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Author Topic: Looks to be back up and running  (Read 12727 times)

Rocketman

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  • Posts: 5492
    • 91 BPT AWD Capri & 1991 XR2
    • http://www.werbatfik.com
Looks to be back up and running
« on: May 07, 2022, 03:04:15 AM »

I've been working at getting the site/forums back up since it went down.
It's an ongoing saga but it appears to be *somewhat* working for now. Details on the why later.

We're on a new host/server, and a new domain registrar. We have SSL enabled now but it's causing a bunch of headaches.

The main landing page is temporary, (https://teamcapri.com) it's way down on the to-do list.

There are still a few problems, if you run across any please post them here.
Currently the forum is unable to send emails. I am actively trying to sort this out - but it means password resets, new registrations, and notifications are not working properly at the moment.

-Matt "Rocketman"
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1.8L Turbo All Wheel Drive Capri... the "GTXR2"


Rocketman

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  • Posts: 5492
    • 91 BPT AWD Capri & 1991 XR2
    • http://www.werbatfik.com
Re: Looks to be back up and running
« Reply #1 on: May 07, 2022, 02:31:25 PM »

Forum generated emails should be working now.
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1.8L Turbo All Wheel Drive Capri... the "GTXR2"


jdp

  • Full Member
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  • Posts: 203
    • 1994 Magenta Capri NA, 94 Reef greenXR2 and 92 XR2
Re: Looks to be back up and running
« Reply #2 on: May 09, 2022, 10:03:29 AM »

thank you Rocketman!!!!!
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John

mr_gr1mm

  • Jr. Member
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  • Posts: 65
    • 1991 Mercury Capri
Re: Looks to be back up and running
« Reply #3 on: May 11, 2022, 10:51:07 AM »

Thanks for getting this site back up! NGL - when the domain didn't resolve I just about $#!* myself. Even if no one is active on here, the years of stored conversations is invaluable data as a resource for newbies trying to learn about this car. It seems like you have a handle on things, but if you need assistance with anything in the future or simply want someone to take over please feel free to reach out. I am a software engineer by trade and would happily assist in any way I can. Trying to do research without having this site was very difficult!
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Rocketman

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    • 91 BPT AWD Capri & 1991 XR2
    • http://www.werbatfik.com
Re: Looks to be back up and running
« Reply #4 on: May 11, 2022, 09:29:34 PM »

Thanks for getting this site back up! NGL - when the domain didn't resolve I just about $#!* myself. Even if no one is active on here, the years of stored conversations is invaluable data as a resource for newbies trying to learn about this car. It seems like you have a handle on things, but if you need assistance with anything in the future or simply want someone to take over please feel free to reach out. I am a software engineer by trade and would happily assist in any way I can. Trying to do research without having this site was very difficult!

That's good to know, web admin is not my forte so I struggled quite a bit with it. Thank you.
Yes that has been my drive to keep the forums going, there's a lot of valuable information saved here.
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1.8L Turbo All Wheel Drive Capri... the "GTXR2"


Rocketman

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Re: Looks to be back up and running
« Reply #5 on: May 11, 2022, 10:07:02 PM »

So here's the long story of what happened:

TeamCapri was hosted with a company called TSOhost. Has been since Anthony started it in 2001.
We've had the same legacy package the whole time. Ran the forum just fine - not much storage space to work with but enough for a forum.
In 2012 Anthony gave the site to Russ. Russ doesn't do the web things, so he handed the site off to my care.
I put in a massive amount of time in 2012 to bring the forum software up to date, and it's been running fine save for a few issues here and there.

TSOhost decided to end all of their legacy hosting packages. Notifications were sent out approximately 2 months ahead of their cancellation, but I was not notified.
Russ was listed as the primary contact with me as the technical/support contact. What's interesting is I have always received emails related to billing and other changes, but I did not receive any of these. Come to find out that Russ's listed email was shut down some time ago, and TSOhost did not bother to CC me on these emails, so April 1 I woke up to a dead site.

They straight up had cancelled our package and deleted the site data. I was able to open a support ticket and with some back and forth got them to dig up a backup and they gave me a 24hr window to get on and save what I could. I had some forum database backups on hand but they were not current, but would have saved us starting from scratch.

So with the data backed up I looked around for some help to get things migrated. A friend of a friend ended up giving me some assistance with this, but was not familiar with hosting a forum so I was on my own there.
We're now hosting on "the cloud" via a company called Cloudways. It's not the kind of server back-end I am used to working with but I was able to figure out how to get the forum going.
The site "backup" that TSOhost provided ended up being a dud, so the main landing page is gone. (I should have a copy of it somewhere, but it is quite dated) But I did grab a forum database backup manually so that's what we are working from now.
Once I was able to verify that the forum's integrity was still there I proceeded to get going with getting the teamcapri domain transferred.

The domain name was still registered to Russ, and had to jump through some hoops to change that with required back an forth with TSOhost.
Once I was able to get the contact details changed I was able to transfer the domain to a new registrar, this whole process took ~9 days.
It took another ~2 days for the domain to be pointed at the new server.
I had many complications with the SSL certificate, it kept breaking the forum. A few days of messing with settings I was able to figure this out.
Another few days of getting an email account for the site/forum running and much more troubleshooting and we're up and running again.

This whole process has taken a little over a month. The last few weeks I have been putting in several hours a day testing and troubleshooting.
Special thanks to Jack Byrd and Esheperd for putting up with my testing requests.

The new hosting package costs ~$11/mo and the domain is $15/yr. This is up a little bit from the old host.
If anyone would like to contribute, paypal is accepted to donations[AT]teamcapri.com

So that's the State of the Team right now.
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1.8L Turbo All Wheel Drive Capri... the "GTXR2"


Rocketman

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Re: Looks to be back up and running
« Reply #6 on: May 11, 2022, 10:19:19 PM »

That all being said, if someone would like to design a new landing page for www.teamcapri.com that would be fantastic :) doesn't have to be anything fancy, just a logo and some links.
I'd like to host a mirror of the factory service manuals here, such as what www.tech-capri.com provides - we have the space for that now.
I also need to look into image support for this forum software. I think with the server space now we may be able to allow image uploads to the forum directly. Again I have to investigate what's involved with that.

Also on the list of wishes is a Capri Wiki - a wiki site where we can have pages for common problems and their fixes, lists of available parts, part numbers, interchanges and sources etc.
The Wiki would probably be a fair bit of work to set up and populate with information, so if anyone is interested in taking charge or assisting with that, let me know.

Thanks all for hanging around here, you're good people and TeamCapri is lucky to have you.

-Matt "Rocketman"
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1.8L Turbo All Wheel Drive Capri... the "GTXR2"


greywolf27030

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  • Posts: 1658
    • 1991 XR2, 1992 XR2, 1993 XR2
Re: Looks to be back up and running
« Reply #7 on: May 14, 2022, 08:22:13 AM »

Wow.....I got tired just reading what you've gone though. I know all that hard work is appreciated, TeamCapri has been sorely missed. Now I can go back to hitting TeamCapri first thing when I open my computer. Thanks again.
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Jack Byrd

EShepherd

  • Sr. Member
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    • 1991 Capri XR2, 1991 Capri XR2 Rusted out Shell
Re: Looks to be back up and running
« Reply #8 on: May 20, 2022, 06:21:45 AM »

I'm not very tech savvy, but the wiki idea sounds great. I could definitely help populate that with some information. Especially wiring, since it's starting to look likely that I'm going to end up re-wiring the car here soon.
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JJ

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  • Posts: 474
Re: Looks to be back up and running
« Reply #9 on: March 06, 2023, 04:59:31 PM »

Finally have access to my original user!! after the forum crash/vaporization, something happened and for whatever reason couldn't recover old account. Made a new one, JJCapri.

Well today I happened to try again, and it worked! whoo woo

Anyways, i know this thread is old, but I've been in computers my whole life so can help if needed.

JJ
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