Portrait Artist Forum - Saga of an upgrade

I'm sure that you've slaved and fretted over every aspect of a painting. Then the client comes in and thinks it's wonderful and you're happy, they're happy. But, you know they haven't a clue of the emotion and painstaking consideration you put into every aspect.

I think there are some similarties with this recent upgrade. So, for anyone who's interested in what's been going on over here and why we're up and then we're down, and what it took to get this upgrade going, read on. I realize some will find it rather boring and will decide to skip this. No problem, I can understand it being boring reading. Unfortunately, the saga may not yet be over.

First, you should know a couple of terms:

MySQL: Type of database used for the Forum

PHP - It's a scripting language. What is a scripting language? - A scripting language differentiates itself from other typical languages in that they are usually simpler to learn and use as well as not needing to be compiled. The language is interpreted at run-time so you can execute instructions immediately. Suffice it to say, all the Forum pages end in .php instead of .htm. Now you understand, right? Suffice it to say, I'm not a PHP person.

1. Because I knew I didn't know what I was doing with this particular technology, I decided it was worth hiring someone instead. That took searching on seemingly reputable boards, sending some emails, waiting for response, asking questions sufficient to give me confidence that the person knew what they were doing and that they weren't a hacker in disguise. I fussed and fretted over that and before installation, had my ISP set up a special password for the chosen tech so he could now access my whole web site during the installation process. I also decided it was worth paying the ISP $25 for a backup of the Forum database.

All, this took much searching time, many emails and lots of instant messaging back and forth.

2. Upgrade was scheduled for last Friday, Feb 21st at 2pm and the tech and I were to meet on IM (instant messenger). I made sure I was here at my computer and I waited - and waited. The later it was after 2pm, the more I figured he either had been out partying the night before and was hung over or I had gotten ripped off. Finally at 4pm, he came on and it turned out his computer had blown a fuse and he had to go to the hardware store, take his computer apart...you get the idea.

Ok! We were now both on IM and set to go. But, alas, he went to download the zipped software from the vBulletin site and they were down and had been down since sometime the day before. We tried for a while to access them with no luck. Not one to give up, I hunted on my hard drive and had the zipped file for v2.3.4. We were upgrading to v3RC4, but the 2.3.4 had to be done first anyway. So, we decided to proceed with at least that much of the upgrade.

On our little home computers, we're used to pulling a CD out of a box and doing a one-step installation. This doesn't work that way. Every single upgrade I had missed from our current 2.0.1 had to be done and brought up in the browser and then steps done through the browser. There were at least 20 upgrade steps I had not done since the original installation simply because of lack of time and fear of messing something up.

Of course, the original installation a couple of years ago, was less stressful because we didn't have a sizeable database of precious-to-some information to protect and there weren't members with expectations.

Sometime Friday evening we were up and running and everything appeared good. vBulletin site was still down and we decided to try the next day to download the remaining steps. As Saturday progressed and they were still not up, the tech and I decided to wait until the next weekend since he has a day job and it was Sunday afternoon in New Zealand.

Then, about 8pm EST, Saturday, they came back up and the tech, Mike Reader, decided to go for the rest of the installation. Everything seemed to work without a hitch.

3. We were running stably for the next couple of days and I proceeded to reapply the customizations. I don't think anyone would have much cared for the out-of-the-box techie look. I was significantly along in this after two days and pleased, when suddenly...

4. We started getting MySQL 1064 errors, which made the pages inaccessible. I posted for help over at vBulletin. With each post for help, there's usually anywhere from 30 mins to a few hours before an answer comes. Often the answer comes in a cryptic way requiring another question. Despite the 1064 errors, I could still view the database via a web browser tool called phpmyadmin.

Then there was another problem. I could no longer see the database with phpmyadmin. The ISP said everything was ok there, vBulletin was saying it was a server issue - back and forth. Days passed and I fretted over the possibility of the database being corrupted so badly that we had to revert to our backup, requiring a complete reupgrade. And, I fretted over the possibility that my two days of customizations might be lost.

After several days, the ISP finally noticed that every time MySQL started, it shut itself off after about 30 seconds. Ahah! I was a server problem. He reinstalled some of the MySQL system files and finally I could again again see the database in phpmyadmin.

Now I was back to attacking the original problem of 1064 errors. A very nice tech over at vBulletin saw I wasn't getting the needed help and offered through private messaging to assist. About a day and a half later, he went in, fixed some things and we were back up again. What a relief!

Not only were we back up, but the database seemed intact and my customizations were still there!

5. I plunged back into the customizations. The new controls to do this were completely different than the old version. I poked around to find things, I had the frustration of blank pages coming up that I had to keep reloading (I reported this to vBulletin), I had to post for help at vBulletin many times to determine how to do things I couldn't find. I think they were getting tired of me over there. But, there was good progress being made.

Some of the customizations were achievable by simply filling out a web form, but other required going in and changing code. But, the new software was much more complicated and there was a much higher risk of me messing something up or tolling untold hours trying to figure it out.

The one customization that I feared most was getting the margin space on the left back in where I'd had the Dick Blick ad. Lucky again, I approached the tech that had helped solve the 1064 problem about doing this customization for me and he agreed for a more than reasonable fee of $15!

6. Then, last night, PHP violation errors started and the Forum was once again inaccessible. I'd already discussed with my ISP the fact that he had an older version of PHP on his system. He didn't want to upgrade unless he had to, fearing it might cause other issues. But, when the PHP problems arose last night, he agreed to upgrade this morning (Sunday, Feb 29).

That PHP upgrade is now done and the Forum is back up. However, it was the administrator