Our migration to Bluehost is now complete!

Post by **Winston** » April 17th, 2014, 2:28 am

Announcement:

Our hosting on Godaddy is expiring in a few days. Now is the time to move to Bluehost, which I've been meaning to for the last three months but never had the time. So I will be starting the migration process now.

This is the first time I've ever moved a site to a different webhost, so I don't know how much downtime there will be. Hopefully little or none. I am paying Bluehost $99 to move all my sites and content over to their servers since I don't know how to do it. They said that the process could take between 24 and 48 hours. Hopefully the transition will be smooth and not noticeable.

After we move to a shared Bluehost server, I will have them begin the migration to a VPS (virtual private server) as I planned months ago. On a VPS, we will have a dedicated IP address and be on a private server, which should in theory raise our ranking and credibility in Google and increase our traffic. One of my friends did this and his website traffic doubled afterward.

Hopefully, this will improve the performance of this site too, as Bluehost has higher quality servers and less downtime. Have any of you experienced any downtime or lags on this forum lately?

Anyway, I will keep you all updated. If you experience any downtime in the next few days, you will know why. Thanks for your attention.

Sincerely,
Winston

Post by **Winston** » April 17th, 2014, 3:57 pm

One more thing I forgot to mention.

In the next two days during the migration (or until I let you know that the migration is complete) please SAVE all the new forum posts that you post in an offline file such as Notepad or MS Word so they don't get lost.

The reason is because during the migration, this entire site and forum will be copied to Bluehost's servers. This means that a copy will still remain on Godaddy's servers, until the domain name's DNS is pointed to Bluehost.

So if you post something in the forum, and it goes into the version on Godaddy's servers, and then the domain name DNS gets pointed to Bluehost servers, your post may be lost if it is posted AFTER the migration is done, but BEFORE the domain name DNS gets re-routed.

You see what I mean?

So just in case, in the next two days, please save all your posts offline in Notepad or Word. That way, if it gets lost, you can simply repost it by copying and pasting.

Thanks,
Winston

Post by **Winston** » April 21st, 2014, 6:01 am

Update:

The migration hasn't begun yet. Bluehost needed more info from me. And they don't work on Sunday. So the migration will most likely begin on Monday. You can start saving your posts then.

Post by **Winston** » April 27th, 2014, 12:50 am

Update:

The Bluehost migration team and I are still working out the problem of migrating my email accounts from Godaddy to Bluehost. I didn't know it was this complicated. Their support team sometimes give me incomplete answers too, so I have to ask the same question several times. I'm not sure if the email accounts can be moved now. Or if they have to move everything all at once.

So the migration hasn't started yet. I'll let you all know when it does, so you can save your posts.

Btw, Bluehost gives unlimited space on email accounts, which Godaddy doesn't. So I might even be able to give some of you a happierabroad.com email account, if you want one. Generally, email accounts under domain names are more secure than the ones on Yahoo, Hotmail or Gmail.

Post by **Winston** » April 27th, 2014, 11:39 am

Attention:

I've just been told by Bluehost support that the migration has just begun. Please SAVE all your new posts that you are writing and submitting in an offline file starting NOW until I tell you that it's done. I'm not sure how long the migration will take.

If you don't, the posts may be gone if they were submitted after the forum database has been migrated over. If that happens, you can just repost them, as long as you saved them first.

Thanks for your attention.

Post by **Winston** » April 28th, 2014, 7:08 am

Wait. Scratch my last post about saving your posts.

I have a better idea. After the migration, before I change the nameservers of this site to Bluehost, I'll just lock this forum so no posts can be made. Then I'll change the nameservers and back up and download the database of the forum and then upload it to the new hosting server at Bluehost. That way, the forum will be locked from posting until the migration and nameservers are complete.

I will place a message at the top of the forum when it is locked to explain what's going on.

However, after I change the nameserver, I'm not sure if the re-routing to Bluehost servers will be immediate or take a few days. I'll have to ask about that.

Man this is so complicated and confusing.

Post by **Winston** » May 9th, 2014, 6:28 am

Well it looks like this transition to Bluehost will require that I lock this forum for 24 hours. You see, after the DNS changes over, or nameservers change, it will take 24 to 48 hours for all the servers in the world to recognize it and go to the new servers. During that time, any new forum posts could go to the older server or new one. If posts go to both different servers, then discussions will look screwed up. lol

So the only way I know of is to lock the forum for 24 hours while the DNS changes take effect and become complete.

Does anyone have any other ideas?

Post by **Winston** » May 9th, 2014, 6:41 am

My friend has a better idea:

I lock this forum, back it up and upload the new version to the new server, then make the DNS changes and unlock the forum on the new server. That seems the best solution.

But this means that some members here may not be able to access the forum for 24 to 48 hours though, if their computer does not recognize the DNS changes. It's a necessary consequence.

I'll let you all know when all this begins.

Post by **Winston** » May 17th, 2014, 1:38 pm

Attention Everyone:

I'm going to change our nameservers to Bluehost sometime today and then migrate the forum database there. When I do this, I will have to lock this forum, or else whatever you post will go onto the old server and be lost. While the forum is locked, the database of the forum will be migrated to Bluehost to make sure that all posts are retained.

After the nameservers are changed, it may take up to 24 hours or more for all the servers in the world to register the change and update to the new server at Bluehost. What this means is that while your server is registering the nameserver change, you may be locked out of the forum for up to 24 hours. It depends on how fast your server updates the nameserver change. For some of you, the lockout may only be for a while, but for others, the lockout could last up to 24 hours or more.

When the forum is locked, I will put a big bold message in red at the top of the forum to explain what's happening.

If the lockout occurs while you are trying to submit a post, then click the Back Button on your browser and then copy and paste your post into a text file to save it to post later.

Thanks for your patience.

Sincerely,
Admin

Post by **Winston** » July 12th, 2014, 3:01 am

ATTENTION:

The forum will be locked sometime today while we migrate the database to our new server at Bluehost and redirect the domain nameservers there. The purpose of the lockdown is to prevent any new posts from being lost during the migration. The migration could take from 2 to 6 hours or more, depending on how long your ISP registers the nameserver change. If you try to submit a post just before the lockdown, press the back button on your browser and copy and paste your post into a text file to submit later. Your post should still be there when you press the back button. Thank you for your patience. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Post by **Winston** » July 12th, 2014, 9:58 am

Whew it's finally done. Well that was fast. I didn't know the domain nameservers would redirect to our server on Bluehost so fast. It only took about an hour for me. I was told it could take 24-48 hours. I guess it depends on where you are. Maybe since Bluehost's servers are in Utah and I'm in Las Vegas, I'm in close proximity to them, and so the nameserver change propagated for me right away.

Anyhow, if you see this post, it means that your ISP has registered the nameserver change too, since I am posting this on our Bluehost server.

Hope you all have a smoother experience on the forum now that we are on Bluehost's servers, which are supposed to be better.

From here, we will be moving to a VPS (virtual private server), which is like having our own private server, instead of sharing it with many other sites. This should give us better ranking on Google and thus more traffic and popularity as well. So we have a bright future to look forward to.

eurobrat · Post by **eurobrat** » July 12th, 2014, 3:11 pm

My avatar is gone -_-

MeGustanLatinas · Post by **MeGustanLatinas** » July 12th, 2014, 5:22 pm

eurobrat wrote:My avatar is gone -_-

Mine too. I figured I'd wait on some word from the mods before uploading it again. Figured it had to do with the move.

Post by **Winston** » July 12th, 2014, 6:42 pm

MeGustanLatinas wrote:
eurobrat wrote:My avatar is gone -_-
Mine too. I figured I'd wait on some word from the mods before uploading it again. Figured it had to do with the move.

It did. You see, the forum software itself was migrated two months ago before I went on my vacation. I never got around to migrating the database because I needed a lot of time to do it and to fix whatever would go wrong. So I kept putting it off. Plus the anxiety and stress of it was making me avoid it too. I was scared that something would go wrong and wasn't sure if I could do it right. I couldn't just "do it". I had to do a lot of research and talk to tech support to get answers on a lot of things first. There were steps I wasn't sure how to complete.

After I felt like I knew what to do and got all my questions answered, I finally did it yesterday. The migration moved over all our posts in the database, as well as all the users registered. But it did not migrate the files in the forum software, such as the forum avatars, because those are stored in the forum files, not forum database. The forum files were migrated two months ago. So if you've changed your avatar in the last two months, you will have to re-upload them. Sorry for the inconvenience.

But this is a minor inconvenience. Hopefully everything else went ok. You should have a smoother browsing experience now in the forum, because Bluehost's server are higher quality and more secure.

I'm so glad this is finally done. I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulder, as I've been trying to figure out how to do this for a long time now, and felt stressed out about it.

MeGustanLatinas · Post by **MeGustanLatinas** » July 12th, 2014, 8:00 pm

Winston wrote:
MeGustanLatinas wrote:
eurobrat wrote:My avatar is gone -_-
Mine too. I figured I'd wait on some word from the mods before uploading it again. Figured it had to do with the move.
After I felt like I knew what to do and got all my questions answered, I finally did it yesterday. The migration moved over all our posts in the database, as well as all the users registered. But it did not migrate the files in the forum software, such as the forum avatars, because those are stored in the forum files, not forum database. The forum files were migrated two months ago. So if you've changed your avatar in the last two months, you will have to re-upload them. Sorry for the inconvenience.

No biggie for me: I learned a long time ago save a copy of your avatar pic on the computer you use. Also email yourself a copy.