So, we had another kind of technical problem. Whole different one this time, to keep things exciting!

[Scarecrow71]

1 hour ago, softweir said:

But as soon as you observe see them, they occur...

Schrodinger's forums.  Are they alive or not?

[ColdJ]

Help, the page format is not working, not sure I can even submit this.

 

Ok I can. I am in what seems like a deconstucted web page. All the stuff that would usually be behind links are out. Stuff that wouldn't show up till you interact is out. Who jinxed things?

[Deddly]

20 hours ago, Linkageless said:

 

I've not noticed any issues for what seems like weeks now.  (I'm really happy about that!)

It's all @Linkageless' fault!

How's it working now @ColdJ? It seems to be linked to the default theme (according to @Anth), which I have changed for the time being 

Edited 5 hours ago by Deddly

[Anth]

@Deddly Still an issue after deleting my cookies and then loading the site. Once I logged in then the site changed to the theme I had set it to manually.

@ColdJ @Scarecrow71 

With the broken site with the text/links on the left:

1. Scroll down to where the themes are (far down).
2. Select anything other than the default theme

That's the current work around.

[Lisias]

Oh, well... By this time everybody knows it, but here we go again...

Somebody deleted the Forum's CSS in the /uploads directory (perhaps the whole uploads?) and, well... This screwed Forum as we can see now.

Easy fix, but someone will have to dig into the backup files and reupload the files.

Cheers.

--- POST EDIT ---

Worst case scenario, you will find the files on the "styles" WARC files on the Preservation Project!

https://archive.org/download/KSP-Forum-Preservation-Project

I was told (but didn't verified) that 7-zip can be used to extract the files using a plugin called eDecoder:

https://7-zip.org/download.html

https://www.tc4shell.com/en/7zip/edecoder/

Use them at your own risc, I'm on a UNIX machine, so I usually use command line tools like https://github.com/recrm/ArchiveTools#warc-extractorpy

And I also found this:

https://github.com/webrecorder/replayweb.page

It allows you to replay WARC files locally in your browser, without setting up (or using 3rd parties) servers.

Edited 4 hours ago by Lisias

[Linkageless]

1 hour ago, Deddly said:

It's all @Linkageless' fault!

Sorry guys, it seems me using the CSS caused it to cease to be CSS. (facepalm)

I actually prefer the dark theme anyway

 

[ColdJ]

2 hours ago, Deddly said:

It's all @Linkageless' fault!

How's it working now @ColdJ? It seems to be linked to the default theme (according to @Anth), which I have changed for the time being 

 

Ok, now I have read @Anth post and swapped to Dark theme, and all is in the right place.

Glad to know that I didn't stuff it up.

@Deddly@Lisias@Scarecrow71

Edited 3 hours ago by ColdJ

[Iapetus7342]

Love the new forums! /j, the forums on my end still appear to be broken...

[PDCWolf]

Dear god, can the forum maintainers, across apparently 2 different owners, stop embarrassing themselves?

Either keep it up and don't touch stuff, or take it down already.

[Lisias]

1 minute ago, PDCWolf said:

Dear god, can the forum maintainers, across apparently 2 different owners, stop embarrassing themselves?

Either keep it up and don't touch stuff, or take it down already.

I hope not.

As much as I hate to admit, KSP is not the powerhouse it used to be. We are the underdogs now, we will have to learn to live with the resources available - and they will not be abundant as before.

Letting things to bit-rot by lack of maintenance is only a short term solution. If they have any intention to keep this Forum alive on the long run, they need to learn how to handle it, and every learning curve has its pains - and the time to have such pains is now, because doing it later (and assuming the next Kerbal game to be launched - if it ever happens - will need a Forum) will be worse.

Fasten your seat belts, it will be a bumpy ride - every veteran was a rookie before, and we are all rookies when you wet our feet on new thingies.

 

[ColdJ]

I can live this Dark with white or blue writing theme. Not like that red on dark Sith theme. Oh so angry it is.

[MechBFP]

The strange thing is that the dark theme WAS already my default, been using it for years. But I still had to go and select it again. Seems like people’s theme preferences got removed as well. 

[Linkageless]

<rant mode>

Part of an industry standard way (ITSM) to govern the running of a service is to document every change, ideally in advance.

The idea is to be sure to note what will be changed and how, research and consider all potential impacts and how they might be mitigated, who may be affected and if they should be warned, determine the level of risk, the urgency, how you will be checking if the change is successful and that it hasn't negatively impacted service, how to back out of the change if needed, and how much time is needed for each step.  You then record if the change was successful and if there were any unexpected problems and how they were overcome.

Using this formalised method not only gives your peers/management the chance to evaluate and be aware of the coming change, but also prove to them and your customers that you've applied due diligence.

I suspect this kind of method isn't being applied here, otherwise the problem would have been immediately noticed and a backout plan put into place. (ie - have backups at the ready, or even better don't destructively change stuff!)

I'm starting to think this is almost being run as someone's hobby or as a favour rather than with serious professionalism. 

</rant mode>

[Sylvi Fisthaug]

17 minutes ago, Linkageless said:

I'm starting to think this is almost being run as someone's hobby or as a favour rather than with serious professionalism. 

HarvesteR said something in the lines off "I gave them a call, and they said they would call me back when they knew where to put the phones." about his communication with the old Annapurna staff (or Haveli people, don't remember accurately). This kinda coincides with the recent technical state of the forums. Maybe with time it will get better, or handed over to someone who can do it better. 

55 minutes ago, MechBFP said:

The strange thing is that the dark theme WAS already my default, been using it for years. But I still had to go and select it again. Seems like people’s theme preferences got removed as well. 

Same happened to me too.

[Linkageless]

12 minutes ago, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

Maybe with time it will get better, or handed over to someone who can do it better. 

If they're struggling to find those right people, they might find the forum is actually a fertile recruiting ground.

[Fizzlebop Smith]

1 hour ago, ColdJ said:

I can live this Dark with white or blue writing theme. Not like that red on dark Sith theme. Oh so angry it is.

Red on White is the new for me. .. it has a cure punk window.

[Scarecrow71]

2 hours ago, ColdJ said:

I can live this Dark with white or blue writing theme.

I can't.  I have bad eyes to begin with, and I have trouble seeing anything on a computer screen without my glasses.  Even with my glasses, this Dark theme is horrendous and hard to use.  Thankfully there is the Light Red theme I can use.

@Anth

The only problem with the Light Red theme is that the banner in the upper left corner says KSP2, not KSP:

Edited 56 minutes ago by Scarecrow71

[ColdJ]

24 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

The only problem with the Light Red theme is that the banner in the upper left corner says KSP2, not KSP:

Is there a theme that just says KSP?

 

Hey, I think the smile emoji on the dark theme has a mohawk and a bigger smile.

[Lisias]

29 minutes ago, ColdJ said:

Is there a theme that just says KSP?

There's a plugin for Firefox called TamperMonkey that allow you to inject JavaScript into webpages (more or less like Harmony on C# programs). I wonder it could be used to load custom local CSS'es instead? Never tried (JavaScript impaired here), but someone that knows their way on this mess perhaps can try it and see what happens...

Edited 4 minutes ago by Lisias
Bleh...

[ColdJ]

1 minute ago, Lisias said:

There's a plugin for Firefox called TamperMonkey that allow you to inject JavaScript into webpages (more or less like Harmony on C# programs). I wonder it could be used to load custom local CSS'es instead? Never tried (JavaScript impaired here), but someone that knows their way on this mess perhaps can try it and see what happens...

Oooh, that sounds very dangerous.

I know just enough to..........