issues such as this one. Thanks, Alan!

hithero · **Posted:** Sat Aug 15, 2009 7:02 am

Dagorlad wrote:

HitherO wrote:

Also this forum doesn't exist according to the quick link from "Last Post"

Do you mean the little 'page' and 'arrow' icons next to the topic title? Must've been a hiccup because it worked for me.

Anyway, I've raised a support ticket with the hosting company but they haven't been very responsive or helpful so far. I'll keep you all posted.

Yup, but it's working now.

hithero · **Posted:** Sat Aug 15, 2009 7:07 am

And I guess they did the same yesterday around 12AM GMT? As I couldn't access the forums. How come whenever you first raise a querry with any company, they never actually address the problem? Seems to happen all the time with me.

Natarn · **Posted:** Sat Aug 15, 2009 7:33 am

gaarew · **Posted:** Sat Aug 15, 2009 7:56 am

What a bunch of [word deleted]...

It would be a great shame if the annals of knowledge contained on this site were lost in a move to a new server.

Dorthonion · **Posted:** Sat Aug 15, 2009 8:09 am

Is there anyone else with sufficient knowledge of php that could help? I get the feeling that this change will be forced upon us, sooner or later.

Dagorlad · **Posted:** Sat Aug 15, 2009 11:41 am

I've taken steps to ensure that even if the tossers at Powweb decide to disable the site again, they can't. The site will be disabled only if I do it myself now.

Hallpers · **Posted:** Sat Aug 15, 2009 11:45 am

MacGothmog · **Posted:** Sat Aug 15, 2009 1:14 pm

Deus ex machina.

Longbottom Leaf · **Posted:** Sat Aug 15, 2009 2:32 pm

Yay, Alan!

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