Unable to post (reply) in forum, 500 Internal Server Error

[DanielH]

Dear webmaster:

I'm unable to post in the forum, Post and Preview buttons give the same error:

Code: [Select]

http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?action=post2;start=0;board=2

500 Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator at webmaster@forum.tinycorelinux.net to inform them of the time this error occurred, and the actions you performed just before this error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

Please, could you fix this issue?
I'm sending this email from TCL using Firefox latest and my Gmail account...

Daniel Mirkin
DanielH

[Greg Erskine]

I have been getting this error for years.

I found I have to post quickly after pressing reply. So I cut my post, hit reply again, quickly paste and post.

[Greg Erskine]

I actually got the error posting the previous post  and this one.

[hiro]

same

tried to send also a mail to the displayed address, it bounced.

now this was the first message that actually worked in a while. after pressing refresh. i don't know why.
but i tried many other times before and couldn't get any reply through.

it got much worse lately...

[polikuo]

I keep running into this as well. 

Is it perhaps no more disk space left for the forum server ?

Some people said it may be cause by certain special characters.

Yet, all these special characters seem to be working just fine.

Code: [Select]

!@#$%^&*()-_=+\|[]{}<>,./?'";:`~

[curaga]

We're aware of the issue, most likely the forum host applied worse mod_security settings. The person hosting us is not replying to email.

[DanielH]

@Rich:

The person hosting us is not replying to email.

Ouch!
Perhaps is time to migrate to another server... an unresponsive hosting administrator is like a stone in the shoe...

So, how we (TCL community) can help to solve this problem?
I don't have the knowdledge nor a server to accommodate an alternative Forum...

Waiting for ideas, propositions, offers...
Best regards,
DanielH

[GNUser]

What's the main roadblock to moving the wiki and forum to new hosting?
If it's cost, I can commit to paying for hosting for 10 years. Just tell me how much you need and where to send the funds.
If it's manpower/time, unfortunately I can't help because family illness and increased demands at work have me overextended.

P.S. TCL has done a lot for me (it powers my personal laptop, two routers, and family media player) and it would be nice to give back.

[bmarkus]

The issue is to get a database backup which requires SSH access to the hosting machine what we do not have.

[GNUser]

I'm sorry to hear it. Maybe there's a hacky way to backup the database without SSH access? I don't work with databases and don't know any details about what kind of access you guys do have, so I can't intelligently give any suggestions. I hope you guys can sort it out.

There is no expiration date on my offer to take care of hosting costs somewhere else (preferably with a provider that gives you SSH access).

[hiro]

The issue is to get a database backup which requires SSH access to the hosting machine what we do not have.

maybe with phpmyadmin or so...

[curaga]

The db is too big for PHP. It times out.

[sm8ps]

P.S. TCL has done a lot for me (it powers my personal laptop, two routers, and family media player) and it would be nice to give back.

Same here! Plus I have invested countless dozens of hours into the dCore wiki and it grieves me to see that they seem to have vanished in a puff.

The person hosting us is not replying to email.

So we need to track down that person via other means, maybe by telephone or so. There has got to be a way to get hold of these data! Who is that person? Does anybody have personal relations, maybe via some relays? Please let us step up and do something about this because the situation is getting unbearable for many users. I have almost given up due to frustration of not being able to communicate.

Today seems to be a good day on the forum as I have had two successful attempts in posting things. I am just hoping that my lucky streak continues! Always do Ctrl+A and Ctrl+C before hitting Post though. (:

[curaga]

I'm not sure he'd appreciate his name posted publicly...

I don't think we have any other info than name and email. He was just a TC user who offered to host us many years back.

[sm8ps]

I'm not sure he'd appreciate his name posted publicly...
I don't think we have any other info than name and email. He was just a TC user who offered to host us many years back.

Yeah, I did not think of publicly shaming somebody. Instead, I was hoping that there might be some other connections than such loose ties. Does not seem to be the case, unfortunately.

Would web scraping be a feasible idea? After all, the postings are currently (!) all available. A new forum could be set up and the old data might be migrated. On a quick glance I found Scrapy, a Python framework. Though, I do not have used it and neither do I know about the database structure of the Simple Machines forum software.

The db is too big for PHP. It times out.

This is via Simple Machines DumpDatabase.php function, right (https://support.simplemachines.org/function_db/index.php, https://wiki.simplemachines.org/smf/SMF2.0:Forum_Maintenance)?

Let me find out if today is another good forum day and this posting does go through or not. Ctrl-A + Ctrl-C! (: