June was a very slow month. This wasn’t bad as March was so crazy and I was teaching a class too. Summers are often slow around here as people have other things to do with their time.
I used the month to get out version 3.2.7 of my digests extension instead. I actually did quite a bit of analysis for clients, trying to work through the requirements of a job. A lot of my work these days involves very complex upgrades where many things have to factored and considered by the client before moving forward. I expect some of these will get authorized and worked on in July. Anyhow, it was nice to have a break. Overall though I’d prefer work to be more regular rather than either light or super heavy.
- I upgraded the Cleantalk extension for a client to latest version (5.6.5) per client’s request. I also changed the spambot countermeasure from simple image to reCaptcha V2.
- I upgraded a forum from phpBB 3.0.12 to 3.2.2. There were lots of issues associated with the client’s hosting. FTP did not work reliably (regular timeouts) meaning lots of files had to get requeued and resent. Upgrade was to place forum in a new /forum folder instead of root folder. There were issues upgrading on web server, so I converted database on my machine. I had to empty the migrations table to get it to work. One error discovered later by the upgrade: missing row in the phpbb_acl_options table meant that I could not install extensions. Once I added it, the manage extensions link appears in the Administration Control Panel. I installed the Absolution V3 style. Installed Thanks for the Post (RC) extension and Banner Scroll (RC) extensions. I had to move some files for the banner scroll extension into /forum/images folder. Lots of work tweaking the style. I abandoned provided site logo and reverted to earlier one as it worked better with the style. I tweaked the logo so it is kind of centered, hard to do with CSS blocks. Added G+, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter icons to navigation bar. Installed reCaptcha V2 as spambot countermeasure. Later: finally got SSH access and that allowed me to move files and images folder. I removed all other content in public_html directory.
- Configured Cleantalk for a client with two similar websites. I used Cleantalk to remove spam accounts from both of their domains. Additional work troubleshooting an issue with moderation, not quite understood yet, want to know if it recurs. I removed items in moderation queue by approving each then deleting manually from the topic. There were still issues with Cleantalk extension being unable to communicate with Cleantalk server. Both allow_url_fopen and CURL are enabled in PHP. Probably an outgoing firewall issue. I asked client to talk to web host about the issue and provided a list of servers that should be allowed to communicate with. Later, I was asked to resolve signature issues on one domain for a particular issue. The role was not assigned for many forums for the person’s group and in the case of some forums the Registered Users group permission for signatures was set to NEVER meaning the special group’s permissions were being overwritten. Later, I disabled search on another of the client’s domains because he had integrated a Google Custom Search field.
- I migrated a forum and also upgraded it. BitNami was installed (phpBB 3.2.2) on new host so rather than simply migrating to new host I converted the database on my machine instead. SSH was my only tool, so I used it to change and import the database from the command line and make file changes manually using vi. I installed seven additional language packs. I removed dead modules. I installed reCaptcha V2 spambot countermeasure. I placed the old logo on the default prosilver style. About a dozen files would not copy over, and caused Filezilla to crash. This client was kind enough to leave a comment on my home page expressing satisfaction with my work.
- I upgraded a forum from phpBB 3.1.3 to 3.2.2 on a Windows server running IIS. I provided guidance on a Joomla issue which led the client to take care of that issue first with a Joomla expert. The upgrade went fine and I reapplied logo on the prosilver style. However mysterious issue with posting (no refresh screen after posting) remained. I eventually determined it was due to incorrect integration of email by the forum. When posts are made, post notifications are sent. This was causing the error. I suggested raising issue with web host or moving to Linux hosting. Did not install Social Media login extension, although we discussed this.
