TheAlterBridgeNation.com

As most regular TABN users surely noticed, and as announced on our Facebook page, our forum has been down for the last 24 hours or so. The outage was caused by our web host upgrading the forum's underlying database software to a newer version that is not compatible with the forum software we were running. They have performed similar upgrades in the past, and we always had the option to run in a compatibility mode so that nothing would break. This time, we no longer had that option. That's a miss on our part – call it overlooking the fine print.

The good news is we were able to get back up and running relatively quickly. This required us to undergo a massively accelerated upgrade process. On the plus side, this means we are now running the latest and greatest version of our forum software, which comes with some handy new features (e.g., emoji support ; smart quotes that link back to the original posts). The downside is we usually would've gone through a much more thorough vetting process in our testing environments to make sure everything works properly, but, we wanted to get the forums back up and running for everyone ASAP. So, if you notice any strange behavior, please let us know!

You will also notice the look of the forum has changed significantly from the old The Last Hero-style theme we had before. Another side effect of the upgrade was that our existing custom forum themes broke. So we very quickly put together this new theme as a temporary solution. If it looks like a generic forum theme with a couple Alter Bridge images slapped on top, well... that's exactly what it is. We'll continue working to make it more TABNey, but in the meantime, let's call this long-overdue theme upgrade another positive side effect of the outage.

As always, let us know if there are any questions. Cheers!

TL;DR: the board was down; now it's back up; let us know if anything isn't working.

Oh nice! Was worried something had properly broken and zaz didn't have the keys to fix it, but that was a quick turnaround and Shea even gets his theme update!

Ubik wrote: ↑Tue Jan 26, 2021 6:15 pm Oh nice! Was worried something had properly broken and zaz didn't have the keys to fix it, but that was a quick turnaround and Shea even gets his theme update!

I don't have the keys to fix it!

I do have Alex's phone number though!

Wooo!! New theme Thanks to the mods for the new update

I can't view certain sections of the forum when I'm logged in. But, if I'm viewing as guest I can view. This prevents me from commenting on posts.

gmetzger wrote: ↑Tue Jan 26, 2021 9:49 pm I can't view certain sections of the forum when I'm logged in. But, if I'm viewing as guest I can view. This prevents me from commenting on posts.

It's because you don't have 3 posts yet. There's restrictions on new members to prevent spammers from hitting the boards hard. We might need to change that. Sorry for the inconvenience, post one more time and it should clear up.

Thanks to all for your hard work in fixing this up! And digging the new theme - I really don't want to sound unappreciative or sound like a complainer, but the new theme is a little bright on the eyes - going to miss the black background for the text areas. But, very much appreciate you guys keeping the forum up and running and alive all these years! And bringing it back from the dead on this outage - I know forums don't get nearly the traffic they once did before social media took over the internet, but it's nice to have this place to come back to. Feels like home.

zazthespaz wrote: ↑Tue Jan 26, 2021 9:56 pm

gmetzger wrote: ↑Tue Jan 26, 2021 9:49 pm I can't view certain sections of the forum when I'm logged in. But, if I'm viewing as guest I can view. This prevents me from commenting on posts.

It's because you don't have 3 posts yet. There's restrictions on new members to prevent spammers from hitting the boards hard. We might need to change that. Sorry for the inconvenience, post one more time and it should clear up.

Ah, okay. Thanks!

I actually contacted thealterbridgenation on Instagram. I thought it was just a bug on my side, but now I understand that it was a problem for everybody.

To be honest, I preferred the darker background, but I think white text boxes work better.

I love the new look, or at least the current look. Thanks for the heads up! I thought new user Max somehow [unintentionally] broke the board!

The new board looks great! Good jood!

Thanks everyone, and I hear you about missing the dark background. As mentioned above, we really just threw this together very quickly to get things back up and running as quickly as possible, so we'll continue working to improve the theme. Unfortunately there's no option for a toggle-able light/dark mode, but we'll most likely go with a dark theme for the next iteration. Thanks for your patience!

ahh everything is shining so bright. I'm not used to it but I kinda like it!

Something about the coloring makes me keep seeing the Microsoft Outlook "new mail" pop up notification in the bottom right of the screen and even though I don't have Outlook, I keep looking down there thinking I'll see a notification.

zazthespaz wrote: ↑Tue Jan 26, 2021 6:35 pm I do have Alex's phone number though!

zazthespaz wrote: ↑Wed Jan 27, 2021 2:46 pm Something about the coloring makes me keep seeing the Microsoft Outlook "new mail" pop up notification in the bottom right of the screen and even though I don't have Outlook, I keep looking down there thinking I'll see a notification.

Follow up to this since it blew up bigger than I could've imagined (/s) I just realized that if you're at the very bottom of the page, there is a transparent gray bar that runs across the screen. Thus, if you go to a new page and can see the bottom, the color may change slightly, thus giving a reason to look down there. You can thank me later for figuring this out, my work is far from over.

zazthespaz wrote: ↑Fri Jan 29, 2021 5:31 pm

zazthespaz wrote: ↑Wed Jan 27, 2021 2:46 pm Something about the coloring makes me keep seeing the Microsoft Outlook "new mail" pop up notification in the bottom right of the screen and even though I don't have Outlook, I keep looking down there thinking I'll see a notification.

Follow up to this since it blew up bigger than I could've imagined (/s) I just realized that if you're at the very bottom of the page, there is a transparent gray bar that runs across the screen. Thus, if you go to a new page and can see the bottom, the color may change slightly, thus giving a reason to look down there. You can thank me later for figuring this out, my work is far from over.

It took a little tilting of my screen to see it, but I see it! It's not so much a gray bar here though, just a bar where the background image looks a bit distorted, like a rippling water effect. Weird!

Well it's about time things switched from TLH to WTS! Better late than never lol.

Thanks for the update, Zaz. It all makes sense now. That grey bar is definitely there on purpose.

Fun fact: clicking the icon to the left of a topic will bring you to the first unread post in that topic.

abw1987 wrote: ↑Sat Jan 30, 2021 12:11 pm Thanks for the update, Zaz. It all makes sense now. That grey bar is definitely there on purpose.

Fun fact: clicking the icon to the left of a topic will bring you to the first unread post in that topic.

That's always been like that but that indeed is a fun fact!