Technical help for hairtell

[Seana]

Dee, from the little bit of communication with Cappernica Addams who implemented the server, I dont think  it's browser specific, just my opinion, but it's based on over 25 years as a network admin and systems engineer, and a career that focused to a large degree on LAMP (linux apache PHP and Mysql) servers of which this Ubbthreads server is one.

Capernica indicated to me a year ago there were some missing access permissions to some of the CSS style sheets when she implemented the server. My  understanding is she attempted to correct them. At the time I thought the permissions issues may have been causing issues with the back end database on mysql or access to, and may or may not have been causing corruption to the databse that holds all the content for this site ( 15 years worth) and this may, or may not be the case as to cause but it looks like the error is taking place ont he server, not on the clients browser.

I did do a little research on the UBB threads support forum, and there is some indication that there were problems with some of the upgrade paths concerning style sheets about the time version 7.5.4.2p2 came out in 2010. Suggestions were made at the time of deleting and them recopying after some of the style sheets, but I'll leave it up to whatever technical help Andrea can afford to fully research and diagnose.

I'm administered and built and deployed dozens of forum LAMP servers, primarily on PHPBB but UBBtheads is not alot different.

What is different is licensing. Most of these forum softwares began as Open source  projects, and later went toward a licensed model. So it costs Andrea money to have the latest and greatest software. Maybe that explains why she had a version installed that was 4 years out of date when it was implemented.

My feeling is, the back end database is probably fine and the problem is with the style sheets. Changing platforms with forum software, probably would not go smoothly. I dont see an easy way to fix the current problems though without finding a more up to date version implementing it on seperate hardware, and then testing the hell out of it to make sure everything is working before migrating the database.The alternative would be to have a really spectacular systems specialist diagnose and correct, but it's probably cheaper to move to a version of UBBthreads that does work properly.

Either way, it's going to require specialist help and cost money.

Edit: (because I can do that here, and even write run on paragraphs that go on for pages , cut and paste content and all that good stuff!) :

I've tested and the symptoms are consistent on all browsers I own. IT's not browser specific. With Descent error logging on your server a good professional can identify and likely correct the cause. As indicated earlier in this post though, it may take more time and expertise than it would to migrate to a functional platform. The problem is not with the browser, but the server software. Look to the error log for clues. I dont mind using this board to communicate or even as a fallback should hairtell need to come down, but I've no way to migrrate posts back to you when its done but it can be used if hairtell is down while issues are corrected.

I also want to clarify what little I know on the technical side.
I believe the problem is with the actual files that make up how the server works, these "style" sheets or CSS take the input from the interface, and translate it for inclusion in the Mysql database in the format and with the permissions required to do so.Capernica had advised me that she had found the permissions on these files set to 0,0,0 and she corrected that.She may however have had permission issues regarding folder transversal and listing she may not have noticed, but again that's a theory.
That it happens to longer posts and less or not on brief posts suggests it could be a field limitation is causing problems with the database and not related to the CSS sheets, The symptoms seem inconsistent, sometimes referring to the hairtell main page, other times coming up with a 500 internal server error after a very long time..
Again the key to how complicated the issue is will be revealed in the server log files. If it cant be diagnosed, and corrected in a very short period, then you are better off installing a fresh copy of an upgraded version, and importing the database. It'd be faster.

Seana