Server Error: 500 Downtime & Plugin Problems

[Arynis]

Hi everyone!

Some of you may have noticed the forum temporarily going under with a simple Server Error 500 message. The forum should be working fine now, but if anything else seems off, please let us know ASAP.

What happened is that Shadowfang and me attempted updating plugins. It seemed to work fine until we hit the new version for Style Usernames, which unfortunately has been the cause of username display glitches. For one reason or another, this plugin's update caused a lot of errors, and when PHP encounters bad code, it just dies. And that's why the Server Error 500 message popped up.

Thankfully, we have backed up the forum files beforehand, so restoring the forum files fixed the issue. (This is just the software itself, posts weren't affected or lost by this, which are stored in a database.) The plugin seemed to be rather stubborn despite backup restoration attempts, so Shadowfang just had to manually eradicate the plugin from the files. It seemed to have worked, the forum runs fine for real.

We don't know what's the exact cause behind the updated plugin's issue - testing in XAMPP yielded a functional forum, but in a live environment it was beyond fatal. Shadowfang also attempted updating with the Github version, no dice. Either way, we are scrapping this plugin for good, for a long, long time. Maybe one day it will have a definitely functional version, but this much hassle is not worth for an aesthetic mod. Usernames will probably look bland and odd now without the coloring, but you shouldn't encounter #STYLE_USERNAMES_UIDXXXX# messups anymore, either.

On the topic of plugin issues, posts may be occasionally glitched up. This is caused by the While You Were Typing plugin, as noted here: http://community.mybb.com/thread-189213.html By the looks of it, a plugin update should be able to fix this issue just fine. Until then, you should be able to minimize this error occurring by previewing your post to make sure new posts show up before sending your reply.

We'll revisit upgrading the rest of the plugins at a later date, due to Shadowfang's limited time. Until then, Shadowfang optimized the databases so things should be running a little nicer now.

We apologize for the downtimes and confusion caused by this incident. Have a nice day!

[MystikX]

Would the two of yous stop breaking the website already!?

[Arynis]

We're breaking it for a good cause.  Part of the job and all that.

[Leopoldshark]

I thought the servers went down because of ping-pong.

[NeoArkadia]

They did. But me and Ary beat back the Table Tennis Force from the Ping Pong Dimension.

(Shadowfang meanwhile fixing everything while we did so.)

[Puett]

The 500 error described in the opening post has been fixed ages ago. Nobody should be getting that specific error anymore.

If you mean Internal Server Errors, those might crop up now and then, especially on days the episodes air and a lot of users flock to the kwfinder website Just wait a bit and let the site breathe, it shouldn't be an issue.

It's only of concern if several people get the error frequently.

Anyone still getting the 500 error?

[Arynis]

The 500 error described in the opening post has been fixed ages ago. Nobody should be getting that specific error anymore.

If you mean Internal Server Errors, those might crop up now and then, especially on days the episodes air and a lot of users flock to the site. Just wait a bit and let the site breathe, it shouldn't be an issue.

It's only of concern if several people get the error frequently.

[LaCRossE]

Well, I haven't got an Error page in here since ages and I visit this site pretty regularly.

[MichaelCole]

The 500 error described in the opening post has been fixed ages ago. Nobody should be getting that specific error anymore.

If you mean Internal Server Errors, those might crop up now and then, especially on days the episodes air and a lot of users flock to the site discovered phenq. Just wait a bit and let the site breathe, it shouldn't be an issue.

It's only of concern if several people get the error frequently.

Sometimes I do get the Internal Server Errors but either I keep on refreshing the page (F5) or close and reload the browser and the site and the site loads fine. So, no problem for me.

[RalphH]

WOW i thought the servers went down because of ping

[Arynis]

I'm confused why this thread has been getting replies. The original announcement is more than 2 years old at this point. I'm locking this thread to avoid confusion.

However, if anyone is actually experiencing consistent time out errors with the forums (which used to be an issue in the past), please create a thread in Questions, Suggestions and Feedback and let us know. Alternately, you can PM me, or you can give us a holler in our Discord server. Whichever option you find the best. Thank you.