Sylmar Hang Gliding Association

Our pilot forum is back! Here’s what happened. This is too geeky for civilized conversation, but it’s my excuse to test the forum.

Our Internet Service Provider (ISP) is ReadyHosting.com. Our website lives on their computers, which they keep running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week without fail, more or less. On Monday, June 26, they upgraded their web server software to IIS10. That completely broke our website, and in response to my requests for support, they said

Due to server upgrade process, we have received more volume than expected and we are unable to get back to you in a timely manner.

In other words, they broke lots of other people’s websites too.

It took ReadyHosting about two days to get their ASP server working, and a couple more days to get their database servers fixed as well. By the end of the week, most of our website was back up again, all except for the pilot forum. The forum relied on PHP interaction with a Microsoft Access database, and ReadyHosting told me in a roundabout way that they were not going to fix that.

The only option was to migrate the pilot forum from Microsoft Access to MySQL. Since I’m not a web developer, I had some learning to do. It's been a lot of work and there were a bunch of challenges, but I think it all worked out. If you encounter any problems, please let me know.

Great work Ken. We are all in your debt.
Seems to be working fine on my end. The only annoyance I see so far is that I am prohibited from editing a post mistake until I wait awhile.

Great work Ken! I know it took a lot of hours. This club is in your debt.

Thank you Ken!

Thanks Ken! I know how much work can be involved in that sort of thing.

Thanks a lot Ken for being a quick study.
Migrating from Microsoft Access to MySQL, Of Course, Of Course a child could do it.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycpzl6dvWIc[/youtube]
Congratulations and thank you.

Thank you for all of your efforts and success with them, Ken.

-Fred-

Managing a forum can be a big job. Thanks for your efforts Ken and Chip.

FYI, the US Hawks provides a forum for each of our Chapters. It encourages better communication between Chapters while allowing each Chapter to set their own policies. The Rio Grande Soarring Association (RGSA) is a good example of an active chapter on the U.S. Hawks forum. If the SHGA would like to try it out ... just let me know. I can set up a demo for the SHGA any time. We've been operating pretty well for about 7 years now.

P.S. Either the server upgrade or Ken's switch to MySQL appears to have fixed the dreaded "FastCGI" error.

Yaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!