Hello all you amazing SMF Wizards! I need your help!!
GoDaddy just migrated from 2GH Linux hosting to 4GH Linux Hosting and my SMF forum went down.. 12+ years of content and conversation, gone in a poof I had no control over. Reeeeeeally hopeful someone knows how to get it back online.

SimpleMachines 1.1.21 is known to have issues with php 5.6, so I downgraded to 5.4 (last time it worked was 5.2 under 2GH). PHP 5.4 supposedly works with SMF 1.1.21 - does it not?
Could a CHMOD perhaps be needed because 4GH defaults for files and folders may be different then they were under 2GH? Or would those not change as a result of the upgrade? I made amazing progress just by doing a Save As on a file in UTF-8 instead of ANSI as you'll see below, so I've learned not to overlook the simple stuff.
Oh, and I would prefer NOT to upgrade to SMF 2.0.x if at all poss and lose all custom mods - plus I keep reading about nothing but problems with this upgrade if not done from within SMF, which is unfortunately no longer an option.
Forum link: http://www.fx-knight.com/smForum/index.phpError we are 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.
Their tech suspected the issue might be the syntax of the
$db_server path in the
settings.php file..
Used to be:dbname.db.3857732.hostedresource.com
GoDaddy suggested new ones to try are:grid55mysql277.secureserver.net
shr.prod.phx3.secureserver.net
But.. perhaps unlike WordPress, Simple Machines likes db name to be part of the path as it was originally?
What would be the correct syntax starting with dbname.. and ending with ..secureserver.net?
(This is something that seems to be SMF-specific, what it likes to see here, so the GoDaddy tech didn't want to assume that what works for Word Press would also work for SMF.)
Next, we noticed the
settings.php file was being saved as ANSI
Changing to encoding to UTF-8 and doing a Save As generated the following:
Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/content/32/3857732/html/_fxK2/smForum/Settings.php:1) in /home/content/32/3857732/html/_fxK2/smForum/Sources/Subs-Auth.php on line 346
Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/content/32/3857732/html/_fxK2/smForum/Settings.php:1) in /home/content/32/3857732/html/_fxK2/smForum/Sources/Subs-Auth.php on line 347
Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/content/32/3857732/html/_fxK2/smForum/Settings.php:1) in /home/content/32/3857732/html/_fxK2/smForum/Sources/Subs-Auth.php on line 348
Connection Problems
Sorry, SMF was unable to connect to the database. This may be caused by the server being busy. Please try again later.
These are the lines of code in question from
/Sources/Subs-Auth.php:
// Don't cache this page!
header('Expires: Mon, 26 Jul 1997 05:00:00 GMT');
header('Last-Modified: ' . gmdate('D, d M Y H:i:s') . ' GMT');
header('Cache-Control: no-cache');
So... could it be that 4GH doesn't like the date format 2GH used to use on the headers?
Although.. the error above seems to suggest we already have headers coming from elsewhere?
Really hopeful this gives someone out there a lead on what is causing the database connection error..
Here are the contents of the
settings.php file:
########## Forum Info ##########
$mbname = 'fxKnight'; # The name of your forum.
$language = 'english'; # The default language file set for the forum.
$boardurl = 'http://fx-knight.com/smForum'; # URL to your forum's folder. (without the trailing /!)
$webmaster_email = 'support@fxKnight.com'; # Email address to send emails from. (like noreply@yourdomain.com.)
$cookiename = 'fxKnight923'; # Name of the cookie to set for authentication.
########## Database Info ##########
$db_server = 'dbname.db.3857732.hostedresource.com';
$db_name = 'dbname';
$db_user = 'user';
$db_passwd = 'password';
$db_prefix = 'smf_';
$db_persist = 0;
$db_error_send = 1;
########## Directories/Files ##########
# Note: These directories do not have to be changed unless you move things.
$boarddir = '/home/content/32/3857732/html/_fxK2/smForum'; # The absolute path to the forum's folder. (not just '.'!)
$sourcedir = '/home/content/32/3857732/html/_fxK2/smForum/Sources'; # Path to the Sources directory.
Any help would be GREATLY appreciated, and I cannot tell you in words how grateful I am for your knowledge & expertise!
-=Andrei