Picture posting difficulty

[papaw]

How does a guy like me with little to no knowledge of coding or whatever it is that is needed find out why my forum members have difficulty posting pictures?
They get "Internal Server Error" often, and after several tries or waiting for a long time, they can post pictures.
Is it a bandwidth issue?
Host is Godaddy and the forum runs SMF 2.0 RC5 .
Forum-  http://www.papawswrench.com/vboard/index.php

[kat]

Two clues.

1-Godaddy. They really aren't terribly good, I'm afraid.

2-2.0 RC5.

Updates are released for good reasons. RC5, particularly, is a beta version, in essence. Maybe you ought to think about v2.0.6, at least, after backing up.

Anything in your error logs?

[papaw]

I know nothing about looking at error logs, and even less about updates. I have one member that has done some of that for me, but he is out of pocket right now.

[Kindred]

Well, you had best install the updates soon, since 2.0 rc5 has known security vulnerabilities and is 7 revisions out of date.

[kat]

The first logs to check will be those in your admin panel.

[papaw]

I see nothing there to tell me what was wrong with our ability to post pictures. I see when the errors occur. At the moment, posters don't seem to have as much trouble as last week.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

GoDaddy has been worse than usual lately.  If the problem comes and goes, it's most likely a host problem.  I'm getting a 403 trying to reach your forum, it's currently offline.

[papaw]

Weird- I am on it right now and so are 7 or 8 members.

[a10]

Interesting forum (am into old tools). About the host, very slow from here, and now and then getting

Connection  Problems
Sorry, SMF was unable to connect to the database. This may be caused by the server being busy. Please try again later.

I would look for better hosting (and get the forum upgraded).

[Sir Osis of Liver]

403 again.  It's blocking my proxy, never saw that on GD before.

Yes, very interesting forum.  Have a lot of old tools (am an old guy).

[kat]

Funny... A few hours ago, I tried. The place was turbo-charged!

Odd...

[papaw]

Working smoothly at the moment.
I know I need to upgrade, but don't have the knowledge to do so.

[margarett]

Upgrading SMF
Should be your starting point A full backup is mandatory.

Overall, the conversion should be pretty much painless, but you should be aware that all your Themes and MODs will be automatically uninstalled (because you will load a fresh set of files for the current version) and they need to be reinstalled.
Using GD, on the other hand, is likely to create additional issues for you... The conversion is a quite "heavy" process to the server and, with GD's reputation, I would be surprised if it went smooth...

Anyway, with or without help, you should *REALLY* update your forum. With your current version there are known security issues, this means that you can get hacked and loose all your forum...

[papaw]

To all who tell me I need to upgrade-I have to repeat- I don't know enough to do it myself. I have messaged one of the folks advertizing paid upgrade help.

Changing host might be an option, but once again, not in my ability to handle myself.

[margarett]

That's a smart move, there

Changing hosts is even less painful You basically contact a new host (check this board - and child boards - for some ideas http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?board=4.0) and ask them if they will import your current GD content. Most of them will.
When choosing a new host, the main point is to run away from "Unlimited" stuff. Nothing is unlimited

Good luck!

[Sir Osis of Liver]

You shouldn't have to pay for upgrade assistance.  PM me and I'll get you going.

[blogger419]

Depending on what he's moving to upgrading is not so simple. Especially if going to a VPS.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

He should upgrade first, then decide if he wants to move.  Doesn't need a vps.  Have done several upgrades and recovered trashed forums on GD accounts, not any worse than other shared hosts I've worked on.

[papaw]

SOLVED OK. Upgrade is done, thanks to Gary . We'll see about host change when the hosting term nears its end.