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Socoder -> Site & Server -> Site Fixings - Jun 2024

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Fri, 07 Jun 2024, 05:06
Jayenkai

Site Fixings - Jun 2024


I'm currently knee deep in the code of the site preparing it for the inevitable upgrade to PHP8.
There's a LOT of broken code in here, ranging from "MySQL seems to be crap at Default values, now, so I have to add '' all over the place" to "They took away the function that double checks backslashes for me, so I have to code it all myself incase anything buggers up along the way."
abs("123") no longer works because abs() now needs numerical values.

And the whole engine is much stricter on things like me lazily expecting a key to be set inside an array, and if it isn't whereas it'd previously fail and continue, it now throws a major wobbler.
(eg, if a visitor isn't logged in, the UserID array isn't populated, but chunks of the site uses values like UserID['Smilies'] to define what set of smilies should be used, and things like that.)

I'm currently rewriting a TON of stuff, so figured I'd ask, whilst I'm in the code, if anyone can think of any niggling issues that need fixing.

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Fri, 07 Jun 2024, 05:40
cyangames
I believe intval() is still supported in php8.x

so you can wrap find and replace some functions with that as a rule.

abs("123") becomes abs(intval("123")) , etc, etc

8.2 is a bit of a basty (moreso the proposals for php 9 )

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Web / Game Dev, occasionally finishes off coding games also!
Fri, 07 Jun 2024, 07:06
Jayenkai
Yeah, I added a function absJ() {} ages ago, but hadn't implemented it site-wide yet!
.. Was tempted to call it Jabs() but.. ... didn't...

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Fri, 07 Jun 2024, 08:30
Jayenkai
So far.

I appear to be down to "almost" zero errors, as far as the error logs go, but ..
1. Emojis are very broken.
2. The various search-based sections of the site are also very broken. (Showcases, Articles, etc)
3. The homepage is also inexplicably knackered!!

But I've got a fair amount done, today, so that's good.

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Fri, 07 Jun 2024, 13:28
Jayenkai
OK, let me know if everything's working ok. Or rather, let me know what's knackered!
Already I can see jprofit's avatar is lit up like he's in the mudchat, when I'm fairly sure that's not the case, so.. Not really sure why that's happening..

Hmm..

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Fri, 07 Jun 2024, 13:40
Jayenkai
The emailing is completely knackered, right now, so don't go trying to sign up or anything!
If anyone not-yet-registered is trying to register, email me or something and I'll hack you in!

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Fri, 07 Jun 2024, 22:46
Pakz
Yesterday evening the browser would not load the site. It mentioned it was not safe there

That triangle icon and cybercrime warning page came up. I send a tweet about it to @jay

All ok now.
Sat, 08 Jun 2024, 01:48
Jayenkai
Yeah, that'll be the fact that, whilst the DNS is moving from one server to the other, the security keys aren't 100% pointing to where it expects the server to be.
Sorry about that.

Hope everyone gets over to the new server ok.
*fingers crossed*

This morning, I have an INSANE number of error messages to sift through, as well as trying to figure out why the morning's SQL Backup didn't appear to happen. Hmm..
If you see a random bonus QOTD, or two or three, this morning, that'll be me trying to trigger the SQL Backups over and over! They're all part of the same bit of the script.

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Sat, 08 Jun 2024, 01:57
Jayenkai
... Oh yeah.. We're on a new server, by the way..
Forgot to say that..

We're now hosted by (god help me if this goes tits up) Ionos.
The Linode server was alright, but after 6 years of being on that server, I tried upgrading it to a newer model, but they were all "Sure, how much more do you want to pay..?"

Technology's moved on leaps and bounds in the past 6 years. I don't want to pay more. I want to pay The Same, but for Newer.
Isn't that how it's meant to be?

A 2 core, 4Gb setup isn't good enough any more.

For slightly less money (£28 vs £26 p/m), we're now on VPS Linux XL, which gives us 8 cores, 16Gb ram and 320Gb SSD. With apparently unlimited transfer, though we only ever reached about 7% of the Linode transfer limit!!

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Sat, 08 Jun 2024, 09:01
Jayenkai
Still having issues with none-ascii, and am currently trying to fathom quite why. I think it's the MySQL, though it has exactly the same settings as it did before, either the PHP version or the MySQL version, or maybe even apache..
Honestly, god only knows.

If you get a white-screen when posting anything, that'll more than likely be the reason.
Let me know if you do.

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Sat, 08 Jun 2024, 14:28
Jayenkai
Still haven't figure that out.
But I have at least switched the [thumb] to webp.
People keep telling this fancy-pants new technology is "better"...


PNG version, 184Kb


WebP version, 14kb

Yeah, alright.. fair enough...

The SoCoder uploader will generate both a _thumb.png and a _thumb.webp, so you can direct link to the .png if you prefer, but if you use the [thumb] tags, the webp will be used.

And, yes, I had to fart about going through ALL the images that everyone had uploaded over the years, converting them to .webp thumbnails.
..
And AGameAWeek..!
Oh my god, so many images.

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Sat, 08 Jun 2024, 14:39
cyangames
Perhaps the character issue is due to the default charset on the new server being different / not transferred across correctly?

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Web / Game Dev, occasionally finishes off coding games also!
Sat, 08 Jun 2024, 14:51
Jayenkai
No idea! Further investigation is required!!!
Sun, 09 Jun 2024, 00:39
Jayenkai
Um.. Might've forgotten to grab the Poll and QOTD txt files, during the move, so a few of them might repeat themselves!
They're only a few days old, though, so any repetition will be minimal.

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Sun, 09 Jun 2024, 06:43
Jayenkai
OK, pretty sure I've fixed all the email issues. The site should now be able to spam you to death, once more.

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Sun, 09 Jun 2024, 12:54
Jayenkai
Foldapuz is over to the new server, and if I don't disable error messages, it spits out over 100Kb of errors per refresh!
Fooooooooook!!!!
So I disabled error messages and will fix that later.

GotoJSE.com is also now on the new server, running smoothly. No errors to note. Let me know if you spot any. .. And I still haven't made that Transpiler, have I..!!!?

JNKPlat.com is also on here. ... And I still haven't made that level editor, have I..!!!?

Yep, lots to do..

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Tue, 11 Jun 2024, 02:57
Jayenkai
Jukebox New, has a lyric sheet for choons with lyrics.
Considering it's about 3% different to how it looked before, you wouldn't think that took all smegging day, yesterday.
.. But it did!!

ChatGPT wrote the album-art scroller code, btw.

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Thu, 13 Jun 2024, 04:01
Jayenkai

❓🤨⁉️


Emoji - Half fixed
They work in a slightly different way, and I can't quite get the old emoji to show up, so wherever someone previously posted an emoji, it's showing up as 4 ascii characters.. Still working on that bit!

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Sat, 22 Jun 2024, 14:19
Jayenkai


bye bye Linode. It was a good few years, up until the weird shit when Actimel took over and spilt yoghurt over everything. The server ran about 1/3rd the speed thereafter.

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Thu, 11 Jul 2024, 04:00
Jayenkai
Thought I should try getting ChatGPT to help with optimisation.
It worked well enough with the comments over at AGameAWeek that I thought it could optimise the Sidebar, here.


Hey, ChatGPT, how can I optimise the sidebar on my site, using Join and Group By and other MySQL treats?

Sure, here's a way .. such and such, la di dah, blabby blab blab..

Cool..


*tests SQL request*
*Single SQL request takes over 5 seconds*

Never mind, ChatGPT..
.. Never mind.

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Thu, 11 Jul 2024, 09:07
cyangames
I find that setting up indexes on the right columns helps an awful lot with this, as well as using the EXPLAIN command to help analyse any potential bottlenecks.

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Web / Game Dev, occasionally finishes off coding games also!
Thu, 11 Jul 2024, 09:53
Jayenkai
Is that the problem?
*shrugs*
The database is rather old, now

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Thu, 11 Jul 2024, 10:02
cyangames
I mean, I don't know but it's one of those things that can help speed up searches the most.

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Web / Game Dev, occasionally finishes off coding games also!
Fri, 12 Jul 2024, 04:13
cyangames
If you have a way to check the duration of each query, that can help narrow down slower ones pretty fast.

Sometimes it's not even the duration of the query and can be the number of queries to generate a page, I spent a lot of time doing web optimisation and having that info available to be at the bottom of the page when I was logged in helped find those queries a lot faster than other methods, but it depends on how it's all set-up.

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Fri, 12 Jul 2024, 04:27
Jayenkai
I dunno, it's doing pretty well as it is, to be honest.
I just thought I should ask GPT on the off chance!

Oddly, since the server switch, AGameAWeek is now the slower script, and I'm really not sure why!

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