Information on the bug on the Science & Tech Forum

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Author Topic:   Information on the bug on the Science & Tech Forum

MikeH II posted 03-23-99 07:58 AM ET
At the moment you can create new topics but you can't read them or reply to them.
I managed to reply to my new topics by playing around with URLs but I still can't read the posts and it seems to have changed my name for someone elses in a couple of posts in the Strategy forum (Sorry whoever it was) I still can't read the posts but for some reason Forum Number 6 seems to be mapping to Strategy and Tactics not Science and Technology when you submit to the posting.cgi and when you try and open a thread , was there some renaming done on that.
I replied by looking at the syntax for replying to a topic which we can reply to (Unity fusion estimate) and changing the Name of the topic and its forum number. I wouldn't recommend anyone else do that because it seems to change the name of the person who posted the equivalent level post in the Strategy forum with your user name.
MikeH II posted 03-23-99 08:01 AM ET
When I say Forum number I mean the bit which says:
topic=001103.ubb
not the:
number=10
bit. The topic name I'm talking about is labeled TopicSubject in the .cgi parameters.
MikeH II posted 03-23-99 08:22 AM ET
I can't see anything about this problem on the UBB forums, but I did notice that v5.25 is out if anyone is interested.
It includes the ability to e-mail a thread to someone amongst other things.
MikeH II posted 03-23-99 10:37 AM ET
http://alpha.owo.com/ubb/Forum6/HTML/000016.html
Look at the date on this thread
Seems as though the old pre-Crash Strategy forum is underneath the new Science and Technology forum and they are somehow interfering. That could be the cause of the problems, I didn't notice the date at first but I remember this thread.
I'll stop playing with it now.
DanS posted 03-23-99 12:57 PM ET
Yeh, MikeH II, I've done some rummaging myself. Forum 3 is the "empty" forum going back to June. Forum 6 is a mix of sci&tech and strategy (I never checked closely enough to know where the actual demarcation between the two is).
There have been several posts here about the old threads and the search function. They could probably get all of them back (and the search function) if they threw all of them in the appropriate directory, updated the threads and reindexed.
Did v.4 of UBB actually create html documents? I sort of think it didn't. Rather, it scripted the whole thing.
DanS posted 03-23-99 01:07 PM ET
OK, I've done some spelunking. Thread 11 is the last sci&tech thread. 12-124 are the old strategy threads. The current count is 74 (that was your "test" thread).
UBB won't overwrite the old stuff (thank god), but let me propose this fix. We could post test threads from 75 through 124. This would link to the old strat threads. Then, presumably 125 would be AOK. We would be back in biz. 1-11 we could then post to to bring them to the top.
What do you think?
DanS posted 03-23-99 01:42 PM ET
Hmmm... That's weird. I got us past 124. But when I post a new topic, it doesn't create the html page. Let me think...
DanS posted 03-23-99 02:08 PM ET
OK, I'm going to stop playing. Don't want to break anything...
DanS posted 03-23-99 04:02 PM ET
OK, I failed to stop playing.
All of the text for the new topics is there. For instance, your <a href="http://alpha.owo.com/ubb/Forum6/000074.ubb">topic</a> is there in its text form. So I suppose it could be a permissions problem in the /Forum6/HTML/ directory.
MikeH II posted 03-24-99 04:08 AM ET
You are correct DanS the old UBB didn't produce .htm files it was all scripted. I think the difference is that the UBB builds the thread when you submit now and the old version (4.x) built the htm page when you requested the thread.
MikeH II posted 03-24-99 04:09 AM ET
It is hard to stop playing isn't it.
DanS posted 03-24-99 09:07 AM ET
Sure is
There was also a change between the early 5 betas and the later v.5s. I think it has something to do with how a thread is rebuilt if there are "old" html files conflicting with attempted new html writes. I think if there are conflicts, it locks the directory to new files (I'm not sure exactly how this works).
In the early 5 betas, the forumX.threads file does not exist. In the later v.5, all you had to do was delete this file for the affected forum and the forum would rebuild the html from the text (.ubb) files. I don't think 5.18 has this file, so Firaxis/Origin has to update the threads by pushing the "update threads" button on the control panel. Tough, eh?
Now, I'm not complaining, but...
DanS posted 03-24-99 09:08 AM ET
Btw, I have 5.10 beta running. I'll probably upgrade it one of these days.
MikeH II posted 03-24-99 10:43 AM ET
Where are you running it? There's no URL in your profile.
Are you saying that pressing the update threads button on the control panel would fix the forum?
DanS posted 03-24-99 11:20 AM ET
Yes, that's what I'm saying. Update the threads then reindex. We would get the sci&tech threads back (when it updates the threads, it would probably fix the create file permissions problem we are having there) and the search function would work (reindexing). The double posts problem is really no problem, but is the result of some bad html somewhere in the Non-SMAC-related forums. The "fix" would be to deactivate html. I would rather have html AND double posts than no html.
Updating and reindexing would mean that they might have to bring down the board for a couple of hours, so that it can regenerate the html for the hundreds of threads these forums have.
http://www.acad.cua.edu/ivihsm/ubbcgi/ultimate.pl
No traffic yet (not yet publicized among the group). All .cgi have been renamed .pl because my sys-admin won't get off his a** and associate .cgi with the perl interpreter.
I've done a little bit of hacking on it. Funny thing is, it's easier to hack than to get in touch with the sys-admin to get my permissions fixed (IIs) . Thus I have deactivated the hop pull-down menu.
In my experience, 75% of UBB problems on NT servers have to do with permission settings. I suspect OWO is running an NT server.
While, they're at it, they should upgrade, since upgrading would necessitate updating threads and reindexing anyway (two birds with one stone).
MikeH II posted 03-24-99 11:50 AM ET
Surely that would only take him about 5 seconds!
MikeH II posted 03-24-99 11:57 AM ET
Well it seems to work OK, I didn't post anything.
The double posts problem is one of the ones that comes up most frequently on the UBB bugs forum. In fact you can see a question from me about it back from November when it started happening on the old forums before they moved to the owo server.
I suspect the Firaxis and Gettysburg Forums are down to integrate the logon info with this site so it would seem like a good time to do all three.
DanS posted 03-24-99 12:00 PM ET
Agreed.
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Author	Topic: Information on the bug on the Science & Tech Forum
MikeH II	posted 03-23-99 07:58 AM ET At the moment you can create new topics but you can't read them or reply to them. I managed to reply to my new topics by playing around with URLs but I still can't read the posts and it seems to have changed my name for someone elses in a couple of posts in the Strategy forum (Sorry whoever it was) I still can't read the posts but for some reason Forum Number 6 seems to be mapping to Strategy and Tactics not Science and Technology when you submit to the posting.cgi and when you try and open a thread , was there some renaming done on that. I replied by looking at the syntax for replying to a topic which we can reply to (Unity fusion estimate) and changing the Name of the topic and its forum number. I wouldn't recommend anyone else do that because it seems to change the name of the person who posted the equivalent level post in the Strategy forum with your user name.
MikeH II	posted 03-23-99 08:01 AM ET When I say Forum number I mean the bit which says: topic=001103.ubb not the: number=10 bit. The topic name I'm talking about is labeled TopicSubject in the .cgi parameters.
MikeH II	posted 03-23-99 08:22 AM ET I can't see anything about this problem on the UBB forums, but I did notice that v5.25 is out if anyone is interested. It includes the ability to e-mail a thread to someone amongst other things.
MikeH II	posted 03-23-99 10:37 AM ET http://alpha.owo.com/ubb/Forum6/HTML/000016.html Look at the date on this thread Seems as though the old pre-Crash Strategy forum is underneath the new Science and Technology forum and they are somehow interfering. That could be the cause of the problems, I didn't notice the date at first but I remember this thread. I'll stop playing with it now.
DanS	posted 03-23-99 12:57 PM ET Yeh, MikeH II, I've done some rummaging myself. Forum 3 is the "empty" forum going back to June. Forum 6 is a mix of sci&tech and strategy (I never checked closely enough to know where the actual demarcation between the two is). There have been several posts here about the old threads and the search function. They could probably get all of them back (and the search function) if they threw all of them in the appropriate directory, updated the threads and reindexed. Did v.4 of UBB actually create html documents? I sort of think it didn't. Rather, it scripted the whole thing.
DanS	posted 03-23-99 01:07 PM ET OK, I've done some spelunking. Thread 11 is the last sci&tech thread. 12-124 are the old strategy threads. The current count is 74 (that was your "test" thread). UBB won't overwrite the old stuff (thank god), but let me propose this fix. We could post test threads from 75 through 124. This would link to the old strat threads. Then, presumably 125 would be AOK. We would be back in biz. 1-11 we could then post to to bring them to the top. What do you think?
DanS	posted 03-23-99 01:42 PM ET Hmmm... That's weird. I got us past 124. But when I post a new topic, it doesn't create the html page. Let me think...
DanS	posted 03-23-99 02:08 PM ET OK, I'm going to stop playing. Don't want to break anything...
DanS	posted 03-23-99 04:02 PM ET OK, I failed to stop playing. All of the text for the new topics is there. For instance, your <a href="http://alpha.owo.com/ubb/Forum6/000074.ubb">topic</a> is there in its text form. So I suppose it could be a permissions problem in the /Forum6/HTML/ directory.
MikeH II	posted 03-24-99 04:08 AM ET You are correct DanS the old UBB didn't produce .htm files it was all scripted. I think the difference is that the UBB builds the thread when you submit now and the old version (4.x) built the htm page when you requested the thread.
MikeH II	posted 03-24-99 04:09 AM ET It is hard to stop playing isn't it.
DanS	posted 03-24-99 09:07 AM ET Sure is There was also a change between the early 5 betas and the later v.5s. I think it has something to do with how a thread is rebuilt if there are "old" html files conflicting with attempted new html writes. I think if there are conflicts, it locks the directory to new files (I'm not sure exactly how this works). In the early 5 betas, the forumX.threads file does not exist. In the later v.5, all you had to do was delete this file for the affected forum and the forum would rebuild the html from the text (.ubb) files. I don't think 5.18 has this file, so Firaxis/Origin has to update the threads by pushing the "update threads" button on the control panel. Tough, eh? Now, I'm not complaining, but...
DanS	posted 03-24-99 09:08 AM ET Btw, I have 5.10 beta running. I'll probably upgrade it one of these days.
MikeH II	posted 03-24-99 10:43 AM ET Where are you running it? There's no URL in your profile. Are you saying that pressing the update threads button on the control panel would fix the forum?
DanS	posted 03-24-99 11:20 AM ET Yes, that's what I'm saying. Update the threads then reindex. We would get the sci&tech threads back (when it updates the threads, it would probably fix the create file permissions problem we are having there) and the search function would work (reindexing). The double posts problem is really no problem, but is the result of some bad html somewhere in the Non-SMAC-related forums. The "fix" would be to deactivate html. I would rather have html AND double posts than no html. Updating and reindexing would mean that they might have to bring down the board for a couple of hours, so that it can regenerate the html for the hundreds of threads these forums have. http://www.acad.cua.edu/ivihsm/ubbcgi/ultimate.pl No traffic yet (not yet publicized among the group). All .cgi have been renamed .pl because my sys-admin won't get off his a** and associate .cgi with the perl interpreter. I've done a little bit of hacking on it. Funny thing is, it's easier to hack than to get in touch with the sys-admin to get my permissions fixed (IIs) . Thus I have deactivated the hop pull-down menu. In my experience, 75% of UBB problems on NT servers have to do with permission settings. I suspect OWO is running an NT server. While, they're at it, they should upgrade, since upgrading would necessitate updating threads and reindexing anyway (two birds with one stone).
MikeH II	posted 03-24-99 11:50 AM ET Surely that would only take him about 5 seconds!
MikeH II	posted 03-24-99 11:57 AM ET Well it seems to work OK, I didn't post anything. The double posts problem is one of the ones that comes up most frequently on the UBB bugs forum. In fact you can see a question from me about it back from November when it started happening on the old forums before they moved to the owo server. I suspect the Firaxis and Gettysburg Forums are down to integrate the logon info with this site so it would seem like a good time to do all three.
DanS	posted 03-24-99 12:00 PM ET Agreed.