MIGRATION SHUTDOWN 20.00 hrs BST (8pm) TODAY

Hi Guys and Gals, "Listen very carefully I shall say zis only once"

 As you know, I've been banging on for weeks now about forum maintenance and members checking their details. There is a very good reason for this and so it's time to bring you all up to date.

For quite a few years our forum has been Hosted by Jim at Data 1, a safe pair of hands who has kept us running pretty much 24/7 year in year out. But all good things come to an end and Jim is retiring. ( Thanks for the great service Jim and I hope you enjoy your retirement ! ) As his family has no interest in continuing with the business, Data 1 will almost certainly be closing down in the near future.
 
 What does this mean for the Forum ? Well Alan and I had some long conversations about our options and at first things looked bleak, we run on obsolete, heavily customised software that would be a Major task to try and upgrade. To try and unpick the Forum and move it to a new software package ( in the short time we had available)  would also be a Huge undertaking, and very expensive to get done professionally. Another factor is that most Hosting companies out there no longer Support/ wont Host the software we run on.

Luckily I happen to know a lad who's day Job is keeping running obsolete 'Legacy' Software platforms, long after they are meant to be retired. He took a look and said he thought it could be done. Long story short, over the last 6-8 weeks we have been dismantling, moving, re building and  trialing the Forum Software on a different Host, that WILL  let us run it. Lots of fiddling and tweaking needed and we've tested all we can, but were now in the position to go ahead and move. 

This is scheduled for next TUESDAY 22nd aprox 20.00 hrs BST onwards. The board will get switched off to allow a complete Data and Gallery backup and transfer, then testing, fixing , trialing and finally the forum  will be opened up again, with re directs etc in place to guide members and visitors back to us. Please be patient, this is a large Forum and we MAY encounter unforseen problems that take time to resolve, so we are giving no timescale. We HOPE it will be reasonably fast.

 Although re directs will be in place it's possible that once we switch on again  it could take up to 24 hours for the world servers to re populate and direct searchers back  to us so please keep trying.

http://yourmodelrailway.net

 During the outage the internal mail system will be offline until we get the chance to reinstate it on the new Cpanel but I will monitor the Yahoo email account given  :-  yourmodelrailway@yahoo.com   

PLEASE wait for at least 48 hours before using this email, I'll probably be a 'bit' busy. I've noted  those members who have logged in over the last month and once the Forum is back open I'll monitor those who log in and if I don't see  any of those members logging I'll send an email to them with a direct link back to us.

If you are a member who HASN'T logged in and 'checked your details' as per the Maintenance notice, you still have time before Tuesday to do so.

We are reasonably hopeful that we can get moved without to many 'bits' falling off but please, please be patient as this is no easy task, we will do our best to get it done as quickly as possible, BUT I would rather try and get things right rather than rush it. Once we open back up there may still be bits not working, we will look at these when time permits and I will change the title of this Topic again so members can report any issues they see. But please remember we ARE volunteers and we have day Jobs.

I'll update if for any reason the Schedule changes

On a personal note I would just like to say a HUGE thanks to Breakage for Volunteering to help and all the behind the scenes work he has put in,  I WILL buy you that crate of beer I promised you Son,  Honest !!

Any questions ? (Runs for cover)

Cheers

Matt

No questions Matt, just a huge thank you to ALL concerned and I hope Breakage and you don't loose too much sleep.

 Very best,

Bill

Hi Matt,

Something which I have only just remembered but may be useful to Breakage, is that the domain:

 yourmodelrailway.com


is still alive and redirects here, try it:  Forum home - Your Model Railway

It was originally created by Bob in the olden days, before YMR moved to Data1.

It's currently registered until 11th Oct 2021.

If you are moving stuff from Data1, you may want to move this too, or decide what to do with it.

cheers,

Martin.

Thanks Martin, Much apreciated,  I've re registered that Domain as well so we will re direct it to the new Named servers too. If you think of anything else we might have missed please shout out  :thumbs
Cheers

Matt

Shutdown should go ahead 8pm this evening. We don't have a timescale ( but Hopefully not to long) Once the board goes off please check back regularly to see if we are back from the flip side
Many thanks for your patience


Cheers

Matt

Carry on Houston.

T minus 4 hours and 37 minutes. . . AHH begger, me watch battery ran out  . Where's me Backup sundial ??? :cool:

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I'd just like to add my thanks to all those "back stage" chaps who have worked so hard to get this done, particularly Breakage and you Matt - I know you two have done all the "technical stuff".  If I didn't live so far way, I'd buy Breakage a can too …………………..

Good luck with the switch over and I know we all hope it goes as smoothly as somethging like this possibly can but we do have contacts in case it does fall off the rails ……………

Bon chance mes amis.  :cheers :cheers :cheers :cheers :cheers

[user=2080]Barchester[/user] wrote:

Where's me Backup sundial ??? :cool:

Sundial shows GMT, not BST. :)

Is he with you Matt ? ......................

Ok ok !! When that snail gets to the top of that shed wall I'm pulling the plug