A large number of fixes have been implemented to alleviate the problems we've been encountering since the KPTI patch was installed on our server. Work is ongoing.
Multiple posts were occurring due to AJAX in the quick reply / quick edit box. This is normally fine but due to our server problems it was causing double posts, which then caused a traffic jam scenario and flow-on effects. AJAX has been removed which has stopped this problem, the only downside is when you submit a quick reply it will reload the page instead of dynamically adding the post to the page without a page reload.
Secondly, a particularly problematic query has been eliminated by pruning some superfluous indexes in the post table, rebuilding the indexes and analyzing them to help the query planner do its job. This particular query has droppped from 30 seconds to 0.1 seconds, and could have been one of many potential factors causing the "traffic jam" style problems we've been encountering.
We've invested in more server monitoring technology and are still in discussions with our host about how the KPTI patch could have affected us so badly, but it appears our particular workload is hit extremely badly by the required patch to fix Intel's bug. You can read a very fascinating and almost-understandable paper on the exploit here: https://meltdownattack.com/meltdown.pdf
Work is ongoing to ensure that using the forum remains a pleasure. As soon as we get things under control we will refocus on our move to a new and modern forum platform (XenForo2).
Multiple posts were occurring due to AJAX in the quick reply / quick edit box. This is normally fine but due to our server problems it was causing double posts, which then caused a traffic jam scenario and flow-on effects. AJAX has been removed which has stopped this problem, the only downside is when you submit a quick reply it will reload the page instead of dynamically adding the post to the page without a page reload.
Secondly, a particularly problematic query has been eliminated by pruning some superfluous indexes in the post table, rebuilding the indexes and analyzing them to help the query planner do its job. This particular query has droppped from 30 seconds to 0.1 seconds, and could have been one of many potential factors causing the "traffic jam" style problems we've been encountering.
We've invested in more server monitoring technology and are still in discussions with our host about how the KPTI patch could have affected us so badly, but it appears our particular workload is hit extremely badly by the required patch to fix Intel's bug. You can read a very fascinating and almost-understandable paper on the exploit here: https://meltdownattack.com/meltdown.pdf
Work is ongoing to ensure that using the forum remains a pleasure. As soon as we get things under control we will refocus on our move to a new and modern forum platform (XenForo2).
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I hope you don't ruin this site with XF.
I don't know anything about XF2 but I invested in a move from vB3 to XF1, had programmers, spent a year, got nowhere, it was total garbage from a user point of view and also admin. Some admin jobs that take me 30 seconds on vB were 20 minutes on XF.
And I couldn't get an acceptable appearance or usability for the members. From a user point of view I hated it's appearance, layout, templates, functionality, restrictiveness, limitations, ugliness, difficult to see and difficult read, not anywhere near customisable enough. I strongly dislike using XF sites and some, at least, of them I no longer use.
I seem to recall there was some deal breaking obstacle with moving over the database or structure that we needed to preserve. Maybe all the links within posts would have been broken and it's a fairly big and old site with a lot on old posts and links, like DIY Audio is.
It's a case that newer isn't always better.
Went to vB4 instead. It has some shortfalls but a lot better than XF1. To tweak the vB4 I spec'd some custom templates and had a programmer write them.
Would it not be possible for you to get what you / we want for DIY Audio with something like DruPal Drupal - Open Source CMS | Drupal.org
I don't know anything about XF2 but I invested in a move from vB3 to XF1, had programmers, spent a year, got nowhere, it was total garbage from a user point of view and also admin. Some admin jobs that take me 30 seconds on vB were 20 minutes on XF.
And I couldn't get an acceptable appearance or usability for the members. From a user point of view I hated it's appearance, layout, templates, functionality, restrictiveness, limitations, ugliness, difficult to see and difficult read, not anywhere near customisable enough. I strongly dislike using XF sites and some, at least, of them I no longer use.
I seem to recall there was some deal breaking obstacle with moving over the database or structure that we needed to preserve. Maybe all the links within posts would have been broken and it's a fairly big and old site with a lot on old posts and links, like DIY Audio is.
It's a case that newer isn't always better.
Went to vB4 instead. It has some shortfalls but a lot better than XF1. To tweak the vB4 I spec'd some custom templates and had a programmer write them.
Would it not be possible for you to get what you / we want for DIY Audio with something like DruPal Drupal - Open Source CMS | Drupal.org
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Thanks for that feedback. I expect XF has come a long way since you tried it out. When XF was first released it was very "thin on the ground". I think it's come a long way. The only competitors as far as I can see are IPB (which has always seemed a bit clunky) and SMF (which is too lightweight).
Drupal? Forget it. Open source mess of kids playing with PHP. Security nightmare, so many vectors for problem ingress, nope^2.
We're a huge busy site and we need something fast, clean, secure, robust, scalable and with a solid team behind it. XF I do wonder what happens when Kier et al (lead programmer) decide they want to do something else but as they say "What one programmer can do in one month, two programmers can do in two months." (ie: small teams are often more nimble and effective).
XF1.5 was a big jump from 1.0, and 2.0 is another jump again. 2.0 includes a lot of things missing from 1.5 that you would have needed to install plugins and hacks. It also looks good. I personally thought XF 1.x looked horribly ugly, but XF2 is on the money. If we want to discuss platform choice best to necro one of the previous threads on the topic though and keep this one on topic.
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