VeloBase.com - 2021 Update Thread
 

Decided to start a fresh thread for status / updates on the renewed (and hopefully lasting) improvements progress. As mentioned in the 'VeloBase.com is Gone' thread - I just pre-paid for three years of hosting on this new hosting provider. I have my fingers crossed this will result in fewer issues once the dust settles, and I'm thankful to those who have donated to the site's costs over the years.

• I've fixed several server errors that were due to incompatibilities between the database and code version in use. These were probably present on the old site for a while... regardless hopefully most pages are loading correctly now and I have a working error log again to review errors.
• If you encounter page errors, please reply here so I can look into it this week, my goal is to do one or two deploys with as many fixes as I can over the next week or two (including the two items below)
• Update 7/5/21 7PM CST: Deployed a new version (2.8.3) with several small code fixes, mostly continuing to remove the Forum & Marketplace (both of which I've discontinued for the foreseeable future) from the site.
• Site was down evening of 7/9 - mid-day 7/10: Appears the site was 'over memory usage' allowed by the new host. The only memory hogging thing I can find is resizing images on upload. Added better memory management (ie: threw a ton of garbage collection at it) that seems to be helping that locally... let's hope it's enough.
• Contact Us page is working again, and so should receiving the emails for new users. If you still have problems enabling your account, send me an email and I'll get you enabled.
• 7/11: Site was disabled again this evening due to memory usage. Seems this new host can't keep up with the traffic on the site. Sent a rather strongly worded email to the support.
  

1. Fixed 7/6: Photo Uploads still need to be fixed, appears that the version of the code that is compatible with this database is still using Flash, which is no longer supported and officially killed across the web (with good reason). So I need to go dig through my new code and see if I can transfer over the Photo Manager upgrades fairly quickly.
2. Known Issue: I heard from one new user that the User Registration Email Verification isn't working, likely due to the lack of a ssl certificate - something else that got lost when all that stuff happened back in December. I'll be looking at this asap as well so new users will be properly setup. - first attempt at fixing this deployed evening of 7/5 - VeloBase 2.8.3
3. Known Issue: User Menu occasionally becomes not functional - not sure what triggers this, but wasn't working for me this morning, then suddenly it started again. Will research. - appears to be https/ssl related, if you encounter, check url for http rather than http until I get ssl setup
4. Fixed 7/10: Contact Us page is not sending email, contact me here or at the email address listed on the Contact Us page.

8/15: Photos are back up and running, photo uploads should be working, I'm working through testing those to be sure. At some point I'm going to have to disable add/edit functionality one more time to transfer the databases, but for the moment I'm letting the dust settle.
8/15: There does seem to be some minor issues with the List page. I think Search is working, but looking at a list of components just by a category doesn't want to page correctly. I'm sure this is related to all the caching I had to yank out to get the Memory issues fixed. I'll get that fixed asap.
8/15: I'm also working on getting SSL back up and running, waiting on a response from the certificate issuer.
8/20: Still working on getting SSL up and running, seems my request for a new certificate got lost somewhere, so got to restart that. Also at some point this weekend I'm going to try to get the database swapped over, then get any updates from the database backup from July4-July20th integrated in. That will take some manual effort since I can't link servers and copy directly.
9/4: SSL up and running! Enabled HTTPS redirects so all users should now be landing on the secure site.
9/5: Database copy and cut over completed. System responsiveness seems greatly improved over using the old database on the new hosting we'd been on for the last several weeks.

Thanks for the update. I shall go and donate some more to this worthy cause.

Thank You for all your hard work.

Might this be a sticky for a month or two till the word gets out?

Many many many moons ago I could have done that myself. :lol: can't even recall when it was that I hung up the admin badge.

Note - Update 1 added to the original post.

I'm trying to keep it at the top of the threads.

Stickied.

Update - think I've got the new PhotoManager up and running, if anyone encounters problems please let me know.

Everything looks much better than the last time I ducked in. thanks much for all the hard work and efforts to bring things back, and make them even better.

Bill

@cuda2k - Thank you for your all that you have done and continue to do to support this enthusiastic group of people who fully enjoy bicycles! I am amazed at how such a simple and elegant object can attract our souls
I am often confused about what I have or what I am looking at. Velobase has answered a ton of questions and sometimes generates a couple more. The results of your efforts continue to be of great value. Thanks for keeping it going and maintaining it.
My hope is that it becomes better known and the knowledge of about so many parts are added to the database.

Looks like the Photo Manager is indeed back up and running as people have been uploading new photos for the first time in quite a while. Just setup my new email account for VeloBase.com with the new hosting provider, hopefully I can get the Contact Us page up and running soon, but if all else fails the email in the site's current System Message will reach me.

All I get is:
"Service Unavailable
HTTP Error 503"

Me too. A few days ago I did not have problems.

GAAAHHHHH.. What the hell. Let me look into it.

Site is back up, on chat with hosting support to figure out what happened. Not a good start with this new hosting company to say the least.

It's up and I'm logged in. All is right with the world.

Thanks for all your hard work on the site.

Top post updated. Version 2.8.5 deployed this evening with updates to manage memory better (apparently what caused the site to go down, guessing everyone rushed the site to upload photos.) Also go mail back up and running.

Well, it seems my experiment with this new host may be much shorter lived than I had planned. The site was disabled again this evening around 7pm, got it back up and running as I happened to go check on a user's password recovery problem. This is a tad frustrating to say the least, there aren't that many shared windows hosting providers out there, and going to a dedicated server is 7-10x the monthly costs from my initial research. I'm not too inclined to switch back to my old hosting provider (though I haven't ruled it out for the short term), so I'll have to spend some time this week researching other options. In the meantime, if anyone notices more 503 errors, please contact me at JonFischer-at-VeloBase.com

The web host took the site down twice yesterday, I'm currently pulling down the image directories and backups of the database to get the old host's data up to date so I can switch back over. Add/Edit functionality will be disabled until the cut over occurs.

Jon

Revert to the old hosting is being processed. Trying to find a way to restored the main database but things (as always) appear to be more difficult than they should be. As the message on VeloBase indicates, I have all the information for new users and updates added in the last month, but might be next week until I can get everything restored. What a pain.

As many others have noted, thanks for all your work on Velobase. Invaluable reference for all things bike! And also thanks for keeping us plebeians informed. Best of luck getting things stabilized.

:bang:

How's it going? Or should I ask? :innocent: Your site seems to be running pretty slow today.

Grrrrrreeeeeat. I'll get a ticket into the web host tomorrow... SMH.

Okay, if anyone sees any more performance issues with the site after 5pm CST today, please let me know. I've been through Tech Support Chat twice today trying to get this resolved. I'll have to renew my research for another host this week as I'm not confident GoDaddy is going to be able to provide what we need long term for VeloBase. There just are not that many Windows hosting providers out there that don't cost a LOT more than what my current hosting is.

Edit 20 minutes later of research... I'm going to have to put some fairly significant time into updating some of the list/search pages before I switch again I guess. All these hosting providers have the same incredibly low memory limits as the provider I just had to cancel. Guess I know how I'll be sending my evenings for the next week or two. :bang: