We are back!

**Harrison** · 27th February 2009, 11:30

If you are reading this then you will already know it! The Classicamiga forums are finally back up and running!!!

Nearly two whole weeks offline. I was getting withdrawl symptoms!

Please all do the following NOW!

Please clear you browser cache and any classicamigaforum cookies you have stored in your browser.

If you don't do this you might not be able to log into the forum because of the different temperary domain I'm currently using to access the forums, and the different cookies now being used to store your login details.

Why did it take so long to get back up and running?

After the old host Bluehost pulled the plug on the forum's account without notice we were instantly in need of a new home. So I had to do some searching around other hosting companies for dedicated vB hosting, but finally decided it would cost about the same to just buy another dedicated server from 1&1.

Applying for a new server to be setup and then waiting for it's new IP address to filter through the DNS servers took just under a week to complete, so the server was online Tuesday of this week.

I was initially hoping to get it all back up and online the same day, but I hit some issues with the configuration of the new server. I had already tested the backup of the forum on another server and the forum worked perfectly, so I knew that was OK. However when I did the same on this new forum server, vBulletin refused to connect to the database regardless of everything I tried.

Much head scratching and attempts at configuring the server and vB later and I was still none the wiser as to why it wouldn't connect to the database. I searched the internet for answers, with not much helpful information found, and I then got the vBulletin support team involved, with them having a look at the server and the vBulletin installation to see if they could work out why, but they couldn't either.

Finally the 1&1 dedicated server support team actually returned my email and gave me the solution last night! It turns out their dedicated servers are now configured uniquely to allow mysql 5 databases to be used, and they need to access the databases using a custom mysql socket (similar to a network port). I did already know this, but vBulletin didn't seem to have the abililty to set a different socket. However with the information the 1&1's support team gave me I used a .htaccess file on the server to set the socket, and finally vB connected to the server!!!

You might see some "Server error 500" pages at the moment.

There is still a configration issue I need to fix on this new server. Sometimes when using the forum you will get a "Server error 500" page appear. Just press your browser refresh button and the forum page will reload properly.

I'm currently invesitgating this problem and hope to have it fixed soon. You can however use the forum as before, even with this error sometimes popping up. It shouldn't effect much.

Donations to support the new server

If you have offered to help support the costs of this new dedicated server for the forum can you please setup your new monthly subscription payments? The server hosting costs should be billed to me in the next couple of weeks, so it would be great to have all donations in ready for the first payment.

You can setup a monthly subscription donation to classicamiga from the main site's home page, on the right of the page. Just enter the amount, select monthly and click the "donate now button.

Thank you to Demon Cleaner for incresing his monthly donation already to help with the costs of the new server.

And thank you in advance to everyone else who has so far offered to help with the costs. As I said before. If we can get 6 members donating £5 a month then it will pay for the server. But if you can't donate that much any amount will still help out as it will all add up to the needed amount.

I hope you all enjoy the forum being back online again.