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Warning: may contain technicalities.

The little phpBB forum I found myself administrating (more for reasons of enthusiasm than competence) about half a year ago has been finally updated to RC7. And what a trial it was. The first time I forget to backup and check what the new update included it all goes terribly wrong.

First the PHP Notice: in file /index.php on line 107: sprintf() [function.sprintf]: Too few arguments error (outdated language pack, temporarily fixed by deleting the offending code and corresponding line in the template, since the new language pack hasn’t been spotted yet). Then, not being able to login to admin panel (interestingly, other people could do it. Blamed the incident on the firewall), which was soon miraculously fixed. And then all was quiet for a while (read: the admin was to busy to tinker around).

On the next visit to the admin panel, I’m welcomed by the ‘database-not-updated’ notice. Clickety click, go through the updating procedure again, thoroughly, all the time trying not to wonder that went wrong the first time. Still didn’t read the RC7 released post, since the update half-worked the first time. But this time it did. All custom template related errors included. Thankfully, the delete-template-and-replace-by-renamed-prosilver method worked and the forum is back to almost working perfectly. Still have to fix the go diagrams functionality (sgf viewer working nicely though).

The moral: thou shalt not update whilst under time pressure.

I should probably go sulk in the corner and wait until I stop acting like a complete noob.

But the worst seems to have passed. There are some minor battles left to fight with Joomla and I’m filling the blanks in my SQL. The website in question will be dragged kicking and screaming into the Century of the Anchovy*, if need be.

* see Discworld.