# System Upgrades- Improvments Over The Years



## Mike Bobbitt

Folks,

Just wanted to introduce an addition to the CdnArmy.ca site. I have started tracking usage, simply for interest's sake.

To see this site's usage statistics, simply select "Usage Statistics" from the "Administration" menu, or click on the following link:

[ Link edited out ]

If you have any comments or feedback, please let me know.

Cheers


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## Mike Bobbitt

Folks,

I have upgraded The War Diary software from 6.0 to 6.01. Still no spellchecker, though I will include the list of fixes from the vendor here.

*The new minor features:*
The ability for an admin to send an email to a user who has lost their password from the control panel's Member Info screen.
Floodcheck is now used on registration.

*Minor changes/bug fixes:*
Fixed the extra table tag if Iframe review is off.
Changed the http header on all user pages for better performance when changing charsets.
Fixed the forum homepage links.
Fixed the display of the incorrect default topic view.
Added some code for those people upgrading from operable pre y2k versions.
Fixed a typo in searches.
Added protection for people trying to import archives with the wrong file permissions.

If you have any questions, just let me know.

Cheers


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## Mike Bobbitt

Folks,

The War Diary has just been updated again. If you have any problems or see something that‘s not quite right, please let me know.

According to the vendor, the changes in 6.02 are:

Changes/fixes include:


In registration email, URL to "My Profile" was broken.

Link to return to the previous page from UBBFriend was broken.

Redirection from PMing was wrong if you had to login to send a PM.

Formatting of multiple page links was inconsistent.

Formatting of the topic review text was inconsistent.

Tildes in control panel URLs had a space inserted before them.

Instances of %%CGIURL%% existed in the control panel.

Today‘s Active Topics sometimes had an extra row that was hard coded white.

The  tag occasionaly had trouble with q... which currently has no release date.

Cheers


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## Mike Bobbitt

Folks,

The upgrade went ahead as scheduled. Although there are still some outstanding problems, overall, it was quite successful. The new hardware is now in place and being used. Hopefully we will see a performance improvement.

If you notice anything wrong, please post the details here. (Mail is one of the things that is currently broken, so it won‘t get through - the mailing list is also down for the moment.)

I will address the outstanding issues as soon as I am able, and I hope you will bear with me.

Thanks


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## Michael Dorosh

Thank God, Mike.  Much better - thanks!


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## Mike Bobbitt

Folks,

I have updated The War Diary software to a new version that may not be as stable as the previous one.

If anyone notices any problems, please let me know, and I‘ll do my best to track it down.

Thanks

P.S. This is a precursor to adding more features. Please bear with me!


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## Mike Bobbitt

Folks,

I have just made a change to the board that should result in much better performance. Hopefully you will notice a decrease in the time it takes for pages to load.

The potential drawback is that this is fairly experimental, so we may encounter some problems. If you do notice anything amiss, please let me know as soon as you can.

Thanks!


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## Mike Bobbitt

Folks,

Just wanted to make you aware of a new feature. Recent Visitors to The War Diary are now displayed, so you can see who is currently browsing the forums with you.

As this feature is still being designed, any feedback you have may be useful. I‘ll be sure to pass your comments and suggestions on to the vendor.

As a side note, those who wish to remain anonymous can modify their profiles to hide from the Recent Visitors featre.

If you have any questions, please let me know.

Cheers


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## Art Johnson

You mean people are ashamed to stand up for what they think or say. Shame on them. In the words of an American Admiral "Damn the torpedoes full speed ahead".


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## JRMACDONALD

HEY ART J- welcome to the CANADIAN WORLD/ARMY  :crybaby:


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## Mike Bobbitt

You‘ve probably noticed that this site has slowed down a bit over the past few days.

I just wanted to acknowledge that I‘m aware of the problem, and attempting to solve it.

Cheers


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## Mike Bobbitt

Update: The problem has been isolated to a network appliance, which we hope to replace this weekend.


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## Mike Bobbitt

2nd Update: The hardware has been replaced, and the site is back to normal.


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## Mike Bobbitt

Folks,

You can now post "Polls" in addition to posting regular messages. Polls allow you to ask a question and provide one or more answers, which other users can vote on. Results are then collected and displayed.

I have enabled Polls on most forums, but please, only create one if you have a legitimate question, or do any testing in "Off Topic."

If you have any questions, please let me know.

Cheers

Edit: I know some of the graphics aren‘t finished up yet. I‘ll work on that probably this weekend...


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## Mike Bobbitt

Folks,

I now have the capability to set up to 15 "levels" of membership. Each level is based on the number of posts for that user, and simply changes the user‘s title. There are no other benefits.

(Previously, the "levels" were 0-3 posts = Recruit, 31 or more = Veteran...)

So my question to The War Diary users is this: How would you like to see user levels defined?

Edit: I forgot to mention that I can also associate icons with each level. (For example, "recruits" could have the corn flake, and veterans could have the army insignia by their title.)


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## Mike Bobbitt

Ok, I guess everyone‘s had a chance to cast their vote. Unless there‘s a coup, things stay as they are.

Cheers


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## Mike Bobbitt

Ok folks, if you‘ve gotten this far, you know that I‘ve changed the look and feel of the site.

Bring on the feedback, good or bad.

Cheers


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## Michael Dorosh

The board has been pretty quick lately, which is the main thing.  If I have to wait, I go elsewhere.

I preferred the light green and dark green text box to this black and white one, but that is a minor quibble.  Otherwise, looks good.


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## Mike Bobbitt

Good catch!

It‘s back to the "old" way.

Thanks


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## Infanteer

Even your damn site is getting CADPAT before the Militia...


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## haley

Mike. The new look is just great.

Jas


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## Mike Bobbitt

Haha! Good one Infanteer!

I had to buy it off eBay though.


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## rceme_rat

1.  I like the new look. 

2.  A minor glitch occurred when logging in yesterday - on one of the forums, the index showed a VERY wide column for the message icon, and an extremely narrow column for the subject heading.  That problem seems to have either disappeared or to have been fixed.

3.  I appreciate the improvements in speed and in the fact that the home page loads properly now every time, rather than sporadically.

4.  Now, you need to attract more people to the site.  My question is this:  "is there a BBS or chatroom frequented by reg force personnel - there seem to be very few on here, and I‘d like to start tracking some people down to find out what is going on.

Kudos.


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## Mike Bobbitt

Thanks. I‘m checking out the "extra wide message icon" problem. I‘ve seen it once myself, so you‘re not dreaming.   

I‘m hoping that once the kinks are all worked out, people will come on their own. Maybe a bit naive, but if the site *isn‘t* working, I bet they won‘t come.   

Cheers


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## McG

Very nice new look.  

But I have noticed that on the ‘new posts‘ page, all the post summaries are printed on one line only.   This results in a relitivly long line (which is difficult to read on my tiny monitor).

Excellent everywhere else though.  We are all greatfull for the work you put into this site.


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## cagomez

Havent been around for a while. Site loads much faster and more consistently. CADPAT adds a nice touch of modernism. All together a major improvement.


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## Mike Bobbitt

Hi all,

I‘ve changed around many of the files on this site, so if you see any broken links (there are bound to be some), please e-mail me or post them here.

Also, if anyone has links to this site (other than to the main page at  http://CdnArmy.ca),  please check them to make sure they‘re still active.

In a nutshell, any "html" pages have been turned to php pages. For example:

 http://CdnArmy.ca/frames/privacy.html 

is now

 http://CdnArmy.ca/frames/privacy.php 

Thanks!


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## Mike Bobbitt

Hi all,

I‘ve just put up a new web site intro and menu system that I‘ve been working on for some time. As with any change, it‘s bound to cause some people some problems.

The biggest one is that both these changes require you to have Macromedia Flash installed on your system. Most systems already have this installed, but some may not. So if things aren‘t working please try that first. You can download this from the following URL:

 http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/triggerpages_mmcom/flash.html 

And of course, your feedback and suggestions on these changes are encouraged.

Cheers


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## Mike Bobbitt

Hi all,

Just wanted to bring a new feature to your attention. On the main page for this site, there are two new sections. The first is a "news" table, which contains links to the last 5 topics in this forum. The second is a "recent posts" table, which has the last 5 postings made to any forum in The War Diary.

Click here to see what I mean.

It still needs some touching up, but I think it‘s a good start.

Cheers


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## Mike Bobbitt

Hi all,

I‘ve recently found out that our current Internet connection is going to be gone around December of this year. As you can imagine, this is going to mean some changes.

Before you get too concerned, just let me say that shutting down this site is *not* considered an option to me. The current plan then, is to move the site to my home connection. This has a couple of implications, the most noticeable to users would be that my home connection is not very reliable. So the site would be down, probably for a few hours every couple of days.

The other side effect of this option is that my home connection has a bandwidth limit, and I pay for any traffic over the limit. My estimates indicate that this site will put me about 4Gb over the traffic limit, which is considerable.

So this post is more or less a "heads up" saying that I may look at some ways of funding the site, in order to keep it going. Some potentials are:


Donations: A small "Donate" button would be added, allowing users to donate an amount of their choice to the site. Donations would be in no way mandatory, and there are currently no plans to differentiate between those who donate and those who don‘t. (Other than recognition.)
Ad banners: Military books from Amazon.com. Click here for an example.
Selling items: For example, Canadian Army stickers, etc.
These options pretty much all make my skin crawl, but at the same time, I‘d like to keep the site running.
I‘m hoping to get your feedback on the best way to proceed here. Please vote in the poll below, to express you opinion.


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## Mike Bobbitt

You may not notice it squished between "Profile" and "Search" at the top of the page, but a new feature has been added. The Nominal Roll is simply a display of the members of this board.

You can search for members by their name, by keyword (I.E. search for those with "Infantry" in their occupation), by member status and more. You can even see who the top posters on the board are.

Feel free to give it a shot, and if you have any feedback, let me know.

Cheers


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## Hayrick

Hope you get this. I got an error message when I tried to update my profile.
Error  
An error has occurred: 

$VAR1 = [
          ‘CGIPath/Members/oli_index.cgi‘,
          {
            ‘00001052‘ => [
                            ‘CRPTC Range Control‘,
                            ‘Ottawa‘,
                            ‘Anything to do with weapons‘,
                            undef,
                            undef,
                            undef,
                            undef
                          ]
          },
          ‘|*|‘,
          ‘|#|‘,
          undef
        ];
Backtrace:  ultimatebb.cgi:736 -> sub main::edit_profile

Backtrace:  ubb_profile.cgi:635 -> sub main::update_profile

Backtrace:  ubb_profile.cgi:1153 -> sub main::UpdateOLIdexLine

Backtrace:  ubb_lib_files.cgi:1149 -> sub main::ModifyFileAsMultiHash

Backtrace:  ubb_lib_files.cgi:166 -> sub main::Tracer


Hope you can help...thanks


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## Mike Bobbitt

Thanks Hayrick,

It‘s a bug for sure. I‘ve passed it on to the vendor and will let you know when it‘s fixed.

Thanks


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## Mike Bobbitt

Ok, it‘s been fixed. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

Cheers


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## Hayrick

Glad to be of help.


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## Jungle

Hi Mike, great site. Only one problem, the War Diary page does not update, the last posts I get are from 15 nov. The topics are up to date though...


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## Mike Bobbitt

Hmmm... Looks up to date to me. You may have a stale copy cached. Try hitting reload/refresh on your browser. If that doesn‘t cut it, hold down CTRL and try it again. That should force a new copy to your browser... Let me know if that makes a difference. I may have just missed the problem...

Thanks


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## Jungle

Thanks, it worked... but I had to hold the CTRL button as you said. The refresh by itself didn‘t do it...


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## toms3

Hi
I posted a question asking you if you had ever considered a "chat room", but the post never appeared.


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## Mike Bobbitt

Hi Digger,

I just took a look, and it actually did show up, here:

 http://cdnarmy.ca/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=000574#000000 

But I haven‘t replied.   

I‘ve been asked about a chat room before, so maybe it‘s time to spent a bit of time checking it out... I‘ve never really used one, so it‘ll be a bit of a learning curve for me, but I‘ll see what I can figure out. Feel free to nag if you don‘t hear any progress for a while.   

Cheers


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## muskrat89

Mike - "Today‘s Active Topics" doesn‘t always seem to update properly. I also seem to randomly be missing posts (not whole threads). Neither of these are too bothersome really - just mentioned it in case others were experiencing similar problems. Otherwise - great job on the board - thanks!


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## Mike Bobbitt

Hi muskrat,

Can you give me some examples of what‘s missing? I haven‘t noticed this, but I‘m not always up to date here... There‘s a cache involved, so it may take a few minutes for new posts to show up, but if that‘s not it, I‘d be curious to see what‘s going on...

Thanks


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## toms3

Hi Mike

For some reason I notice my last post has not come up.  It is in the current affair setion.  It is listed, but once you go in...it does not appear.

Thanks


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## Mike Bobbitt

Hi Digger,

I can see it OK:

 http://cdnarmy.ca/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=6;t=000411;p=2#000016 

Assuming that‘s the one you meant... Still, there are a number of reports of old pages being cached. I‘ll have to look into it and see if I can figure out what‘s going on...

If you don‘t see your post right off, try hitting CTRL-Reload...

Cheers


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## Student Sapper

I have a few thoughts:  

An Airborne Instant Graemlin.

Include an "Canadian Intrests" in your web links.  It would clean-out the media and misc government sites from the "Canadian Army related" links.


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## McG

I have noticed a few things (these may be intentional, but . . . )

I have always used the Engineer flag (  
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





  ) in my signature, but only the UBB Code appears now.  Has this option been disabled?

I was not able to start a new thread in the Admin forum (for my previous observation), I had to reply to an existing thread.


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## Mike Bobbitt

Hi McG,

Fixed the signature problem... Also, new posts are disabled in this forum, to try to keep it as an "announcements" area. Though I see that this means there‘s really no area for users to report problems in... I‘ll have to see what I can do about that.

Thanks


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## shaunlin41

Hi, 

 I have a problem with loging in,  I can post or reply but not login, my pasword is correct but it will not login.  Thanxs


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## Mike Bobbitt

Is there an error message displayed? Since you can log in for posting, your password is OK, and it sounds like your browser may not be able to accept cookies... If cookies are disabled, you‘ll have to enable them before you can log in.


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## WINDWOLF

Good day Mike:
I have a problem/question.

All my gremlins seem to have run away.
Is this my system prob or am i missing 
something important?
Makes it hard to let the guys know when
i am serious or not.

Thanks in advance.


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## Mike Bobbitt

I‘ve [temporarily] taken the list out, due to the bandwidth problems I‘ve been having. (Every bit helps.)

They‘re still available, you just have to type them in manually now.   

Hope to restore all of this back to normal in a week or so.


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## shaunlin41

No error message the screen just flashes and says not loged in, to login...


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## Mike Bobbitt

Try using this link to log in, to see if it helps at all:

 http://cdnarmy.ca/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=login


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## shaunlin41

seems to work fine now, thanx.


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## brneil

Just a quick note.  The pop up add at the top of the forums screens blocks the ability to enter your own profile.  Is there another way to get in to your own profile to edit it?


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## Mike Bobbitt

Wow, your screen resolution must be set pretty low. The ad should be floating just to the right of the logo, with a gap before the profile link. If there‘s no gap, it‘s because the browser window doesn‘t have enough room to display all the elements.

I may have to rethink the placement, but in the mean time, you can get there directly by this URL:

 http://cdnarmy.ca/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=my_profile


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## Etown

there‘s an issue with the quote of the day.



> /home/bobbitt/www/army/cgi-bin/album.pl


that‘s what I‘m getting.


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## Mike Bobbitt

Thanks E-Town, I missed that... It‘s fixed now, but there are likely others. Please let me know if you see them.

Thanks


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## Cycophant

Sorry to bug you Mike, but I think I‘ve found a problem.  At first, I thought it was something on my end, but now I‘m not so sure.

I used to think I was having cookie problems.  Each time I loaded the forums, it said I was logged out.  I checked all sorts of settings, to no avail.  But I think I‘ve noticed the problem now.

The "Main" page thinks I‘m logged out.  However, subsequent forums (Current Affairs, Recruiting, etc.) show that I‘m logged in.  Any idea what the problem is?

_EDIT:  I think I‘ve discovered the problem.  The link I used to arrive at the forums used the old "CdnArmy.com" domain name.  Presumably, this caused a conflict with the cookie, which was designed for "Army.ca".  Don‘t worry about fixing it, if that‘s the case.  Not much you can do about that, I imagine._


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## Mike Bobbitt

Yeah, that‘s it exactly... Sorry for the delay in responding!

Cheers


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## Wingman

Hi,  
I can post, reply and sign in but everytime I hit the "You have an incoming message" it sends me to this page even though I am signed in:

##############
Hello, Wingman [ Stand Down ]  Army.ca Forums Â» FYI  
You are not logged in. You must be logged in (and registered) to perform this function. 

Login or Register 

Â» Please use your browser‘s back button to return.  

################


What am I doing incorrect?  I was able to retrieve personal messages a week ago but it stopped working around Aug.6.  I have tried setting my browser to accept all cookies but that didn‘t work either and I followed the link mentioned above and it gave me the same error when I tried to get personnel messages. 

Thanks,


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## Mike Bobbitt

Hi Wingman,

Try visiting this link to kill off all the cookies that are set by your browser:

 http://army.ca/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=clearcookies 

That‘ll force you to log in again, resetting all your cookies. Also, make sure you‘re using army.ca as the domain for all your links (not forums.army.ca, forums.cdnarmy.ca, cdnarmy.ca, etc...)

Seems a bit strange, but we‘ll figure it out...

Cheers


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## Long in the tooth

Mike - I very much enjoy your site and appreciate the work you‘ve put into it, as well as the constant improvements.
Thought you‘d like to know.


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## Mike Bobbitt

Thanks! I appreciate all the support and feedback people have provided, it helps keep things going!

Cheers


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## Mike Bobbitt

Hi all,

Just a quick note to say that there have been some updates here:


Topic reply subscription
Quick Reply
Search enhancements: Ability to search multiple forums, categories; search user PDNs rather than numbers
Better registration / login / activity tracking for usersearch
Category enhancements: Descriptions, hidden/collapsed, style templates
Signature preview implemented via a new profile edit confirmation page
Remember Me box on login form
Ability to review user agreement after signup (linked on profile page)
Link to user post history from profile page
User prefs to check signature/disable graems checkboxes by default
Other misc enhancements to reduce annoyance (email prefs hide properly, user rating text goes away, links are smarter if the next/prev links hit a dead end, etc)

If you have any questions about these, or have any problems, just let me know.

Cheers


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## katherine6809

Hello Mike

I‘m Richard

From the nethelands.

i‘have one question around the canadian dogtag

Ask where is the groove for at the underside of the id plate.

richard


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## Danny

Hey Mike, i am new here and i dont really understand how this forum works yet so i have a few questions:
Why does it say civilian next to my name in the edit profile screen?
I cant seem to find the list of all the avatars!
If my avatar isnt there do i just post a link on this topic so you can make it an avatar?

thanks.


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## Mike Bobbitt

Hi Danny,

The "Civilian" line is just a title, and can be edited in your profile. (Looks like you figured that out already.) The avatars are also there, just click on "Select a different Avatar Image" and that will bring up the list. (Note that there are several pages of avatars.)

If the one you want isn‘t there and you have a copy, please e-mail it to me (Mike@Army.ca) and I‘d be glad to add it for you.

Cheers


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## Paul Gagnon

Why is there no "Reply with quote" feature?


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## Mike Bobbitt

It was a judgement call, I didn‘t want people direct quoting large messages since it takes up extra server space and bandwidth. I‘ve enabled the feature, and hopefully it will be used judiciously...

Cheers


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## Mike Bobbitt

Folks,

Over the next week or so I‘ll be working on a series of system upgrades. As a result, there will likely be little things breaking here and there while I work. I‘ll do my best to keep these to a minimum by testing on another system first, but I can‘t promise there won‘t be hiccups.

If you happen to notice anything that doesn‘t look right, please let me know. The faster I find out the faster I can address the problem.

Thanks, and I appreciate your patience while I run through this.


Cheers


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## Nfld Sapper

Hey Mike,
This keeps poping up at the bottom of your page

Content-type: text/html Security Alert! The PHP CGI cannot be accessed directly. 
This PHP CGI binary was compiled with force-cgi-redirect enabled. This means that a page will only be served up if the REDIRECT_STATUS CGI variable is set, e.g. via an Apache Action directive.

For more information as to why this behaviour exists, see the manual page for CGI security.

For more information about changing this behaviour or re-enabling this webserver, consult the installation file that came with this distribution, or visit the manual page.


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## Mike Bobbitt

Thanks, I‘ve taken care of that one, at least for now...

Cheers


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## Spr.Earl

No sweat Mike will do


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## brin11

Mike,

Just logged in and on your intro page it is surrounded by white with large error messages on top; something about can‘t find Bobbit.  No computer whiz so don‘t have any idea what they mean.


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## Mike Bobbitt

If you see them again can you send me the link? Also any more info on the error text would be helpful. I couldn‘t find it anywhere...

Cheers and thanks


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## brin11

Mike, its on the main page: cdnarmy.ca and here are the error messages its showing.  The animation is surrounded by a white border with this on top:

Warning: main

(/home/bobbitt/www/army/includes/header_noad.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/bobbitt/www/army/frames/intro.php on line 4

Warning: main(): Failed opening ‘/home/bobbitt/www/army/includes/header_noad.php‘ for inclusion (include_path=‘.:/usr/local/lib/php‘) in /home/bobbitt/www/army/frames/intro.php on line 4


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## Mike Bobbitt

Thanks! It‘s fixed now...

Cheers


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## stukirkpatrick

Mr Bobbit,

this error comes up when certain buttons in the forum are pressed (ie profiles, sub-forum links and some (not this one) forum thread quick links).

An error has occurred: 

"php -f /home/bobbitt/www/army/includes/forumad.php" not readable at inc_ubb_ad.pm line 5.


hope this helps


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## Mike Bobbitt

Thanks, think I‘ve fixed that one now as well. Let me know if you see it again.

Cheers


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## Mike Bobbitt

Ok, the largest part of the upgrade is now complete and things appear to be working. Please be vigilant for any new problems.

Thanks!


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## Mike Bobbitt

I finally got around to adding a new feature to the Military History Calendar. Visitors can now add entries to the calendar. To add an entry, just fill in the form:

 http://Army.ca/history/index.php?add=1 

This will allow the calendar to continue to grow based on the contributions of visitors here. If you have something you think should be added, please do so.

Cheers


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## Mike Bobbitt

Glad to see a couple new entries already!

Note that entries will be reviewed first, and added within a day or so as long as they‘re appropriate and not duplicates.

The submissions so far have been great!


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## Mike Bobbitt

Today the early warning monitor on this server indicated that a hard drive failure is expected in less than 24 hours.

As a result, we may experience some down time, though I‘m already making plans to ensure it is as short as possible.

Please bear with me, your patience is appreciated.


Cheers


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## Mike Bobbitt

As an update to this, we‘re still working off the original (failing) hard drive. I‘ve purchased new equipment and it should be in place within a week. Let‘s hope the current drive can hold out.

On the upside, the new hardware is a bit faster and the disk has more space (about 150% in all cases) so we should see some improvements once it has been swapped.

This will result in some downtime, but I don‘t expect it will be more than an hour or so.

Cheers


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## Mike Bobbitt

Good news! The new router is now in place, meaning we should see a decrease in the downtime we‘ve been experiencing lately.

At about 1730 last night, the old router died again, and instead of just restarting it, the new router hardware was put in place this morning.

So far so good! The old hardware was crashing every 3-7 days, so this should resolve that. Together with some changes made on the server, we should be pretty stable from now on.

If you notice do any problems, please let me know.


Thanks
Mike


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## chrisf

I‘ll order one of your shirts next pay day...

I‘m certainly sucking my my fair share of your bandwidth.


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## Ex-Dragoon

I lost some PMs that I never had a chance to view Mike is this normal?


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## Mike Bobbitt

Hmmm, there was no data loss this time... Can you give me some more info? Did you see the PM‘s in your profile and now they‘re gone?


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## Ex-Dragoon

No I got the email notification that I had them but the site went down before I read them.


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## Mike Bobbitt

Do you still have the e-mails? Try clicking on the links... Like I said, there was no data loss, do the PM‘s should be there...


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## XHighlander

mike;

i‘m still not able to access my albums admin section i can still upload but then i‘m not able to edit them or move them??


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## Mike Bobbitt

Sorry, I‘d forgotten about that one... Can you direct me to the photos, and I‘ll make sure you can move them...


Thanks


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## XHighlander

all the pictures in the main regimental badges album

thanks


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## Mike Bobbitt

I had a look... seems like you own them all already... Is there a specifc pic you can‘t manage?


Cheers


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## XHighlander

yes; thats right.......

i am not able to access the admin tool bars or anything else. it seems not to recognize me as the owner of the pictures or to allow me to move, edit, delete, nothing! and everytime that come to the home page it says 

"* The username you entered is unknown and/or the password is incorrect.

If you haven‘t registered with the site, please click here." 

so there seems to be someting wrong with my account?


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

I don‘t think that error message comes from the album software... ?

If you‘re logged into the forums, you should automatically be logged in to the album:

 http://army.ca/cgi-bin/album.pl?album=General/Badges


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Folks,

For the past month or so, I‘ve been planning a forum upgrade. Some users here have been helping me test out the conversion process and new software, and generally things are going well. As a result, I *may* do the upgrade this weekend. Some notes:


All existing posts and members will be converted over. You will be able to log into the new forums using the same username/password you‘ve been using here. Most of your profile information will also be converted.
Private Messages will not be converted. If you have important info stored in PMs here, make sure you save a copy before the weekend.
The conversion process is pretty lengthy, and will take about 12 hours to complete. I‘ll try to do as much of it overnight as possible. The forums will be closed during this period.
If I don‘t do the upgrade this weekend, it‘ll likely be delayed until mid to late June due to scheduling.
There may be some minor issues wih the new forum software that we‘ll work out as we go. Your patience and help identifying these will be appreciated.

This is a pretty big change, not just an upgrade but a wholesale move from one software package to another. That means you are going to notice a lot of differences. While you may not like *all* of them, I think the new software has a lot of useful features. Notably, it should reduce the burden on the server, which will hopefully translate into less downtime.

If you have any questions, please let me know. I know this is short notice, but the sooner get get onto the new software, the sooner we can get on with things.   


Cheers
Mike


----------



## ZipperHead

Sounds great, and it won‘t inconvenience me (the universe revolves around me, doesn‘t it???? Though I suspect the infidels who give me low ratings would disagree....       ) as I‘ll be in Cape Breton, doing the Cabot Trail Relay. Sounds like a win/win situation for me.

You‘re doing great work Mike!! Keep it up, and I‘m sure everybody here appreciates it.

Al


----------



## rdschultz

Software change?  Just out of curiousity, are you going from UBB to phpBB? 

If thats the case, then its good news.  Another forum I frequent did the change some time ago, and it seemed to make everything a little faster and more streamlined.  They also used the gzip compression feature (I think thats what it was, I‘m not terribly familiar).

Or my assumption could be completely wrong.  In which case, feel free to disregard my post.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

It‘s actually Simple Machines, which is similar to phpBB in a lot of ways... Compression is also a feature in SMF, so hopefully that‘ll help cut down some of our bandwith usage as well. Actually UBB uses compression as well, it‘s just limited to cached pages.

Anyway, hopefully it‘ll generally be considered an improvement.


Cheers
Mike


----------



## rdschultz

Ahh, good stuff.  I always like changes.


----------



## BF Hawkeye Pierce

Nice! I look forward to the changes.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Update: There have been a few issues. They‘ve all been worked out, but I want to give this a bit more time to shake out, so there are no surprises. So no upgrade tonight, but maybe tomorrow night.   

Thanks for your patience.


Cheers
Mike


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Welcome to the new Army.ca forums!

You're going to notice a lot of changes, hopefully most are for the better. Please poke around a bit and if you have a minute, leave some feedback about what you like and what you don't like. If you encounter any problems, can't figure something out, or things just plain look broken, please let me know. I'll do my best to address it.

A significant benefit of this software over the old is performance. You may or may not notice a speed improvement, but as we grow, we'll be more able to handle the increased load. (It will reduce the resource requirements on our hardware as well... always a good thing.)

All posts and user information has been converted from the old forums, however it's important to note that the following items were not converted:


Sticky topics are no longer sticky (mods, feel free to redo this if you can remeber the threads  )
PM's
Polls
Ratings

If you *must* have access to information in a PM from the old forum, let me know and I should be able to recover it for you. (It's a fairly lengthy process, so I'd prefer to avoid it if possible.)

Well, enjoy the changes! It's been a long day so I'm off to bed. 


Cheers
Mike


----------



## muskrat89

So far, so good Mike! Congrats on what appears to be a more rapid than planned, and smooth - transition!


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Thanks... I'm still waiting for the bottom to fall out of it, but so far so good! I managed to speed up the conversion process, so it didn't take overnight. I'm too impatient to allow that anyway.


----------



## Troopasaurus

awesome stuff... but i kinda miss the quick reply :-\ can you put in a quick reply box again?  :

Other than that it looks awesome!  :cam:


----------



## McG

You have that option through your profile settings.


----------



## Troopasaurus

Ahh, my bad, thanks!


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Folks, some good news!

An extremely generous donation has allowed us to obtain the much needed new hardware! The donor doesn't want to be named, but I will say that he's an ex-serviceman and long time forum lurker. Thanks, from all of us here... your generosity couldn't come at a better time.   

The new hardware is current, and will provide a *significant* speed improvement when we move to it (to say noting about the much needed stability). At this point I don't have a firm date for the cutover... It's likely to be a big job, but I'll try to get started right away.

Always lots to do, but we've seen some real progress in the right direction lately.


Thanks again!


----------



## girlfiredup

Hallelujah!!!   ;D

Whoever you are, thank you!


----------



## Bzzliteyr

Cheers and a free t-shirt to that person!! Maybe even a sticker.. long live Army.ca!!!


----------



## Pikache

Thanks whoever donated cash for this.


----------



## Brad Sallows

Are your internal links to "forums" correct? (eg. menu bar at top of page, links at bottom of some pages)


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

I'm not brave enough to make any guarantees, but I've updated them where I know about them...  Did I miss some?


----------



## Brad Sallows

Yes.  The "Home | E-Mail This Page | Forums | Privacy Statement" blurb.

<div class="footer">
<a href="/"><img src="/img/Army.ca-Name-Tape-Small.jpg" border="0"></a>


(C) 1993-2004 Cipher Logic Canada Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Unofficial site, not associated with DND.

<a href="/main.php" target="_top">Home</a> |
<a href="mailto:?Subject=Army.ca Link&Body=I thought you might be interested in this link: http://Army.ca/">E-Mail This Page</a> | <a href="http://Forums.Army.ca">Forums</a> | <a href="/php/privacy.php">Privacy Statement</a>
</div>


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Ahhh, thanks... That link now goes to the "new" forums...


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

More good news: The hardware cutover is now complete!

The old hardware (which gave us *so* much trouble, is now powered off and set aside. We're running completely of the new and improved system now. 

You may notice a speed improvement, and we should no longer see the occasional slowdown (or crash) which plagued us previously. The new system has about 1/10th of the "load" on it that the previous one did... so lots of room to grow. 

Edit: I'm going to be offline for a while... If I spend any more time on a computer, I'll probably be looking at divorce papers.


----------



## Fishbone Jones

I'll sneak this question in here.

Where's the Arm Indicator icons gone from the Message Icon dropdown in the Reply window?


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Good catch... Lost those in the upgrade a few days ago, but they're back now.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Folks,

A new menu system has been put in place. While some many not like it as much as the old, it requires significantly less bandwidth (in the order of 20k *per page*). This was done to try to reduce our monthly usage (which we seem to continuously exceed), but as a side effect, pages should now load a little faster.

I've done a bit of testing, and everything looks OK so far, but if anyone has any problems or questions, please let me know.


Cheers
Mike


----------



## spenco

I cant seem to see the forums menu, it seems to go up instead of down as is the case with all the other menus.  Anyone else have this problem?


----------



## George Wallace

It is Mike working late to do some alterations to speed up the site.

GW


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Ok, I've made a change... does it still go up?


----------



## George Wallace

The Drop Down Menu drops down OK.   Even notice faster downloads on my Dial Up connection.


Guess I'll wake up to a whole new look and feel if you keep this up.   ;D  

Gw


----------



## Infanteer

Alot cleaner then before.  I like.


----------



## spenco

With these new menu's did you somehow disable/remove the promote/demote function?  I can't see ratings nor the promote/demote buttons.  Is it just me?


----------



## Infanteer

No, that function is gone; it was proving to be a logistical burden.


----------



## skura

Not so much that as it was being used incorrectly (i.e. a demotion because of a grudge against another member), at least that's what I've gathered from the posts in the "Off Topic" thread.

::EDIT::   Delete this post if it's going to cause something


----------



## Nobby

When I scroll the menus at the top of the page, some menus appear above and off the browser window. As a result, I cannot access certain areas of the site. I am using Internet explorer 6. Thank-you!


----------



## casing

Doesn't just improve the bandwidth usage, the menus themselves are a big improvement.  The old ones used to really annoy me.  Good job, Mike!


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Nobby: If possible, can you tell me your screen resolution?

It seems like "small" screens won't be able to display the Forums menu since it's the largest...

Glad the menus are otherwise working OK.


----------



## Lance Wiebe

I'm on dial up here at work, and I can see a noticable improvement in speed.

At home, this morning, I couldn't figure out why everything was loading up so fast.  I have cable modem there, and wow!

I like!


----------



## greener

I'm using FireFox with a resolution of 1024*768 .. the submenus always appear in the upper left corner of the screen.. before the font size was decreased, they poped up at the right locations.


----------



## greener

If it helps, menu is doing what it's supposed to on http://army.ca/php/chat.php


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Hi greener, I'm seeing the same thing with Firefox... menu works ok, just pops up in the wrong spot. It's only for forum pages, all others work OK.

I'm trying to track that one down now....


Thanks


----------



## 48Highlander

the menus don't work at all in Opera.  The main menu headings are there and can be clicked, but nothing pops up.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Does it not work for all pages, or just forum pages? I.E. does the menu work on http://Army.ca?


----------



## 48Highlander

Doesnèt work on any of them.  But Opera uses some pretty strict standards, so there's more than a few sites it has problems with.  I'm not concerned much personaly since all the pages can still be accessed without using submenus.  Just thought I'd let you know.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Thanks, I'll see if I can figure out what's going on there...


----------



## Cpl. Williamson

Very Nice Mike I Love the New Look of them


----------



## PTE Gruending

On the index page, the menu's are not working for me. They bounce around when I try and move my cursor over them.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

What browser are you using?


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Ok, I've made a change... Should fix it for Firefox now. Not sure about Opera, and IE should still work OK.

Let me know though...


Thanks!


----------



## Bruce Monkhouse

The menu's also bounce on my netscape on the welcome page but who cares when I can get a page this fast on my dial-up.  This will save me from drinking in between threads.


----------



## spenco

I've noticed that when I first open my browser (IE6) and come to this site, that when my mouse goes over the "forums" tab that the menu goes up, but after I click on one of the recent posts links then try it again it goes down, and when I go back to the homepage it scrolls down, only seems to happen the first time I log onto the home page.


----------



## CrimsonSeil

i say its gotten better then before. Speaking i cant remember the old one haha. Anyways the dropdown menue sometimes goes up and down but generally speaking its great. I'm glad that changing the menues will reduce the bandwidth. good work


----------



## q_1966

Its amazing how much this website has evolved,
Great Job, Mike
-Shawn


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

I saw that the original post was that the "10th Anniversary" link wasn't working. Is there a problem, or was it just a slip of the fingers? 


Cheers
Mike


----------



## q_1966

slip 'o' finger


----------



## q_1966

Is it possible to add a IM message link underneath the search bar, when im accessing it, its always a pain to find?

- Shawn


----------



## Burrows

Are you talking about IM as is MSN YIM ICQ AIM and that stuff or forum Personal Messages? (PM).. If you want to send someone a PM or See if they have MSN thats what all the nifty little buttons under your avatar text do


----------



## q_1966

I meant to say, a link to the forum personal messages (PM) inbox, i know theres a link to it already, but maybe putting another one underneath the search bar, so its more straight forward for the newbies.

- Shawn


----------



## Michael OLeary

Do you mean like the link built into the text where it says:



> Hey, Sgt. Papke, you have ## messages, 0 are new.
> Total time logged in: 15 days, 12 hours and 19 minutes.



where the text "you have ## new messages" is a ink to your pesonal messages page?


----------



## q_1966

well i know theres one, there, but another link where the buttons say "Home" "Help" "Search" "Profile" Calender" & "Logout", that shows up when your signed in and says "Inbox or "PM Box" or something like that...Does that sound like a good idea? or a stupid excuse for work. 

- Shawn


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

I think where there's already a link near the top, a button for it may be redundant.


----------



## q_1966

Never mind then

- Shawn


----------



## Bruce Monkhouse

I wanted to "clean" up the admin section so I put this together this afternoon thinking it wouldn't be much of a chore, boy was I wrong.

The amount of work and money that Mike has put into this site is phenomenal and I think he deserves a round of applause,................................[and I'm not sucking up as all I get are his "experimental" beers. :crybaby:  ]

Thanks, Mike


----------



## Fishbone Jones




----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Ahhh, the memories. 

Thanks for the clean-up Bruce!


----------



## big bad john

Nice new DS IDs!  The red stands out...sort of reminds me of RedCaps...


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Still tinkering... The red almost stands out too well!


----------



## big bad john

As I infered,"like the RedCaps headgear in a bar district on a run ashore".  I like the idea of making it stand out.  Like the T-shirts DS wear at training establishments.


----------



## Burrows

I preferred the older maroon Directing Staff usergroup icons but thats just my opinion..  Sadly I became cadet moderator a few days after we switched from those


----------



## Fishbone Jones

I like the red also Mike.


----------



## Infanteer

Mike,

Any changes lately, I don't see the "PM" access on the forum anymore (Along from a few other things missing from the top)


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

You might have clicked on the ^ arrow near the top (Shrink or expand header) which shows/hides your current PM status, time logged, etc. The only (intentional) changes lately have been style.


----------



## Infanteer

Ok, there it is.  Never knew that existed....


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Folks,

Yet another software upgrade took place today. (Apologies for the outage while things were updated.) Changes include:


Avatars are no downloaded to the server, and selected by other users. (I.E. We all share uploaded avatars effective today.)
Added additional notification settings, for selecting whether a user wishes to be notified on all events, and whether they wish to receive the message body in the notification.
New registrations must be 12 or older.
Added a sidebar to the personal message area, including support for "labeling" personal messages, and the option to display a capacity bar showing the state of the users inbox.
Attachments are no longer lost on preview.
Added support for previewing posts without reloading the page, and username autocompletion when sending PMs.
Extended the current xml feeds to include atom and rdf.
User can only edit their posts can for 24 hours after posting them. (Prevents revisionist histories.)

Plus many other minor changes. If anyone has questions about or problems with any of these new features, please let me know.


Cheers
Mike


----------



## someguyincanada

Mike
I have been getting this error

QUERY failed : No database selected


<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<!-- Army.ca - Mike Bobbitt (Mike@Army.ca) -->
<!-- URL: http://Army.ca/// -->
<!-- Page Name: Army.ca -->
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/Army.css">
<link rel="icon" href="http://Army.ca/favicon.ico">
<link rel="SHORTCUT ICON" href="http://Army.ca/favicon.ico">
<title>Army.ca</title>
</head>
<body>
QUERY failed : No database selected


----------



## Morgs

someguyincanada said:
			
		

> Mike
> I have been getting this error
> 
> QUERY failed : No database selected
> 
> 
> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
> <html>
> <head>
> <!-- Army.ca - Mike Bobbitt (Mike@Army.ca) -->
> <!-- URL: http://Army.ca/// -->
> <!-- Page Name: Army.ca -->
> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/Army.css">
> <link rel="icon" href="http://Army.ca/favicon.ico">
> <link rel="SHORTCUT ICON" href="http://Army.ca/favicon.ico">
> <title>Army.ca</title>
> </head>
> <body>
> QUERY failed : No database selected



Just about to come on and post the same thing, as I too have been experiencing this problem.
Cheers,
Morgs


----------



## combat_medic

Mike,

I seem to lose my login each time I leave the page, even though I have the session set to forever. Also, there are some scrolling issues in posts when I load in Firefox (latest version).


----------



## vangemeren

combat_medic said:
			
		

> Mike,
> 
> I seem to lose my login each time I leave the page, even though I have the session set to forever. Also, there are some scrolling issues in posts when I load in Firefox (latest version).



I don't know if my problem is the same, but it only calls me guest on the homepage (army.ca). when I go on pages with the forums.army.ca/forums/index.php url, it calls me by my log on name. 

P.s I don't know if it is just me but, In the news section I find it easier to read the text left justified than centred.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Thanks guys, that's the kind of feedback I'm looking for... hadn't noticed any of those before. I think I fixed the login on browser restart problem... For those getting the *No database selected* error, is there any pattern? Is it always the same page?


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Just fixed the "centered news" and had the no database selected error myself... Still investigating, please bear with me...


----------



## Morgs

Mike Bobbitt said:
			
		

> Thanks guys, that's the kind of feedback I'm looking for... hadn't noticed any of those before. I think I fixed the login on browser restart problem... For those getting the *No database selected* error, is there any pattern? Is it always the same page?



Hey Mike, I'm still getting the login on browser restart problem, but it only is a problem on the hompe page. When I go anywhere but the home page I am logged in.
I am still have the database error. The only times it has happeded to me is when refreshing the army.ca home page. It doesn't happen ever time, but when it does I just presh refresh half a dozen times and it gets onto the homepage.
Hope this helps! 

EDIT: I forgot to add that the no database error only happens when i use my browsers refresh button (Mozilla Firefox 1.0.2). If I just press the home button in the top right hand corner, it works fine.


----------



## Bruce Monkhouse

Quote,
Hey Mike, I'm still getting the login on browser restart problem, but it only is a problem on the hompe page. When I go anywhere but the home page I am logged in.

My computer at home has always done this, are you using an older version of Netscape?


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Ok, if you log out and log in, it should work on the main page now too... If anyone sees the no database selected error from this point forward, please let me know.


----------



## Morgs

Bruce Monkhouse said:
			
		

> Quote,
> Hey Mike, I'm still getting the login on browser restart problem, but it only is a problem on the hompe page. When I go anywhere but the home page I am logged in.
> 
> My computer at home has always done this, are you using an older version of Netscape?



Nope, its the latest version and has never done this before. But it hasnt done it since I posted the above quote.
Cheers!


----------



## Cloud Cover

Just happened to me 3 times each in Firefox and IE.

I googled army.ca- selected forums page and clicked my way in. Closed the browser, theb re-opened the army.ca bookmark... same error. Went to google again, searched army.ca and got in.

Hope that helps.

Also, I find the site unusually slow.


----------



## HItorMiss

Not sure if I am the only one to get this or the main page is down.....trying to load army.ca gives this:

QUERY failed : No database selected


even when I loaded a bookmark and hit home on the task bar it gave the same answer

Just wanted to bring it to your attention.


----------



## vangemeren

Bruce Monkhouse said:
			
		

> Quote,
> Hey Mike, I'm still getting the login on browser restart problem, but it only is a problem on the hompe page. When I go anywhere but the home page I am logged in.
> 
> My computer at home has always done this, are you using an older version of Netscape?



I'm using the newest version Firefox and it says I'm not logged in on the homepage (but I am). Any other thread or forum on this webpage works like it did yesterday or any other day. The only problems I've had are on the homepage. Since Mike last posted, "QUERY failed : No database selected" happens everytime and only on the army.ca homepage and none of the others . It does this too on the newest version of IE.


----------



## McG

The home page is back!


----------



## Nfld Sapper

HitorMiss said:
			
		

> Not sure if I am the only one to get this or the main page is down.....trying to load army.ca gives this:
> 
> QUERY failed : No database selected
> 
> 
> even when I loaded a bookmark and hit home on the task bar it gave the same answer
> 
> Just wanted to bring it to your attention.



Happens to only when I got to http://army.ca but bookmarked version of army.ca forums page has no problems.

I am runing:

Processor: Mobile IntelÃ‚® PentiumÃ‚® 4 Processor 538 (3.20GHz1, 1MB L2 Cache)
Front Side Bus Speed: 533MHz
Memory: 512MB PC-2100 266MHz DDR
OS: Windows XP SP2 with Internet Explorer 6.0 SP2


----------



## Nfld Sapper

Mike, interstingly if you type http://army.ca// homepage loads normally.

Dave


----------



## McG

MCG said:
			
		

> The home page is back!


 . . . well, sort of.   If I go there through the back button I will get the error, but it seems to work when I follow a link in.


----------



## McG

I haven't been able to reproduce the error for a while.  Is it fixed?


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

I'm working on it... I *might* have made it better, but I doubt I've fully fixed it yet... I'm going to keep an eye on it in the hopes it's gone or going away.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

It just happened again for me, so it's definitely not fixed... I'll keep digging, but any info is good. I.E. pages that seem to work vs. those that don't, how long the error appears for, if everyone sees it at the same time (I suspect we all do), etc.


Thanks for your patience all.


----------



## Morgs

Just happened to me again on the home page at 11:39. I pressed the refresh button 44 times before it came back.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Ok, I may have fixed it. If not, I at least know where the problem is out of the thousands of files to look through. 

Thanks to everyone for your help, it was instrumental in isolating the source of the problem. If anyone sees the error again, please let me know.


Cheers
Mike


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Should I be so optimistic as to say "so far so good?"


----------



## combat_medic

Mike, still having the login problem. Login forever, but when I navigate away from the page and come back, I have to login again.


----------



## scm77

I'm also having that problem.


----------



## Michael Dorosh

combat_medic said:
			
		

> Mike, still having the login problem. Login forever, but when I navigate away from the page and come back, I have to login again.



me too, but only at home, not at work.  Odd.


----------



## atticus

Hey, I've got scroll bars on the sides of almost every message. Could this be from using firefox?


----------



## scm77

atticus said:
			
		

> Hey, I've got scroll bars on the sides of almost every message. Could this be from using firefox?



That just started happening to me as well.  I've been using firefox for months and never had that problem before, so I don't think thats it. :-\


----------



## scm77

The login problem now seems to be fixed (for me atleast)


----------



## Navalsnpr

I've noticed that I've not received any notification on topics that I've enabled notification on and new posts were submitted. When I checked the topics in question, and clicked on the "Notify" button, the window indicates "Do you wish to disable notification". Is this a known issue?


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

It's known now.  I'll test it and see if I can reproduce it. As for the login problem, it may have been cleared up, but please report it if it recurs. Always good to be sure about these things...


Cheers
Mike


----------



## Navalsnpr

I've not had any login problems...

Mind you I just created a new topic and did receive replies once someone responded.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Note that you won't be notified of your own replies, and that once you're notified a single time, you won't be notified again until you re-visit the thread... (by default, anyway)

I was just notified of your reply...


----------



## McG

Mike,
I like the easy new navigation of the Avatar menu.   The only problem now is which one to choose.


----------



## Mike Bobbitt

Well thanks for supplying the lion's share of images!


----------

