test please delete

[NickFitz]

Yes, I'm not sure what's causing that, though it's obviously another aspect of the Thanks/Likes plugin struggling. I'll be investigating this afternoon to see if I can at least get a temporary fix for the blank pages and missed likes, though a permanent fix might need more testing

I'll try to do most of the work on my test server but might need to try stuff here too, to be sure of what's going on. So if you occasionally see odd things like thanks/likes disappearing completely, try not to panic too much

OK, so I've turned off Thanks/Likes temporarily for TPD, as fixing the epic fail of the plugin will involve rewriting chunks of it. On the bright side, the whole thread seems to load a lot faster now

At least I now know exactly where the problem is, and it's the same function that's falling over when trying to thank or like - well, I'm 90% sure it is; the same function gets called, at any rate, so that seems most likely, though I'll check again once I have a fix in place.

Given that the relevant code now appears to have been responsible for much of the slowness, getting it replaced with something more efficient should have long-term benefits too

[NickFitz]

Watching something on More4 about the London Blitz whilst guzzling a roast beef sandwich. The struggle to use up leftovers is real; this isn't the beef I made last night, it's the other beef

[ladymuck]

OK, so I've turned off Thanks/Likes temporarily for TPD, as fixing the epic fail of the plugin will involve rewriting chunks of it. On the bright side, the whole thread seems to load a lot faster now

At least I now know exactly where the problem is, and it's the same function that's falling over when trying to thank or like - well, I'm 90% sure it is; the same function gets called, at any rate, so that seems most likely, though I'll check again once I have a fix in place.

Given that the relevant code now appears to have been responsible for much of the slowness, getting it replaced with something more efficient should have long-term benefits too

Oh the irony! I can't like or thank you for your perseverance!

[ladymuck]

Drive down to Arundel was uneventful. The route over Putney Bridge and through Putney being dire as ever.

Dinner was very pleasant and my parents weren't too racist for a change.

Drive home was about more of a challenge on account of a mist / light fog restricting visibility. Once over the downs it all cleared up and normal progress resumed.

On returning home, I discovered that my previous ability to reverse park had left me and I had to park a street away where I could drive into a space big enough for a bus.

[NickFitz]

Getting late (or early, depending on how you look at it) again. Tonight's TV has obviously gone on for quite a while, being mainly more of Dopesick which continues to be excellent, and then multiple parts of the Millennium trilogy on iPlayer

Oh the irony! I can't like or thank you for your perseverance!

I know! I'll have to seek validation elsewhere

For reference: the entire system runs on nested templates making API calls for their data. In the case of the problematic code, it's called by a template that is in turn called via a hook: a thing in a template that allows plugins to insert their own rendering code at that point in that part of a page. I've already had to modify that template to allow for it failing because of an API change that was made after the creators of the plugin were sent to prison for the child porn thing (whole other post if you don't already know about it) so I put this temporary thing in there and now I'm thinking I should keep it there, as I don't like to modify the plugin code directly if I can avoid it, and I can't modify vBulletin's code for good technical reasons.

And The Problem is that the plugin code tries to get ALL thanks and likes for THE ENTIRE THREAD just in case the ten (or, if the current user has selected that setting, forty) posts on the current page need to know about them.

And as this is called per-post, the only information available is what post it is; it then tries to get the whole thread data every time if it isn't cached, and as cacheing it often fails because TPD is too big to be cached, we get grey screens or failing thanks/likes

So anyway… if I come in from the template, I don't want the existing thing of just checking if it's TPD; for example, the Counting Thread, or Word Associations, could later run into trouble. But then I need to know if it's a big thread or a small thread to decide whether to use the fix or not (because the fix might have unintended consequences, so I want to limit its scope until I'm sure it won't bring the entire forum down).

Luckily, the "x to y posts of z" template has already been executed at the necessary point in the page. I can't remember if it caches its results, but if it does, I can just get the z value; if it doesn't, I can use an entirely different capability of The System to augment that API to ensure it did get cached, so it all happens efficiently.

And with that, the big/small thread decision can be made, and my own Big Thread Likes/Thanks code can be called accordingly. I'm thinking in terms of maybe trimming the data to a couple of hundred posts either side of the post of interest. There will be added complexity to think about, no doubt, but that seems like a good place to start from.

And then there's the question of what happens when a thread makes the transition from small to big. That could get messy if not thought about

I've jotted all this down here because what better place to put it? Now TPD can serve as a repository for how to fix itself

Goodnight all

[eek]

Getting late (or early, depending on how you look at it) again. Tonight's TV has obviously gone on for quite a while, being mainly more of Dopesick which continues to be excellent, and then multiple parts of the Millennium trilogy on iPlayer



I know! I'll have to seek validation elsewhere

For reference: the entire system runs on nested templates making API calls for their data. In the case of the problematic code, it's called by a template that is in turn called via a hook: a thing in a template that allows plugins to insert their own rendering code at that point in that part of a page. I've already had to modify that template to allow for it failing because of an API change that was made after the creators of the plugin were sent to prison for the child porn thing (whole other post if you don't already know about it) so I put this temporary thing in there and now I'm thinking I should keep it there, as I don't like to modify the plugin code directly if I can avoid it, and I can't modify vBulletin's code for good technical reasons.

And The Problem is that the plugin code tries to get ALL thanks and likes for THE ENTIRE THREAD just in case the ten (or, if the current user has selected that setting, forty) posts on the current page need to know about them.

And as this is called per-post, the only information available is what post it is; it then tries to get the whole thread data every time if it isn't cached, and as cacheing it often fails because TPD is too big to be cached, we get grey screens or failing thanks/likes

So anyway… if I come in from the template, I don't want the existing thing of just checking if it's TPD; for example, the Counting Thread, or Word Associations, could later run into trouble. But then I need to know if it's a big thread or a small thread to decide whether to use the fix or not (because the fix might have unintended consequences, so I want to limit its scope until I'm sure it won't bring the entire forum down).

Luckily, the "x to y posts of z" template has already been executed at the necessary point in the page. I can't remember if it caches its results, but if it does, I can just get the z value; if it doesn't, I can use an entirely different capability of The System to augment that API to ensure it did get cached, so it all happens efficiently.

And with that, the big/small thread decision can be made, and my own Big Thread Likes/Thanks code can be called accordingly. I'm thinking in terms of maybe trimming the data to a couple of hundred posts either side of the post of interest. There will be added complexity to think about, no doubt, but that seems like a good place to start from.

And then there's the question of what happens when a thread makes the transition from small to big. That could get messy if not thought about

I've jotted all this down here because what better place to put it? Now TPD can serve as a repository for how to fix itself

Goodnight all

Not trying to be awkward but given how other systems do it and how post Ids work, what about a completely different approach. Write an api that returns the number of likes and thanks against a postId and then use Javascript to call and display the results.

I suspect that approach may be more robust than you plan.

Also remember that the x to y posts of z figure may well be wrong - remember that when I go to the latest post on TPD I end up seeing page 34505 at the moment due to the number of people I have on ignore while WTFH ends up on page 38000 or so as he can't escape the soft deleted posts.

[WTFH]

Morning all

[WTFH]

Also remember that the x to y posts of z figure may well be wrong - remember that when I go to the latest post on TPD I end up seeing page 34505 at the moment due to the number of people I have on ignore while WTFH ends up on page 38000 or so as he can't escape the soft deleted posts.

I agree with post 355195 from eek.

[DoctorStrangelove]

^^^ Eek's has more on ignore than I.

^^^Turning off the like/dislike thing seems to have fixed the "can't load the fecking post" error.


Morning.

Dark. Extremely dark.

Grey. Very very grey.

Wet, wetter than an otter's pocket.

Drizzly, unpleasantly so.

Windier than a case of baked beans.

Warm, warmer than some summer days at 15.2 deg in here.

1009 mBar (up from 1005 last night), 29.796 in Hg, 756.8 Torr, 67% RH.

Thursday.

The endless joy of this time of year continues unabated.

Raining. More raining. Raining again as if the first and 2nd raining weren't enough. :

Since a walk is out of the question, more Sorting of Ancient Electronic Components took place: who knew I had the world stock of 5000pF 0.5% epoxy encapsulated silver mica capacitors? They must have cost the country a mint back in the late 70s before being purchased by me in some "bargain component pack" or other.

Then there's the weird collection of ceramic capacitors of doubtful utility contain a lot with the numbers rit upon them, along with a fecking shedful of colour coded ones that I've never figured out how to read: it's gonna be A Learning Experience this afternoon.

As the front room/office/lab is stuffed to the gunwhales without a desktop free of clutter, all this endeavour is taking place on the kitchen worktop, as is only right & proper.

Lunch: Heinz lentil and ham soup with Morrisons wholemeal sunflower and spelt bread, bramble jelly sandwich on same, red pippy corner yog, 0.91 pints of good Glengettie tea.

Entertainment: TWAO until the endless & tedious analysis of the Maxwell thing became unbearable after a mere 2 minutes.

Isn't the "OFF" switch a wonderful thing?

Shopping trip to Morrisons done, dusted, washed, dried, sanitised & put away. They managed to charge me full price for some reduced mince pies.

However it managed not to rain on me which was a plus.

Entertainment: Oz customs nonsense (continuation from yesterday): the Malaysian woman turned out to have an internal concealment of H plus a 14 week pregnancy.

She got 14 months.

Tea: chilli con carne with rice, some peach slices, a yog, 0.91 pints of good Glengettie tea.

Entertainment: Interpol Calling (1959).

Look at Life:Towns by Design: 15 of them including Peterlee, East Kilbride, Cwmbran, Harlow and Hemel Hempstead, as narrated by Wynford Vaughn Thomas of immortal memory, look you, there's tidy then.

They looked nice & new back then I wonder what they look like now.

Cincinati shaper comany

Girling brake cwmbran

Trucking Hell S5 E5. Lantern heavy so far, but no sign of Michael yet thank feck.

Oh he had such fun with the garbage truck.

And guess who's back next week in E6?

Roswell S1 E14 "Blind Date".

Eilean nan Dineasar on BBC Alba: Dinosaurs on Skye and Eigg.

There seems to have been rather a lot of them.

[WTFH]

I agree with post 355195 from eek.

(Currently page 35520)