MySQL 5

General discussion about Extend-A-Story.

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lordreaibn
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MySQL 5

Post by lordreaibn »

Can extend-a-story work with MySQL 5?

My web host is cutting off MySQL 4 support next week and I need to migrate all of my databases.
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lordreaibn
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Post by lordreaibn »

errr never mind i already did and it works great.

CARRY ON NOTHING TO SEE HERE
Ben McClellan II
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Post by Ben McClellan II »

That question answered itself.
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Horsehockey v5.0: Ongoing! horsehockey dot ORG
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Sir Toby
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Post by Sir Toby »

I am currently running Extend-A-Story on MySQL version 5.5.31 using Ubuntu 12.04 with no problems. However, when I migrated from an older MySQL version, I did run into some problems.

First, there is this bug: http://sourceforge.net/p/extend-a-story/bugs/9/

That bug is fixed in the latest version of Extend-A-Story (2.2.0), which I would suggest upgrading to if you aren't using it already.

Second, I ran into an issue with migrating the actual databases. Since I was moving to a new server, I performed a MySQL dump on the old server and then restored the database on the new server. The new version of MySQL didn't correctly handle the dump format from the old version of MySQL. However, I was able to find ways to work around the problem.

If you encounter either of these issues, let me know and I will help you resolve them.
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lordreaibn
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Post by lordreaibn »

Well it turns out I am already in a MySQL 5 database however I am having some episodes lose their content recently. The only thing I have done is my provider forced me to move to PHP5 (I was previously on PHP4).

We have found about a half dozen eps so far whose content is just... *poof*.

Help?

to clarify, the links are still there but the body is totally empty.
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Sir Toby
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Post by Sir Toby »

Hmm... I am using PHP 5.3.10 myself with no issues. I can't think of anything in Extend-A-Story or PHP 5 that would cause the issues you are describing.

First, if you haven't already done so, I would suggest making a database backup and turning off episode creation. If there is a problem that is corrupting data in your database, we want to take steps to minimize the corruption.

Is this happening with the most recently created episodes, older episodes, or a combination of both? For the episodes that are having this problem, did these episodes show up correctly at some point, and then went bad, or are they getting created this way? Can you think of any pattern to the episodes that are affected?

When you say, "the links are still there but the body is totally empty," are you saying that the episode doesn't exist at all (like it was never created in the first place), or are you saying that the episode shows up as created with all of its links attached, just no episode body? Could you link to some episodes that have this problem?

Do you have a database backup from before you started experiencing these problems? If so, you should be able to restore the missing data, once we resolve the underlying problem.

I have some theories about what may be happening, but I want to hear the answers to your questions before I throw anything out there.

I am a few hours away from heading out of town for the weekend. While I will have limited access to Sir-Toby.Com while I am away, I will still have access to this forum. I will monitor this thread and respond as I am able to do so. However, I may not be able to respond as quickly as I might otherwise.
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Post by JH »

An example episode is http://www.horsehockey.org/read.php?episode=3762. Personally I don't think the problem is linked to the move from PHP 4 to PHP 5, as I think that at least one of the affected episodes lost its body before that.
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Post by Sir Toby »

I'm sorry that it has taken me so long to respond. I've been pretty busy out here.

Thank you for the link to the broken episode. That helps me to see what is happening. Unfortunately, I don't have any theories for why it is happening.

Do you know when this issue started happening? Can you think of anything that may have changed around that time? Are you aware of any patterns to the episodes that have this problem?

Would you be willing to share a backup of your database with me? That may help me to see if I can find any problems with your database.
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lordreaibn
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Post by lordreaibn »

Sir Toby wrote:Do you know when this issue started happening?
Unfortunately, no. I have been super busy with work and church and so have not been on the site as much of late. One of my excellent writers brought this to my attention (my co-admin Ben) and then Ib and others found more.
Sir Toby wrote:Can you think of anything that may have changed around that time? Are you aware of any patterns to the episodes that have this problem?
I really wish I had good answers to your questions, as they are very good. Unfortunately, I see nothing in my server logs and have had no problem with my other site. These episodes were pretty run of the mill. The first one we noticed that had the question was a short episode but others have been longer ones.
Sir Toby wrote:Would you be willing to share a backup of your database with me? That may help me to see if I can find any problems with your database.
I would absolutely be willing to do that. Let me just get episode creation temporarily shut down and we will do that today. Where do you want me to put the database backup?
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Sir Toby
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Post by Sir Toby »

lordreaibn wrote:
Sir Toby wrote:Would you be willing to share a backup of your database with me? That may help me to see if I can find any problems with your database.
I would absolutely be willing to do that. Let me just get episode creation temporarily shut down and we will do that today. Where do you want me to put the database backup?
If the database backup is small enough, you can just email it to me. Otherwise, I would suggest a file upload service such as Dropbox. Then you can email me a link to the backup.
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lordreaibn
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Post by lordreaibn »

Sir Toby wrote:
lordreaibn wrote:
Sir Toby wrote:Would you be willing to share a backup of your database with me? That may help me to see if I can find any problems with your database.
I would absolutely be willing to do that. Let me just get episode creation temporarily shut down and we will do that today. Where do you want me to put the database backup?
If the database backup is small enough, you can just email it to me. Otherwise, I would suggest a file upload service such as Dropbox. Then you can email me a link to the backup.
I should have thought of that myself.
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lordreaibn
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Post by lordreaibn »

Emailed.
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Post by Sir Toby »

lordreaibn wrote:Emailed.
Got it. Thank you.

I've taken a quick look and have some good news so far. The content for episode 3762, the episode you linked me to earlier, is still in the database. The problem doesn't appear to be causing database corruption. I'm still not sure why the content of the episode isn't being displayed, so I'll keep digging.
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Post by Sir Toby »

I just restored your database onto a virtual machine and set up Extend-A-Story on that machine. When I try to read episode 3762, the episode you linked me to earlier, I see the full content. I tested with versions 2.1.0 and 2.1.1 of Extend-A-Story, since those are the versions that are compatible with your database backup. There has to be something on your end that is causing the content of some of your episodes to disappear.

Are you running the stock version of Extend-A-Story, or have you made some changes to the code?
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Post by Sir Toby »

Has there been any update to this issue? I'm willing to continue helping you diagnose the problem, but I will need feedback from you in order to do so.
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