New Forum Update Status - please read

[JohnCh]

As Croc mentioned in this thread, we are moving the forum to a new hoster and onto a new platform. This will not only resolve many of the issues we have today with vBulletin, but will also improve the user experience. I have started this thread to keep everyone apprised of the timetable and what to expect over the next month. To ensure the information is easy to consume, any pertinent updates in this thread will be date stamped and added to this initial post to keep the need-to-know information in one place.

This is a two hop migration:

Sunday, 1/31 -- the current forum will move unchanged to the new hoster at approximately 7am PT/10am ET. This process will result in the forum temporarily going offline, but we are doing preparatory work to keep this downtime to under 2 hours. However, if we are unlucky, it could be down for up to 24 hours. After this migration is completed, you should notice zero difference to the current forum experience. We will still be on vBulletin with the same look and feel. The software and data will simply be hosted elsewhere.

Sunday, 2/28 – move the forum from vBulletin to Invision. Due to the issues described in this post, the forum will likely be down all day and that outage could be bleed into Monday if there are problems. When the new forum comes back online, all existing threads, attachments, galleries, links, PMs, and User Profiles should move over intact.

The Invision platform gives us a number of benefits, including a Downloads area, where we will host a number of files from the now defunct Birkin and WCM Yahoo groups, as well as fascinating technical files on the original Lotus 7 donated by SENC. We also have an Articles section which I will preload with help guides on how to use the new forum. Change is never easy, and some people deal with it better than others. Given this group drives cars that are based on a design over 60 years old, it’s safe to say that collectively we are probably on the change adverse end of the spectrum. We’ll need to get over that.

More to follow in the coming weeks…

UPDATE (1/24) dates revised above. We also have set up a Twitter account. If the site goes offline much longer than planned, we'll Tweet out the status to keep everyone apprised: @usa7sclub

UPDATE (1/28) the date and time for the first migration hop has been updated above. Once that migration completes successfully, I will update the date and time of the second migration to the new forum.

UDATE (1/31) The Migration has completed! Some of you will be able to access it sooner than others due to DNS replication, but it's already working for me, which is a good sign. If you experience any new problems with the forum, please report them on this thread so we can track them.

UPDATE (2/1) as per this post, I've updated the date for the second hop of the migration as well as the expected downtime.

UPDATE (2/9) Although your avatars/profile photos should move over, the size has changed and it may no longer look right. In preparation for the move, I recommend updating your avatar so it is square (it will crop a rectangular photo to square, which will result in lopping off part of the long dimension). The new max dimensions are bigger than on vBulletin at 170 x 170px and 490kb.

UPDATE (2/13) As per post #59, due to weather issues, we are delaying the migration to next Sunday the 21st.

UPDATE (2/19) As per post #62, we are delaying the migration a week to Sunday the 28th.

-John

[JohnCh]

Although the process has begun, we've had some delays due to travel and work schedules. I will provide an update to the dates above today or tomorrow, but I suspect that each migration phase noted above will slip by 1 week.

-John

[JohnCh]

We've made the DNS changes and are giving them time to propagate, In the interim, we'll move a copy of the forum later this week to perform a test. Provided this step goes well, we'll move the existing vbulletin forum to the new hoster on Thursday, 1/28, and switch to the new forum on Thursday, 2/16. These dates are 1 week later than originally planned. I've updated the initial post accordingly.

-John

[Vovchandr]

Great news! Thanks for all the hard work

[Croc]

And he did it with dodgy internet, permanent rain, no power and two lovable drooling dogs that shed white fur all over you.

[JohnCh]

I's amazing how far behind you can get after 4 days with no power and poor cell coverage. Fingers are still crossed for this Thursday. I've set up a Twitter account (@usa7sclub) to communicate status should issues arise during either migration that take the forum offline longer than expected.

Croc, you really shouldn't wear black when you visit. It encourages them to shed more.

Attachment 18099

-John

[JohnCh]

We ran into some issues this week when attempting to move a test copy of the current forum to the new hoster. Good news is that they’re sorted and so far the test copy is working correctly. This gives confidence that when we do the first migration hop, things should continue to work as they do now until we make the move from vBulletin to Invision. So functional, but a little buggy 😉.

However, we will want to push out the dates again by a few days to finish testing. There is also a chance that the temporary outages described in post #1 may happen during the day rather than overnight. We have a great support person who is incredibly responsive and on top of things. I’d prefer to perform both migrations during his working hours in case there is a problem. I’ll update this thread tomorrow with the new dates and times.

-John

[coffee break]

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your and your teams efforts.

[JohnCh]

We’re not selfless, we’re doing this for us too. I want a better, modern forum, integration with social media, and to grow a vibrant community of likeminded individuals who think a se7en is an eminently sensible vehicle. This site should be the locus in North America for those who own or who are considering owning a se7en. Whether new or used. Whether a Westfield, Birkin, Stalker, WCM, Caterham, or any other car true to the Lotus 7 ethos. I want see track days, tours, local get togethers, and for us to collectively corrupt those who have been hesitant to take the plunge. But first I want the better forum and functional spammer control

John

[JohnCh]

We have a new plan and timeline. We are moving the current vBulletin forum to the new hoster this Sunday around 10am ET/7am PT. We did work earlier this week to prep the DNS servers to point to the new location. In theory, this work means the forum could be offline for as little as 1-2 hours, but despite those efforts, it could take up to 24 hours for the changes to fully replicate throughout the Internet. Bottom line, even if everything goes smoothly with the actual migration, we still could be offline until Monday morning, so don't start panicking until mid day Monday and check the Twitter account for an update.

-John