Website Issues

[Jonathan Stuart]

Sorry that the website was unavailable from sometime on Friday until Saturday afternoon and even then the forum didn't work until Sunday evening. I don't yet know what happened...we lost the site's databases and at one point I thought we'd never be able to recover the site or forum. But fortunately the hosting provider could recover them from backup so we're in business again. I still need to check that everything's working correctly and try to work out what happened and why, but I'm a lot happier than at 11:30 Saturday when my sailing had been delayed and I was left believing we'd lost everything...

[Andy Dingle]

I thought we'd been hacked by these Ransomware ne'er do well chappies..

Not so much as money being demanded by menaces, but a Baycruiser 26 being demanded from the systems administrator to reinstate these so very important musings from portly greying old gits ... (Not yourself of course!) ..

But thanks for your endeavours in getting it all sorted - whilst I was out sailing all weekend (in place of you!) in some very rare sun and cracking wind, proving to myself that a BC23 will sail perfectly well in a F7 .. underpants to prove it..!

[Jonathan Stuart]

Sounds like some good sailing Andy! I did get out eventually and we sailed both days - it was gusting to the top end of a F5 here so not as exciting as your sailing but good fun nonetheless. And the sun was out :-).

[Andy Dingle]

F5 is good...  really, it is! But the BC23 performed exceptionally well - I only had one reef in and the Genny reefed in a couple of rolls .. (again the aero luff spar proved it's worth). Top speed recorded on the gps was 8.9 knots .. fair ruffled my hair!

By the way - when trying to 'log in' to the forum I get the message 'login insecure' .. ?

[BobT]

Hi Johnathan,

For your info I normally login using the top menu "Home, About, ... Links, Login" When I do I get the message below:

This page isn’t working
www.swallowyachtsassociation. org is currently unable to handle this request.
HTTP ERROR 500

The login on the lower menu "Home, Help, ... Members, Login" works fine.

Great work keeping the site on track, thank you.

Regards,
Bob

[Jonathan Stuart]

Bob,

Thanks for letting me know about this. The link between the forum and database was broken during last Friday's issues and I've now fixed that. All the login areas should now be working properly. Indeed, I think/hope that everything's working now, at least everything that was working last Friday morning is now working again!

[BobT]

Johnathan,

All working fine today when I logged in.  I'm no IT person but if you need a hand on the admin (eg seeing if a member who hasn't logged on for a year still exists) of the web site then do let me know.

Many thanks,
Bob

[Jonathan Stuart]

Thanks Bob, good to hear that. I managed to upgrade some of the website yesterday but then broke the forum - hopefully this didn't affect too many people last night - but it's all working again now. I'll tackle the forum update another time!

Re helping, I guess there are a number of areas where people can help:

1. Forum moderation & admin (removing inappropriate posts, moving posts to correct forums, approving posts from new members, etc)
2. Creating posts/pages in the website outside the forum, i.e. WordPress posts/pages
3. Wordpress admin (although not much required here other than when I add/upgrade/change plugins)
4. "Low-level" admin, e.g. fixing the integration between Wordpress and the forum.

I think I need to hold on to number 4 and there's not much required for number 3, but help's welcome with 1 and/or 2. I can give you the necessary rights (once I remind myself what they are!) and take it from there.

[BobT]

Johnathan,
Happy to assist as far as my knowledge goes or can be extended to.  I have sent you a PM with contact details.
Cheers,
Bob

[Jonathan Stuart]

Thanks Bob. I'll be in touch.

[Jonathan Stuart]

FYI, while fixing things (and breaking then fixing again) I've upgraded and changed a few things. Most this won't be noticeable but just keeps the site up-to-date and, hopefully, secure.

I have made a change that will mean the site, and in particular the forum, displays better on smartphones, tablets and anything else with small screens. It's not perfect (the forum can appear "squashed" on smartphones because the fonts don't resize) but it works. You might see white space under the website's header image until your browser fully picks up all the changes. If this happens then it should fix itself over time, or you can make that happen by pressing Ctrl + F5 (hard refresh) or clearing your browser's cache.