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Forum not working

Started by ruskan, August 02, 2021, 11:10:05 AM

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ruskan

My forum has been working well for years. I have not made any recent modifications. The forum is now not able to be accessed. When trying to use the link "https://www.emclear.com/forum/" the message appears:"The www.emclear.com page isn't working. WWW.emclear.com is currently unable to handle this request."

I tried searching the FAQ but didn't see any relevant postings. Help will be appreciated, but please keep in mind that I have not tinkered with the forum probably for 5 years, and my SMF technical know-how is minimal if not almost zero. I'm sorry to say I don't even remember the version, but it was an older one, I believe. I will need explicit guidance.

Thank you!

Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen

If you truly are using SMF 1.1 then most likely your host has updated your PHP to a version that 1.1 does not support.
1.1 has been EOL for a long while. You should be able to confirm this though, by looking at your error logs - something should be logged when that error message is shown.
Slava
Ukraini!


"Before you allow people access to your forum, especially in an administrative position, you must be aware that that person can seriously damage your forum. Therefore, you should only allow people that you trust, implicitly, to have such access." -Douglas

How you can help SMF

ruskan

Thanks so much for the reply. However, I do not know how to access the error logs. And this will be able to reveal what version I am using?

ruskan

Should I contact Earthlink (my internet service provider) and ask them if they have updated PHP?

Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen

Quote from: ruskan on August 02, 2021, 11:39:42 AM
Thanks so much for the reply. However, I do not know how to access the error logs. And this will be able to reveal what version I am using?
Usually where you host your forum, you will have access to a control panel of sorts (most commonly cPanel or Plesk) that will include some way of looking at the server error logs.
The logs might not reveal your PHP version, but they will tell you why the forum is not showing up.

Quote from: ruskan on August 02, 2021, 11:42:24 AM
Should I contact Earthlink (my internet service provider) and ask them if they have updated PHP?
If they are who host the forum, then yes if you are not able to figure this out yourself it might be best to ask your host.
Once you know what PHP version you are running, you can plan the next steps to fix this.
Slava
Ukraini!


"Before you allow people access to your forum, especially in an administrative position, you must be aware that that person can seriously damage your forum. Therefore, you should only allow people that you trust, implicitly, to have such access." -Douglas

How you can help SMF

ruskan

On the Earthlink site, I found the message that PHP 7.2 or older have been removed, and I should update to 7.3 or later. But you said that my version of SMF might not support higher versions. So I'm stumped. Should I update PHP in the SMF settings, or update PHP on the Earthlink site? I have looked through the Forum folder that I uploaded to Earthlink and don't see any reference to PHP there.

shadav

smf 1.1 will not work on newer version of php
you really need to upgrade your forum to smf 2.0.18 which will work on newer versions of php, not to mention all the security issues that have long been fixed.

if you are not using mods you can just do the large upgrade

if you are using mods you can do the patches however since your host removed older versions of php you won't be able to do this on that host...and honestly as outdated as you are, your best bet is just to do the large upgrade and then redownload the mods you were using making sure that you download the latest versions of them as well and reinstall them.
mods and themes that were made for smf 1.x won't work with smf 2.0.x anyways so you'd need to find updated versions of them that work with 2.0.x

Sir Osis of Liver

You can't patch from 1.1 to 2.0.  Do the large upgrade to 2.0.18, it will update your database so you won't lose any content.  As noted, you'll have to reinstall 2.0 versions of mods and themes.
Ashes and diamonds, foe and friend,
 we were all equal in the end.

                                     - R. Waters

ruskan

I am not certain that I am using v1. It's possible I did upgrade to v2, but its been so long that I can't remember. Is there a way to determine the version if I  can't access the forum?

If needed, can I upgrade to v2 without being able to access the forum?

Thanks to all.

Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen

Correction, no patching from 1.1. to 2.0. The large upgrade is the only way to go. (Edit: I was slooow.... )

Your settings.php should contain the SMF version number I think, if you take a look inside it.
Slava
Ukraini!


"Before you allow people access to your forum, especially in an administrative position, you must be aware that that person can seriously damage your forum. Therefore, you should only allow people that you trust, implicitly, to have such access." -Douglas

How you can help SMF

Sir Osis of Liver

Quote from: ruskan on August 02, 2021, 12:51:55 PM
If needed, can I upgrade to v2 without being able to access the forum?

Yes, you just need access to cpanel file manager or ftp.  Upload the 2.0.18 upgrade package, if forum is already at 2.0 it should come up running, no need to run upgrade.php.  If you're currently at 1.1, you'll get an error, then you can run upgrade.php to update the database to 2.0.  Backup your files and database before you start.

Ashes and diamonds, foe and friend,
 we were all equal in the end.

                                     - R. Waters

shadav

Quote from: Sir Osis of Liver on August 02, 2021, 12:46:23 PM
You can't patch from 1.1 to 2.0.  Do the large upgrade to 2.0.18, it will update your database so you won't lose any content.  As noted, you'll have to reinstall 2.0 versions of mods and themes.
my bad, I thought there was, but just checked and nope only large upgrade between major versions (files that away for future use)...sorry about that

and yes once you upload the large upgrade files you should be able to access your forum since smf 2.0.18 is made to work with up to php 7.4 and doing as Sir Osis of Liver pointed out above

ruskan

Guys- thanks so much for the helpful replies. I determined in settings.php that I do indeed have 1.1. I found the upgrade instructions on your site and will do the large upgrade. I have to leave this for now, but will get back to it tomorrow, and hope that I won't have to trouble you again, but there's always that possibility....!!!

Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen

Do make backups before you attempt the upgrade, just in case - and let us know if you run in to any trouble :)
Slava
Ukraini!


"Before you allow people access to your forum, especially in an administrative position, you must be aware that that person can seriously damage your forum. Therefore, you should only allow people that you trust, implicitly, to have such access." -Douglas

How you can help SMF

ruskan

I've made the backup, removed the old 'forum' folder with my Fetch ftp app, replaced it with the new 2.0.18 folder after renaming it 'forum' into the Fetch app and uploaded it into the Earthlink hosting location. I'm getting stuck with the upgrading tool. I see upgrade.php in the 'forum' folder, which is in the public folder, in ftp.mysite.com. When I clik on upgrade.php, nothing happens. ??? Thanks.

Maybe I'm in the wrong place. if I try to go to https://emclear.com/forum/upgrade.php, I get an error message:


Warning: require_once(/services2/webpages/e/m/emclear.com/public/forum/Settings.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /services2/webpages/e/m/emclear.com/public/forum/upgrade.php on line 89

Fatal error: require_once(): Failed opening required '/services2/webpages/e/m/emclear.com/public/forum/Settings.php' (include_path='.:/usr/share/php73/pear:/usr/share/php73') in /services2/webpages/e/m/emclear.com/public/forum/upgrade.php on line 89

Sir Osis of Liver

If you deleted everything in the /forum directory, upgrade.php won't run.  It's looking for Settings.php in forum root so it can connect to the database.  The proper way to use the upgrade package is to upload the files into the existing install, it will overwrite the old files but needs Settings.php to run the upgrade.  Copy Settings.php and Settings_bak.php from your backup to /forum, then run upgrade.php.
Ashes and diamonds, foe and friend,
 we were all equal in the end.

                                     - R. Waters

Mick.

I looked you up in web archives and yes, you use 1.1.20 as of January this year.

Kindred

you also don't want to "remove everything" since by doing so, you will break avatars and attachments.

restore your site from your backup...    and then put the 2.0 files by OVERWRITING....

or, replace the files in Sources, Themes and the root directories (excepting Settings.php -- never overwrite Settings.php)
Слaва
Украинi

Please do not PM, IM or Email me with support questions.  You will get better and faster responses in the support boards.  Thank you.

"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

ruskan

Looks like it's working!!! Thanks to all.

ruskan

Sorry, but again I'm stuck. The forum shows up ok, but when I enter my moderator id data to log in, it seems to recognize me and lets me in, but does not show any moderator options in the menu bar at the top. The only item showing there is 'my messages.'

Then, there's a big warning in pink: MAJOR SECURITY RISK upgrade.php has not been removed. Can you pls advise how to do this? thanks.

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