Forum upgrade - what was done and what's remaining

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YakYak is back — security updates, a new server and some overdue maintenance

YakYak is back online at https://www.yakyak.org/. Here's what happened, what's changed, and what still needs finishing.

Why the downtime?

The critical PHP security updates released on 21 October prompted us to take the forum offline while we updated it. PHP is the software that runs the forum behind the scenes.

Our existing setup was very old, so this needed more than a quick patch. The forum software, PHP, database and operating system all needed attention. The old server was also short of memory and its data disk was nearly full.

We put up a holding page and disabled the old PHP service while the replacement was prepared and tested.

What's been done

• Upgraded the forum: phpBB has moved from 3.0.11 to 3.3.19.
• Updated PHP: we're now running PHP 8.5.12, which includes the fixes for this week's critical vulnerabilities.
• Moved to a new server: the new machine has 8 GB of RAM, SSD storage and swap space. That gives the database considerably more breathing room than the old machine.
• Rebuilt the hosting setup: nginx, PHP and MySQL now run in Docker containers. We also have a working local copy for testing changes before deployment.
• Enabled HTTPS: connections are encrypted, ordinary HTTP links redirect to HTTPS, and certificate renewal is configured automatically.
• Preserved the forum history: the migrated database contains 1,673,922 posts and 84,122 topics, matching the source copy. Accounts, available attachments, avatars and custom smilies have been carried over.
• Taken and verified backups: the original forum files and database were backed up before the migration, and their checksums were verified. A recovery copy of the retired data disk is also being retained.
• Kept the familiar appearance: the original theme remains the default. There's also a new optional YakYak Pastures theme with the pixel artwork. Both use the replacement forum icons.
• Checked the basics: forum pages, search, FAQ, both themes and an attachment download have been checked on the new server. The broken FAQ link has been fixed.

What still needs doing

• Finish the DNS move. The old server is temporarily forwarding traffic to the new one so existing links keep working. Once DNS points directly to the new server, we can switch the old machine off completely.
• Finish outgoing email. Password-reset emails and email notifications are not yet working on the new setup. This needs configuring and testing.
• Finish automated backups and monitoring. The migration backups are in place; scheduled off-server backups, restore checks and ongoing alerts still need completing.
• Check everyday forum use. Login, posting, editing, uploads and moderation need further checks with real accounts. Please report any problems, including the page involved and the error message.
• Tune and tidy up. We'll review database and PHP settings against actual usage and finish a repeatable update and rollback process for future maintenance.

A couple of things to know

You may need to log in again. Your existing username and password should still work.

Some historic attachment links were already missing their files on the old server. Those gaps predate this migration; the upgrade has not recovered those missing files.

Thanks for bearing with the downtime. There's a lot of YakYak history here, and the aim is to keep it available on a setup we can maintain properly.

PHP security announcement: official PHP advisory.

[tufty]

Cheers Gaz. Thanks for all the work.

[Misfit]

Yes, a big thank you for saving the day!

-It's a little odd when doing a post (Mac/Chrome), my cursor vanishes when I start a new line and can disappear when moving around by cursor (try pressing up too many times).

A little disconcerting when you want to do a few blank lines.

-Any chance of adding the New Posts/latest posts etc links to the the top nav somewhere like on the old look. The quick links menu is neither intuitive or quick!

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Yes, a big thank you for saving the day!

-It's a little odd when doing a post (Mac/Chrome), my cursor vanishes when I start a new line and can disappear when moving around by cursor (try pressing up too many times).

A little disconcerting when you want to do a few blank lines.

-Any chance of adding the New Posts/latest posts etc links to the the top nav somewhere like on the old look. The quick links menu is neither intuitive or quick!

Should be sorted soon.

EDIT: Done

[Misfit]

Should be sorted soon.

Testing the fixes.

All look good to me.

Thank you!

[gravy]

Cheers Gaz. Thanks for all the work.

No probs man

[Misfit]

I really don't care about this one, but if you want to be a completist and I guess it may affect a few other places...

At least on pasture theme, the header of the table is not readable on eg:

memberlist.php?mode=&sk=d&sd=d#memberlist

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Done

[tufty]

The new theme is pretty nice, but has a load too much vertical space for my tastes. Maybe it works better on mobile.

[gravy]

The new theme is pretty nice, but has a load too much vertical space for my tastes. Maybe it works better on mobile.

What do you think should be changed here? Anything in particular? I can get it sorted but need a bit more info

EDIT

Pastures theme update

Thanks for the feedback about the new theme feeling too spread out. I've tightened things up:

• Reduced the line spacing in posts.
• Reduced the padding inside posts and the gaps between them.
• Made topic lists more compact.
• Reduced desktop post text to match the original theme's default size, while keeping it slightly larger on mobile.

These changes apply to Pastures only. The original/default theme hasn't changed.

The changes were tested locally on desktop and mobile before deployment, and are now live. Refresh the page if you're still seeing the old styling.

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A little bit more tweaking on the new host

Forum slowdown and login problems — what happened and what we changed

The forum was receiving a large volume of automated requests from many different IP addresses. These were repeatedly hitting pages such as topics, searches and posting URLs, keeping both CPU cores busy and making normal browsing and posting painfully slow.

We haven't established whether this was deliberate disruption or aggressive crawling.

What we've changed

• Added request limits before traffic reaches PHP. Repeated requests from the same IP are limited, with an additional shared limit on expensive pages requested by anonymous visitors. This helps protect the forum against crawlers spread across many addresses.
• Kept login and registration outside that shared anonymous limit. They still have protection against excessive requests from an individual IP.
• Added better timing logs. These help distinguish slow application responses from requests rejected by the protection.
• Fixed a separate login restriction. phpBB was configured to refuse new sessions when more than 50 sessions had been active within a minute. Crawler traffic was hitting this threshold, preventing fresh logins and ACP access. We raised it to 300 and cleared the cache.

Why could crawlers request posting pages?

Anyone can request a posting URL, but that doesn't give them permission to post. Guests are shown a login screen. Unfortunately, checking that request still consumes server resources, so filtering excessive traffic before it reaches PHP helps.

Results so far

PHP CPU usage fell from approximately 185–190% to around 17–21%, and the login page returned successfully in under a second after the session-limit fix.

During heavy crawling, anonymous visitors may occasionally receive a “please wait and retry” response. We'll keep an eye on that balance so the protection doesn't get in people's way unnecessarily.

[Mat]

Lovely, especially with the Pastures theme
My only immediate niggle is one that also affected another forum I frequent that moved to the same board; is there any way for user info to be put back on the left?
Not necessarily board-wide, but at least as an individual option?

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Lovely, especially with the Pastures theme
My only immediate niggle is one that also affected another forum I frequent that moved to the same board; is there any way for user info to be put back on the left?
Not necessarily board-wide, but at least as an individual option?

This may actually be possible. More news soon!

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Pastures update: dark mode and user-info positioning

We've added some options to Pastures following your feedback. The original/default theme is unchanged.

Light, Dark or System

At the top of Pastures you can choose:

• System — follows your device's light/dark preference.
• Light — keeps the cream-and-green appearance.
• Dark — uses a darker green palette.

On mobile, these become compact icons: monitor = System, sun = Light, moon = Dark. The selected choice is highlighted.

User info on the left or right

Use Left / Right to choose which side of posts shows avatars and user details. On mobile, these controls appear as arrows beside the appearance icons.

This setting affects wider screens. On narrow phones, user details stay above posts to leave room for the text. Your chosen side applies when viewing at a wider size.

Cleaner sheep!

The rank sheep now have properly transparent edges in dark mode, removing the pale fringe. Light mode and the original theme retain the original images.

How to try Pastures

Preview Pastures here.

To save it as your forum style:
User Control Panel → Board preferences → Edit global settings → My board style → YakYak Pastures, then submit.

The appearance and positioning choices are remembered in that browser on that device. They don't currently sync between devices, and clearing browser site data resets them.

Feedback welcome

Please report unreadable text, awkward colours, missing icons or anything cramped on mobile. Mention your browser/device and the affected page; screenshots are particularly helpful.

These changes are contained in the Pastures child theme and documented in the project repository to make future upgrades easier to maintain.

[Misfit]

As you are clearly enjoying playing, is it possible it could just parse youtube links or have a better way of inserting them?

Or a rich text editor, that would presumably do this? I don't know how new this version of phpBB is, but surely it has a proper editor these days?

And allow it to upload rather than reference images?

I can't believe it woul take much storage with the level of traffic these days...