The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

For the past several weeks, when I want to check something on the Forum, I keep getting 505 errors. I thought the problem was my computer or me. I checked with other Forum members, and they have the same problem, too. Are there any explanations?
Harvey Kravitz

I've experienced the same since yesterday morning. Keep getting "internal server error".

Hopefully our fearless Admin, Moderator and Leader will solve it soon.

Yes, I have been expeiencing the same things the past two days....

Quite annoying!

Getting:

Internal Gateway 505 Error:


and then the website just dumps....

Have not been able to post to the TMF for the past two days!!

)

Tony K.

Explanation:

The forum software is long overdue for upgrade, and the host is not suitable for the volume of traffic here. The owners of the site won’t take the time to do any maintenance, nor will they turn it over / sell it to the Antique Phonograph Society so we can actually make improvements. I welcome anyone to contact them, but they never respond to me.


I will reiterate this: I CANNOT DO ANYTHING ABOUT THIS OR FIX IT. Only the absentee owners can.

It's a dramatic thing to do, but in a similar situation I have lead a move to another hosting provider and new site when this happened at another site I used to frequent.

The site was old and buggy and starting to get overrun by spam. The owner was unresponsive and AWOL so we all left en-masse and set up a new very similar site that I created on my hosting provider. After we all left and the site got completely overrun, the original owner closed his down and transferred all the data from the site to me, which I merged into the new site - so preserving all that had been built before.

I would be willing to provide the hosting and setup and do the same again if there is enough interest here to do the same.

The current site is http://www.thehistoricdistrict.org if you want to take a look - it's a site for those who love and restore old houses.

Without the upgrades It will only be a matter of time before this forum is overrun by spam or simply fails altogether

The goal is for the site to be taken over and hosted by APS, so that this can never happen again if one individual person has control.

Brandon I think I speak for everyone when I say "thank you" for all you've done running the forum. Yes, it's sad that the entity(ies) that own the website either aren't willing or able to maintain it.

I hope you don't think we hold you responsible.

I hope and Pray that a solution is found.

Best regards,
Fran

That makes a lot of sense - happy to lead the move for the APS too if desired (I am a member) - also happy to be involved in other ways if you have a need

It's really too bad. I've not seen the owner post here for several years.

As moderator could you simply freeze new posts at some point and direct all members to a new site affiliated with APS?

As long as this one stays up, it could be referred to for historical purposes. Maybe continuing to post here is just adding more that's likely to be lost when this one totally crashes...

This could be done, it depends on the rights that the site owner has given the admins here in the phpBB Admin Control Panel. What we did when we moved the house restoration forum was simply put pinned posts at the top of each section of the board telling people that we had moved and giving a link to the new place. Locking the forums to stop new posts would force the transition.

Repeating my offer to help make this happen - also very happy to host and setup the site, and then sign over official ownership to the APS... I have setup and run multiple forums like this one... for the past 35 years I have been in IT and am currently the VP of IT for a large company... so I am kinda technically qualified