The first half of March was slow, the second half got busier and busier. So in early March I used the slow time to create new versions of my Digests and Smartfeed extensions.
Work for my commercial client is still mostly in a holding phase while we wait for the start of formal testing, which should start next week. I did upgrade phpBB for them twice (3.3.6 had a critical bug.) Other work in March:
- Updated a board from phpBB version 3.3.0 to 3.3.5. I fixed an emailing issue where lost password emails were not being received by changing the board’s email settings to use SMTP settings. I also updated the Cleantalk extension from 5.7.2 to 5.7.4 and reapplied their logo.
- Updated a board from phpBB version 3.3.5 to 3.3.6. No issues except for some reason the logo reappeared even though it should have been overwritten.
- Provided two hours of tutoring over two days and a bit of troubleshooting. Client wanted to integrate phpBB and with a WordPress plugin. After a lot of trial trying to get the lost password link not to redirect to WordPress, I determined the issue was their buggy WordPress – phpBB plugin. Client is pondering whether to use phpBB separately from WordPress or use a WordPress forum plugin.
- Updated a board from phpBB 3.3.4 to 3.3.7. First updated to 3.3.6 then found out 3.3.7 was released. I had to recover two tables and then install phpBB 3.3.7 to recover. I also updated my Digests extension from 3.3.4 to 3.3.14. No other changes were made.
- Updated a board from phpBB 3.3.5 to 3.3.7. I installed version 2.1.4 of the Metrolike style and reapplied client’s style changes. I installed a release candidate Auto DB backup extension and set it to make backups every 24 hours. A few days later I answered questions about how to backup files and database offsite.
- Updated a board from phpBB 3.3.5 to 3.3.7. I updated the Italian language pack to the latest version. I updated the advertisement management extension from version 2.0.4 to 2.0.5.
- Users were unable to post on a board. I analyzed issue and it turned out to be an invalid <textarea> tag. To fix it, I upgraded the board from phpBB 3.2.7 to 3.3.7. I had to fix about five services.yml and routing.yml files to get all the extensions to work under phpBB 3.3. I total I upgraded seven extensions. I installed a new version of we_universal style, replicated background image and hid site title and site description.
- The client wasn’t getting email notifications for new posts. This turned out to be because he wasn’t subscribed to the forum. I also updated phpBB from version 3.3.5 to 3.3.7. Because there was no logo, no attachments, and no extensions this turned out to be a very easy update to do.
- I upgraded a board from phpBB 3.2.8 to 3.3.7. I determined issue was due to PHP 8, and temporarily downgraded PHP to 7.3 to make the board function. After an upgrade to phpBB 3.3.7, I reverted PHP back to PHP 8.0. I reapplied logo, added Cleantalk, enabled its spam firewall feature and contact form checking feature. I deleted unneeded tables and removed old modules in ACP, MCP and UCP left over from phpBB 3.0 to tidy things up.
- Upgraded phpBB from 3.2.1 to 3.3.7 for a client. I changed PHP from 5.5 to 7.4. I installed an updated but beta Image redirection extension (version 2.0.1-b6). I also updated the Dutch casual language pack.
- I retrofitted a custom style from phpBB 3.1 to 3.3. I did this by comparing the style with the prosilver style in phpBB 3.1.12, using my Raspberry Pi because I have PHP 5.6 on it and I wanted to see how the style rendered on phpBB 3.1. Lots of trial and error and about eight hours of effort. I removed some HTML tables placed by a previous developer with more responsive code. The project spanned three days.
