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This is disappointing.
I joined VFRD a couple of months ago when VFRW was down for most of a week.
The withdrawl was unbearable.
I liked the layout there. Especially the lack of advertisements!

 

RIP to VfrD.
I was a member for only 2 years but as others have already mentioned, the community was fantastic and the well of knowledge near infinite.
Quite scary to finally realise the fragility of those "niche" communities through the internet with forums, blogs and various website.
A big hooray for Vfrworld, may it lives longer than us.

Ps : I have the Haynes manual for the 4th gen if the Downloads section comes alive.

 

I wondered what happened... and really sad to hear about the server trouble. I find it hard to believe there wouldn't be a backup available, especially since the site did undergo an upgrade / update.

 

Maybe this will clarify it. Copied from the Facebook page.

After a weekend of trying to upgrade vfrdiscussion.com, I have officially given up on the website. I had it almost done; however, a pesky 500 error ("cannot find file") was holding up the works. The file was there. I uploaded it several times and chmodded the thing several times. I cleared the cache—both the physical and database cache—and searched the database for every instance mentioning that file. I found nothing. I used my old checklist and advice from Claude the AI, working every possible configuration and save location for where this email file was!

I looked for two days, and finally, I was told to try and restart PHP, the programming language for the forum. That hung up. Then I tried to reboot the server, and boom—it would not boot up either. Now I had a whole new set of problems on top of problems. Updating software in Linux has never been smooth, and it has never been easy. I spent 8 hours downloading a backup of the file system and then the database, then uploading the new files to a fresh folder to use as the website home. No dice. It did not like a fresh install. I then tried the upgrade file, but it was looking for the old files in the other folder. That meant another 3 hours of uploading the new files to the old folder. Finally, it upgraded, but not without a hitch. Not that much had changed, and it worked—except I could not send or receive email. I could not even get to the settings to change my email configurations.

Now I had the task of troubleshooting a busted boot image. One of the RAID disks with the boot image on it was missing. There was no way to mount it, and as I went down the list, it was just gone.

I eventually thought, "Well, as a last resort, I'll reimage the whole thing with a new RAID disk installed, wait a day for that, and start from scratch." That would mean uploading the old files all day long and configuring the server, only to be right back where I started—with an old forum system that was no longer supported and needed to be upgraded to a latest version that was full of bugs.

So I began the process, running out of weekend and staying up all night transferring files again for the 6th time. Only to find out my database file was corrupt.

No problem, I thought—I have the automated backup on the backup server. I logged in there, only to find it had stopped backing up the database a year ago. EFFED. It's effed! I wasted 3 days on this thing, knowing it was going to be difficult and troublesome, but not expecting that a RAID would go bad on me just because I tried to reboot it!

So, this is where VFRD ends. I am giving up officially. I barely even log in anymore, and I don't have it in me to go through that whole process all over again with a year-old database! No, sorry folks, we are done here. 24 years of running this site and it just died on the operating table. I gave it CPR, used the defib paddles, and now it has flatlined! I wish I had more to give, but I just don't have it in me to start from scratch.


Miguel has done a great job keeping it going, but sometimes you just have to let it go.

 

I am still in the denial phase, I guess. The Invision Community software used has become less and less popular over the years (alleged getting more expensive / worsening support), but 'we' should at least attempt to convert any available / existing / retrievable data into a board like phpBB (or alike).

If there is anyone already engaging on this with Miquel, let me know and I offer to help with anything.

 

Well, after ~15 years on VFRD, here I am finally on VFR World. Nice to see so many familiar faces.

Yes Captain, I'm part of that new flood over the dam here.

After 30 consecutive years of owning VFR's I have been without for several years (other brands), but have always dreamed of one more, a 5th gen. I was counting on the VFRD community to keep it running. We'll see what the future holds.