Personal Message Timeout

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Stash

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Personal Message Timeout
« on: October 13, 2020, 06:10:25 PM »
You know that thing where you're writing a message to someone, you hit send or preview, it shows you are logged out and gives you the log-in screen? When writing a post and that happens you just log in, hit the back button and your post is still there. And then you can submit it. But with messaging, what you just wrote is gone. Is there some setting to make messaging behave the same as posting under this scenario and not lose what you had written?

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Bullwinkle

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Re: Personal Message Timeout
« Reply #1 on: October 13, 2020, 08:52:44 PM »
copy and paste to notepad as you write.

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Stash

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Re: Personal Message Timeout
« Reply #2 on: October 13, 2020, 09:19:50 PM »
copy and paste to notepad as you write.

That's what I do. But sometimes forget and then get stung by being timed out. Just curious as to why it doesn't work the same way as posting and if I missed something.

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NotSoSkeptical

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Re: Personal Message Timeout
« Reply #3 on: October 13, 2020, 09:35:08 PM »
Or just set it so you are always signed in.  Then it never times out.
Rabinoz RIP

That would put you in the same category as pedophile perverts like John Davis, NSS, robots like Stash, Shifter, and victimized kids like Alexey.

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Crouton

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Re: Personal Message Timeout
« Reply #4 on: October 13, 2020, 09:39:45 PM »
I find setting it to always logged in is best.

We're dealing with antique vintage software here.
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Stash

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Re: Personal Message Timeout
« Reply #5 on: October 13, 2020, 11:49:43 PM »
Yeah, good tip, the always logged in bit.

In my biz we always refer to it as "Heirloom Quality Software".

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Username

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Re: Personal Message Timeout
« Reply #6 on: October 19, 2020, 06:53:46 PM »
I'm open to new ideas for software for the forums...

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Stash

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Re: Personal Message Timeout
« Reply #7 on: October 19, 2020, 08:40:14 PM »
I'm open to new ideas for software for the forums...

There are some paid solutions out there, like vBulletin, Discourse, that seem to get high marks and I've heard good things about. And they have cloud solutions so you wouldn't have to deal with more localized ISP server set-ups and perhaps avert a lot of the downtime problems that exist today. If it's a cost thing, I would be willing to kick in a couple of bucks a month as a society member. I'm sure others would too. As long as we get like a logo'd sticker, or maybe a headband...preferably a headband.

SMF is great as a free solution. But the self-hosting becomes an issue at times. And there are a million customizable modules that can be added, but if no one has the time to add in and manage them, then it just becomes the vanilla that it is. A more off the shelf hassle free paid solution might be worth looking into.

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JJA

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Re: Personal Message Timeout
« Reply #8 on: October 20, 2020, 09:51:31 AM »
I agree, cloud hosting is a good choice.

Having your own server is good for customizing and adding your own software to it, but that really has to be a MAJOR goal for it to be worth needing to handle all the updating and maintenance and everything yourself that comes with the flexibility.

Cloud is less flexible, but a whole lot less headaches to deal with too.

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boydster

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Re: Personal Message Timeout
« Reply #9 on: October 20, 2020, 10:27:57 AM »
I'm pretty sure we're already cloud hosted. The message that was displayed during the outage was indicative of that.

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JJA

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Re: Personal Message Timeout
« Reply #10 on: October 20, 2020, 11:09:54 AM »
I'm pretty sure we're already cloud hosted. The message that was displayed during the outage was indicative of that.

Well everything is 'cloud hosting' at this point.

I think the suggestion was to buy a cloud bulletin board system, not a cloud linux/windows server where you set up your own software. They handle updates and upgrades and security and database software and the running of the actual server, you just set up your forums and relax because moderating is the easy part.  :P

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Stash

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Re: Personal Message Timeout
« Reply #11 on: October 20, 2020, 11:18:24 AM »
I'm pretty sure we're already cloud hosted. The message that was displayed during the outage was indicative of that.

Maybe 'cloud' is kind of a misnomer. Whatever plan this is on at HawkHost, whether shared hosting or what they consider 'cloud' seems to kind of suck. They shouldn't be moving DB's, changing IP's, whathaveyou, without adequate notification for one. My experience (very limited) with true, robust cloud hosting is that when events like that need to occur, it's basically transparent to the site. In essence there wouldn't be any downtime as the db is replicated across servers. Again, that's my limited experience. And I have no experience in regard to a massive forum db.

When I was googling the HawkHost message when the site was down it seemed more indicative of something like a spam attack where 1000's of emails go out from the site so the account gets locked. Which is definitely something I've seen on a shared hosting. Anyhow, mighht be worth shopping around to see if there's something more reliable.

Edit: Nevermind my blathering on above. What JJA said is what I was getting at.
« Last Edit: October 20, 2020, 11:19:58 AM by Stash »

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boydster

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Re: Personal Message Timeout
« Reply #12 on: October 20, 2020, 11:32:34 AM »
I'm pretty sure we're already cloud hosted. The message that was displayed during the outage was indicative of that.

Well everything is 'cloud hosting' at this point.

I think the suggestion was to buy a cloud bulletin board system, not a cloud linux/windows server where you set up your own software. They handle updates and upgrades and security and database software and the running of the actual server, you just set up your forums and relax because moderating is the easy part.  :P
Hosting is simply providing server space for someone to use. Hosting with high availability is cloud hosting. Importantly, in both cases, it's notably not web application maintenance/administration. That's another ball of wax. And if that's what you meant, then fine, but just know that it's different than what "cloud hosting" generally implies, and it also costs more. You may be fine with your membership fees increasing, but I'm not fine with my pay being cut for something like this.

Whether it's more cost effective to ensure our hosting environment has static IPs for the site and the DB, vs migrating to another platform that offers a prepackaged and managed cloud environment, is another thing to consider. I don't know the financial side of the site at all.

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JJA

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Re: Personal Message Timeout
« Reply #13 on: October 20, 2020, 11:44:28 AM »
I'm pretty sure we're already cloud hosted. The message that was displayed during the outage was indicative of that.

Well everything is 'cloud hosting' at this point.

I think the suggestion was to buy a cloud bulletin board system, not a cloud linux/windows server where you set up your own software. They handle updates and upgrades and security and database software and the running of the actual server, you just set up your forums and relax because moderating is the easy part.  :P
Hosting is simply providing server space for someone to use. Hosting with high availability is cloud hosting. Importantly, in both cases, it's notably not web application maintenance/administration. That's another ball of wax. And if that's what you meant, then fine, but just know that it's different than what "cloud hosting" generally implies, and it also costs more. You may be fine with your membership fees increasing, but I'm not fine with my pay being cut for something like this.

Whether it's more cost effective to ensure our hosting environment has static IPs for the site and the DB, vs migrating to another platform that offers a prepackaged and managed cloud environment, is another thing to consider. I don't know the financial side of the site at all.

Yeah, I'm being lazy with my terminology here.  It's always a trade-off between work and price.

I would have to say if I was running the site, migrating would be my last resort as that's just always a nightmare, but then again so is trying to keep old software running smoothly and securely.  I'm glad I have nothing to do with running anything here, I hate making these kinds of decisions.

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boydster

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Re: Personal Message Timeout
« Reply #14 on: October 20, 2020, 11:50:41 AM »
I just read through the T's and C's for vBulliten's cloud offering, and I'm not sure I would want to know our management had given over as much authority to them as they are asking for. I'm sure there are other solutions, I've only read the vBulliten one so far. Honestly, I don't hate SMF. It's easy to use, easy to manage, easily customizable, has a pretty robust community on the dev side. We should be doing better with best practices like keeping up on security updates and minimizing spam in a more automated fashion, but that's not SMF's fault. And I'm fairly certain we could work with the current host or a new host to have better guarantees around static IP addresses for the site and database.

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Bullwinkle

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Re: Personal Message Timeout
« Reply #15 on: October 21, 2020, 12:05:11 AM »
I'm open to new ideas for software for the forums...

How about auto-pay?

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Username

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Re: Personal Message Timeout
« Reply #16 on: October 21, 2020, 12:24:40 AM »
I'm open to new ideas regarding software for the forums. I don't see a world where we use a SAAS.

I'm open to new ideas for software for the forums...

How about auto-pay?
Yes; there is an issue with how our host handles this which bit us.  Its set to autopay but that didn't help.

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Bullwinkle

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Re: Personal Message Timeout
« Reply #17 on: October 21, 2020, 01:10:54 AM »
I'm open to new ideas regarding software for the forums. I don't see a world where we use a SAAS.

I'm open to new ideas for software for the forums...

How about auto-pay?
Yes; there is an issue with how our host handles this which bit us.  Its set to autopay but that didn't help.

Oh, I understand.
I'm currently being double billed for fully covered medical supplies.   ::)




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Crouton

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Re: Personal Message Timeout
« Reply #18 on: October 21, 2020, 06:51:41 AM »
This is exactly why I bring my own medical supplies to the doctor's.
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Space Cowgirl

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Re: Personal Message Timeout
« Reply #19 on: October 21, 2020, 08:21:52 AM »
One of my other forums uses Xenforo, it took awhile to get used to, but I think it's fairly decent software. I don't know how hard it is to work with and keep updated.
I'm sorry. Am I to understand that when you have a boner you like to imagine punching the shit out of Tom Bishop? That's disgusting.

Re: Personal Message Timeout
« Reply #20 on: October 24, 2020, 05:08:25 AM »
This is exactly why I bring my own medical supplies to the doctor's.
Save even more money by being your own doctor.
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Username

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Re: Personal Message Timeout
« Reply #21 on: October 26, 2020, 02:06:43 PM »
Xenforo is expensive, and I'm currently trying to cut down on expenses. Let me see if its something I can make happen. I have the feeling they are cutting our bonuses this year which is where a lot of my money for stuff like this comes from.

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Space Cowgirl

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Re: Personal Message Timeout
« Reply #22 on: October 26, 2020, 03:37:32 PM »
We could stay on Simple Machines, it just needs to be updated.
I'm sorry. Am I to understand that when you have a boner you like to imagine punching the shit out of Tom Bishop? That's disgusting.

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NotSoSkeptical

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Re: Personal Message Timeout
« Reply #23 on: October 28, 2020, 11:13:11 AM »
We could stay on Simple Machines, it just needs to be updated.

Agree.  We are 3 versions behind.  2.0.14 (us)   2.0.17 (SMF Website)
Rabinoz RIP

That would put you in the same category as pedophile perverts like John Davis, NSS, robots like Stash, Shifter, and victimized kids like Alexey.

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Username

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Re: Personal Message Timeout
« Reply #24 on: October 28, 2020, 12:06:56 PM »
There's some security vulnerability that is allowing someone to roll back the version. I have stopped updating due to that until I reinstall from a fresh slate. That said, I'll update it again in case someone has gotten bored. I'm going to try to set some time for website stuff weekend after next to fix the home page, turn off tthe no-index on the forums, and get the home page up. Hopefully to reinstall from a fresh state too (so there might be an outage that weekend.)

That's a pretty ambitious list, so we'll see what can get done.