Client work was busy at the start of the month and at the end of the month, but there was a weird two-week quiet period in the middle. During that time I mostly worked on extensions. I’m working on an update to my popular digests extension but it’s not quite ready to go, but contains new reporting features. I’m also working on a notify admin on error extension, which is getting me into phpBB’s notification system. The point of this extension is to send administrators notifications if new entries occur in phpBB’s error log. It’s surprising this isn’t built in. It needs to be.
My large commercial client still has not moved into a formal testing phase for all the changes we made over the last two years. However, I was asked to move this along by writing a test plan which I did over the last two days of January.
Other work in January included:
- Cashing a nice holiday bonus from my large commercial client. They let me defer receiving payment until the new year, which works for tax purposes.
- Provided guidance for another established commercial client for deleting and setting up new forums with the correct forum permissions. For the same client, I upgraded their board from phpBB 3.3.1 to 3.3.5. I also updated the Board rules, Digests, Tapatalk and Quick style extensions to their latest versions. I replaced Artodia SCSS compiler with my own SCSS compiler extension. I updated 12 language packs. I also updated all five styles and reapplied their customizations to them. I found and fixed bug in the Forum language extension.
- Earlier in the month I went through a messy test phpBB 2.0.15 to 3.3.5 conversion. There were lots of issues. The main one turned out to be a bug in the phpBB 3.3.5 conversion software recently introduced where serialized config values were incorrectly escaped, causing a connection to the old database to fail. When I couldn’t get it to work on the client’s server, I moved a 4GB database and 60GB of files to my machine to do it there and encountered the same issue, leading me to figure out eventually where the problem lay. A conversion on my machine eventually worked after correcting the incorrect configuration values. It took about eight hours. There were some duplicate posts and HTML conversion errors, and it failed near the end when importing attachment types and attachment groups. I moved the database to the client’s server and it came up but there were a number of inconsistencies we had to work through, like missing or incorrectly placed avatars and smilies.
- Later in the month I did a “for real” migration for the same client. The workaround is to install phpBB 3.3.4 and use its convertor program. I tried to run conversion on his web space but it didn’t work with phpBB 3.3.4 and returned a HTTP 500 error with nothing in the error log. So again I had to download the database and files to my machine and convert it there. The conversion was straightforward except for an issue at the end relating to attachments that I hacked but didn’t affect anything. Smilies, avatars and attachments all converted correctly this time. I then updated the software to phpBB 3.3.5. I then added the logo and installed the Advertisement Management extension and placed a sample ad. I was able to upload the database after moving it into an archive, but when I tried to make an archive of the files I found that I didn’t have enough space to create it! So this involved uploading about 335,000 files individually instead of uploading one large archive, a process that took at least 18 hours. I brought up board but first fixed a few directory permission issues. I started to create search index but stopped it when I realized it would take 16 hours. Board was placed in a temporary domain. Client pointed the domain to the new hosting space and re-created the search index.
- I converted a board from phpBB 2.0.23 to phpBB 3.3.5. Due to bug in the conversion software discussed above, I installed phpBB 3.3.4 and afterward upgraded to phpBB 3.3.5, using lessons learned from last job. It all went fast and spiffy with no issues. About 400,000 posts were converted. I rebuilt the search index, disabled contact page, and set up a reCaptcha v3 spambot countermeasure.
- Fixed a number of issues related to moving a board to GoDaddy. Reloading the modules table from reference phpBB 3.3.5 installation allowed me to get to the ACP forums tab. It also addressed an issue when registering. Three extensions needed to be updated: Google Analytics, Board Announcements and Stop Forum Spam. I changed spambot countermeasure to Q&A after reCaptcha V3 didn’t work because the host didn’t allow queries to other servers. I disabled the contact form. I installed the proflat style and integrated the customer’s logo. I had to manually add the modules for some active extensions as they got overwritten when I replaced the modules table with a reference. I tested the registration issue to make sure it was fixed. I was asked to hide some of the forums. I gave the unwanted forums the no access role for Anonymous user and registered users group to fix this issue.
- I upgraded a board from phpBB 3.2.9 to 3.3.5. I installed the Nosebleed style and the American English pack plus the Cleantalk extension. I removed the site logo from Nosebleed style and integrated a new background image that fit the space exactly and was created by the client. I set the home page link and setup the reCaptcha V3 spambot countermeasure. I also removed some dead modules. Set up a redirect rule to redirect http traffic to https for the board and provided guidance on favicon usage. Collaboration on setting up forums and categories to come.
