Thread: Major Forum Changes Ahead

Sweet!

The server hosting the site had an outage for 1-2 hours a bit ago, causing the site to be unreachable. Sorry for the trouble, all should be back to normal now.

Update (Version 1.5.14)
I noticed a bug in the pagination code a few days ago when someone linked to the forum on Facebook incorrectly.

It turns out the current page text will fill in whatever you type for the page, even if it is not a number. There is obviously not enough input validation for this field.
This is not great (and a potential security issue), so I've fixed this problem.

Before:


After:

I remember when the forum wasn't totally fucked up. Those were some good times.

Yah, it's a shame the previous owner/admin lost interest/resources around 2012 and let it bit rot for so long, and then ultimately let it go dark that final day in late September, 2017.

Sucks it had to be resurrected, but at least we have something.

Note to self: get the EMAIL tag working as well.
Example: javierb14

Our web host has upgraded the language for the site from PHP 7.4 or whatever to PHP 8.0. This new major version has upgraded some notices to warnings, and some warnings to errors. This is causing all sorts of new warnings to show up where they don't belong. I have taken care of some of them already, and hope to have them all fixed by tomorrow night. I'd fix them all tonight, but our new child is 4 days old and I can't just focus my efforts on the forum right now. So hopefully in the next 24 hours I will get everything sorted out. If after that you notice any text warnings in odd places, do please let me know.
Thank you.

Edit: Well I forgot it is the weekend so this might take longer than expected since the toddler is at home.

Edit 2: Well I have a good many of the issues resolved by now. The main things left I know need work are the Chat feature, and creating/editing posts has some warnings showing as well.

Edit 3: I have taken care of everything I could see or find on the forum, except the chat feature. I've found many issues with chat that I've had to correct. The chat feature is not my code if you recall. It is one of two things we use on the forum that I did not write myself, and as usual, it is a total mess that needs a lot of work every time a major PHP update is performed. So I'll keep at it, and hopefully have something to report in the coming days. For now, chat is down, but everything else should be working as usual. If you notice anything else not working or issuing warnings or error messages that don't belong on the page, please let me know.

Edit 4: Sorry it is slow going fixing chat. This newborn takes all of my time. I'll try to get to it this week.

Edit 5:
Update (Version 1.6.0)
Still no time to work on chat, but I did find and fix 2 other issues resulting from the software update (one with the router code, and another when quoting using an unknown post ID).
And with that, it is time to bump the version number. I'm going to a new minor version number because of how important/involved a change this is. When I get chat fixed, I'll bump the version number again.

I know chat is still down. I have had zero time to address that. We'll see if I get some once both of our children are in day-care. I may actually rewrite it with much simpler code that I will understand and be able to better support going forward, but we'll see. For now:

Update (Version 1.6.1)
I noticed a blocking issue when trying to post URLs to web sites that don't allow scraping of the page title to auto-fill in the link name. The Pale Moon forums are one such site. I noticed this when trying to make this post:
How to hide unwanted Bookmarks menu items in Pale Moon (may also work in Firefox).

The forum now better handles that situation and at least doesn't fail. A generic link title of "Untitled Hyperlink" is used instead which can then be manually updated by the poster if desired.

Update (Version 1.6.2)
Our web host has upgraded the language for the site from PHP 8.0 to PHP 8.1. This deprecates a filter we used to protect against some forms of cross-site scripting. I've updated that code to use the more modern approach. I'll look out for any other issues in the coming days.

On another note, the chat feature is of course, still not working. I've had no time to work on it, and it will be down for the foreseeable future. The current plan (as hinted at in the previous post) is to completely rewrite it myself so it comes back and stays back, no matter what PHP does in their newer versions.
I will likely be using this guide as a reference, with heavy modifications: Simple Live Chat With PHP Websockets (Free Download)

Update (Version 1.6.3)
I noticed a recent issue with the staff tool we use to obliterate spam accounts. MySQL has changed its subtraction behavior when unsigned and signed integers are mixed. I've sorted that out and the tool is working again as intended.