Incomplete posts / restarting forum

[OneHighMofo]

The problem is that if even if it were possible to merge the databases (unlikely in my experience) and let's say it takes Lemming a few weeks (at very best case) to get his head around it…. all the posts made from the moment the merge began will be lost. So in many ways it's a 'six of one - half a dozen of the other' moment, there's no easy fix unless someone has a large amount of time to dedicate to the job.
Doing the merge manually could be done but would take a serious amount of time… Hundreds of hours - if not more. Especially on a Forum with ten years of posts.

I've done some searching and as far as I can tell there are no ways to automate the job. There are lots of people asking the same questions, but no-one has provided any tools for doing such a thing.

There is an explanation of one method (that apparently worked for the author) for merging PHPBB databases here: (https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtop ... 6&t=582273). But it's not a job for the faint of heart.

Assuming Lemming has web-server administration skills; the job would involve setting up the forum twice (one instance of the current live version and an instance of the forum running last good backup) on a local web server (i.e., on Lemmings computer at home) then performing the merge and uploading the resultant merged database to the 'live' site. That upload in itself would need rigorous testing and reading of posts in order to ascertain whether the merge was successful.

No easy answers to this one I'm afraid - I share your disappointment Jess but in my opinion at this stage it's probably more realistic to look forwards than backwards I'm afraid. Trying to be positive about it - I see it as a good opportunity to make some really nice new posts.

Lemming is it possible for you to point the old domain at the new server so that the old URL works again? Is there a technical reason you've not done that?
I may be able to help you out with this stuff if it's useful to you? Thanks again for all your hard work on keeping it up and running - we all really appreciate your efforts.

[Lemming]

Does anyone have an idea of the scale of the problem?
As far as I can see most of the forum is intact. It just seems to be a few very long posts that have been truncated. Presumably this is mostly in Travelogues where longer posts are more likely. Coffeeshop reviews, for instance, are all OK aren't they?

If NotSoFastEddie or anyone else has some missing travelogues then we could manually put them back by simply editing the original posts.

Regarding the old domain, I'd love to point it here but sadly I have no access to it.

I know SQL and have learnt quite a bit about how the forum software works over the years but I'm not an expert. If you can help then please email me. Maybe include your Skype name and we can chat on there.

There may be a few more things I can do but I do have a day job so time is not unlimited.

[pengaldinho]

Yes, I was thinking about this, but hadn’t got round to emailing lemming yet – thanks all for contributing and effort. I agree that the archive aspect is important but I have to tech knowledge to chip in.

From a quick look at my posts – all my trip reports are posts have been shorted to one or two lines of text and one or two pictures, or sometimes less. e.g http://www.coffeeshopmenus.org/00-ACD/f ... 10&t=30043 or http://www.coffeeshopmenus.org/00-ACD/f ... 10&t=28666

But I had a look at the Amsterdam Graffiti thread, which is pic after pic, and all the pics are still intact
http://www.coffeeshopmenus.org/00-ACD/f ... 4&start=45
There is not much text to break the pics up, maybe that is the cause of the problem – posts with lots of both – text and images? Just a thought.

Thanks again lemming for all your work.

[notsofasteddie]

This is what the post (Day 1- Part 1) should look like:

ACD member Pengaldinho's Quest for Amsterdam's Diamonds October 2014 Smoke Report


Day 1 - Part 1

Lovely sunny morning as we walked out of CS and straight to:

Voyagers – menu was underwhelming smell wise - Lemon OG and Sour Diesel had little smell and looked straggly.
1g Sour Power E13.50 – Looked much better -Nice subtle taste, good little buzz when walking around.


1g Holy Grail Kush E15 – My friend got this – nice but not amazing he said.


Shop was full so headed on to

Kadinsky just off Dam Sq – first time in this chain after reading so many good reviews of the hash. NYCD for E15 smelt nice but not that nice. There was a crazy old white bearded man buying a pre roll in front of us who then went over to some tourists and said some really weird stuff in a horribly husky voice. We couldn’t stop laughing when we got out.

1g Royal Cream E13 - Sticky, oily goodness! Lovely dark Moroc with mix of racy head and heavy eyed buzz.




1g Maui Haze E12.50 – my friend smelt a few hazes and this one smelt potent, he enjoyed it.



Green Place – all the OG's smelt of the same – Rolex, Knightsbridge and one other. I asked for ½g og Tangie, which looked the best, but Mo said no. Got a tea instead. Rolled up some royal cream and sank into my seat. My mate asked about a grinder, E5! So he waited till later to get one.

Amnesia – All wiet's shown looked poor- had one weed named Amnesia Gangster and also Caramello was rock solid at E17/g
1g Dr Grinspoon E17 – at least this looked up to scratch. Not the best batch for strength but decent.



Got the 17 tram down to Witte de Withstraat and the apartment – which was basic but all we needed.
View from living room

[notsofasteddie]

Here is a list of the ACD Travelogues I copied:

Lemming’s Trip Report April 2013 - I caught this starting on Day 2 which is truncated. Day 2 part 1 dies here
" and I caught up with the party at Utopia. A good-sized group had assembled in 420 Caf." One picture that's all.

Part 2 seems to be on the website. The rest seems to be gone.



Uncle Ron’s A Day in the Park 2013

Lemming’s Trip Report April 2014 - Good until Wednesday April 23 when it gets truncated after the picture of Happy People. "
As it's such a nice day we decide to go back to Amstelhaven, the canal-side caf"


KeyMonCha’s Travelogue May 2014 - This looks ok to me although I did not copy it all.

Flevo Park Graffiti Hall of Fame 2014 - This looks ok to me.

Papi_3city’s 8/27-9/1/2014 Travelogue - As far as I can tell it's ok. I only copied some of his travelogue

Lloydy’s October 2014 Trip Report - all pictures are missing. The text is terminated mid first sentence This is all there is "I must first apologise for such a late trip report seeing as I went from October 5-10 I just have been so lazy in writing this. I"

Pengaldinho’s Quest for Amsterdam’s Diamonds Oct 2014 Smoke Report - Pictures for Day 1 and Day 2 are missing. There is no sign of the part 2's for these days. Day 3 is truncated after the breakfast picture. There is no sign of part 2. There is no sign of Day 4. The first part of Day 5 is missing, but once the bud porn starts it all seems to be there. I did not copy the video.

Bliss Receptor’s Amsterdam Trip Dec 26-29, 2014 - Most of Day 1 is there, but it is truncated right near the end. Day 2 seems to be intact. The same is true for Day 3 and the Final Day.

Pengaldinho’s Quest for Amsterdam’s Diamonds Feb 2015 Smoke Report - Day 1 is truncated right at the beginning in the middle of the second sentence. There is no sign of Day 2. Day 3 is truncated in the same way as Day 1. I didn't copy Day 4 so I can't tell. It might be complete, but it is awfully short. The hash pictures posted on April 11 starting with Noor 2000 seem to be complete.

Lemming’s 4/20/15 Trip Report - April 16 is truncated about 2/3 of the way through between the picture of the Funkey Munkey and the Escape Volcano. Day 2 seems to be ok as do Day 3 and Day 4. However, Day 5 is truncated right after "and this year's winner is" so no pictures of Ingi and beyond. Day 6 seems to be ok.

AlbertaAdam’s Trip Report March 2015 - I entered this after the restart so it should be ok, although I might have edited out a few pictures.

[Jesscass]

@Mofo

Thanks for your input and kind words! I agree mostly.

@Smith2

What about deleting those posts you're uncomfortable with? It's up to you.

@Lemming

Yes, it tends to be a problem of longer posts especially if you look at those parts of the forum like http://www.coffeeshopmenus.org/00-ACD/f ... m.php?f=18 / http://www.coffeeshopmenus.org/00-ACD/f ... m.php?f=18 et cetera. Threads in the coffeeshop review section not so much but see below.

In general I would guess 30-40% of the forum is affected. Roughly small threads not so much but longer ones most probably all to some point depending on input again.

As said even though I don't know much about this all in detail it's crystal clear to me it's a shit load of work. If it can only be solved manually I too fear we have to bite the bullet and look forward again .

Hope dies last though !

[Smith2]

I like to think that I never have to delete, and the beauty of this is that now I don't. The grace of glitches.

[Lemming]

I think I've found the problem. It's not the size of the posts, it's character encoding.

So far I've found ', – and £ as being the next character in the post after where it got truncated. Removing these characters fixes the problem. My problem now is identifying all of the troublesome characters.

Anyone have any suggestions for a full set of replacements to be made or a means of changing the encoding?

[hulldj]

Where did the £ come from? Is it location/language settings on the board being different to the old setup?

[Lemming]

It seems quite random. Some characters are escaped with a backslash but a few are not. It could be a setting but it looks more like phpBB not being consistent in how it deals with text pasted in from word processors and the like.

[Jesscass]

There is a ray of hope it seems ! Nice to see you're still tracking down the problem, Lemming! Much élan for that and any help from others being more into this topic is still greatly appreciated!

[Lemming]

I think I've cracked it!

Starting from the old July backup, I first converted it to UTF8, then upgraded it to the latest phpBB and finally merged in recent activity from this forum.

The data from this forum is a few days old so it's not completely up to date but it's close and I think it has all of the missing old stuff back.

My plan now is to get it completely up to date and make it live. That will probably take a few days and I'll have to disable the forum for an hour or so for the final switchover.

In the meantime I'd really appreciate it if you could all check out this test forum for me. Please check that everything is intact, that your avatar is in place and so on. Please DON'T post anything on the test forum as it will get lost later (continue to use this forum for posts).

See here:

Test Forum

[hulldj]

Looking awesome Lemming.

All your hard work is definately not going unnoticed.

There will still be an issue of dead links but this is, I believe, unavoidable, as access to the .info site has been lost.

For example

Randomly taken from the ACD Book Thread...

[quote="OneHighMofo"]Great idea! And thanks to Largefella for nominating my report! That's really kind thank-you very much. It's here btw: https://www.coffeeshopdirect.com/forum/viewt ... 10&t=31013

Clicking the link will not stay within the forum.

[hulldj]

One to add to the massive list of things to do...

Force newest posts first maybe? or can I do this within my settings?

[hulldj]

Doh....

Oh yeah... its quite plain to see at the bottom..