Possible end of our website

[Tirrex]

PHP version 4 is now obsolete, and by August this year it'll no longer be supported by our host mainly due to security issues.

This entire site is programmed on PHP 4. I've went over the differences between PHP 4 and PHP 5, and it's not an option to modify our code. The best option would be to purchase a vBulletin 5 upgrade, which even if I were willing to put out the money for it, I don't think it would be a simple upgrade, as other things such as the Chatbox and several other scripts that form our site are on PHP 4.

So, if there's anything here that you'd like to keep forever, please take as soon as you can. I wrote to my webhost asking if there would be any option to keep this on a PHP 4 server, or if there is any other solution to this problem. If not, I'll look online for an easy solution to keep this site on. But if there isn't one, it's the end, unless you reading this (if anyone ever reads this lol) wants to host this or has a solution.

Well, if this is really the end, thanks everyone for the amazing time together here and in WoW. My facebook: facebook.com/Lurkers

[Jonclani]

Nooooooooooooooo!

Keep us apprised of the options. I'll have to look into my web host to see if it could be transferred, but I also have a Linux server at home just doing some mySQL hosting that I could probably get running apache too. I'd probably be a terrible host, but I'd rather risk that than losing the site.

[Tirrex]

vBulletin is working on a update for those older versions just for that. It's not only my webhost that's leaving PHP 4. It's worldwide. So, lets see how that goes.

[BennyD]

I miss you fellas!

[Jonclani]

I miss you too Benny! How ya been?

[Vonica]

So sad to think that this year may have been the last year that I will receive a Happy Birthday email from The Brotherhood! Oh well, the memories will live on in our hearts! :P

[Jonclani]

Hmmm. I don't recall ever seeing a happy birthday email from the brotherhood. The fuck is this bullshit?!

I call gender bias.

[Tirrex]

It's because you hacked the site to put your oversized avatar!

[Tirrex]

Well, there is a vBulletin 3.8.8 Alpha 1 release made to upgrade vBulletin 3.x forums to be compatible with PHP5. But to use it, you need an active vBulletin license, which means I need to pay $199 dollars to upgrade this license to the latest vBulletin 5 Connect just to get it. I wrote to vBulletin support asking for another option, but this is what I got back:

Hello Eduardo,

Thank you for contacting vBulletin Solutions. In order to obtain 3.8.8, you would need to upgrade by purchasing vBulletin 5 Connect. Once you purchase that, you will be give the option to download 3.8.8. Please let me know if you require any further assistance.

Best regards,
Duane
vBulletin Solutions

Also, reading around the vBulletin forum I heard that you can do some simple Find/Replaces with Notepad and replace things like "= new" to "&= new" on the PHP files and it'll be compatible with php5. But I never found anyone posting a tutorial on how to do that. The most I found was someone getting really mad and raging on the vBulletin forums because he asked that and someone answered him with 2 links about the changes between php4 and php5. Then the thread became 2 pages of yelling and pointing fingers and nobody really explained what needs to be done.

Jawm, if you know what to do on the Find/Replace (if that will work), please let me know. Because I'm not really a network admin. I'm an electrical engineer, and it's been a while since I touched PHP.

If not, guys, please take whatever you'd like to keep, and we'll keep in touch on Facebook!

[Jonclani]

I've been out of town the past few days and just caught this. I will see what I can find - I haven't dealt in PHP in quite a while either, but I have faith! Are you able to easily do a dump of the current site contents? If it comes to being forced to upgrade to keep the site alive, I would be willing to foot a portion of the bill if anyone else here cares enough to pitch in.

[Tirrex]

Yes, I have access to phpMyAdmin on the site's host, and I did a database dump already. Now, remember that if we upgrade, we lose the games, chatbox, DKP, and other things. We'll only upgrade vBulletin. The correct way is really to convert the code from php4 to php5. Then we keep all the site.

[Crianthia]

Damn. So do you guys think you will be able to save the site?
I was but a child coming into the bhood! I grew up with you guys lol :P

[Seyss]

hey you guys are still alive.... praet time was the only time I really had fun in wow

[Tirrex]

Guys, I have great news! We're now running under PHP 5.2 and MySQL 5!

I've ported our data to a new MySQL 5 database, switched the site to it, and it worked great with no errors. When I changed our PHP version to 5 though we started getting a lot of error messages. Googling here and there I found more people in the same situation, and after tweaking some files for a bit it all worked at the end!

In summary, this site should now last many more years. But if you get an error message or find a bug let me know.

[Jonclani]

Guys, I have great news! We're now running under PHP 5.2 and MySQL 5!

I've ported our data to a new MySQL 5 database, switched the site to it, and it worked great with no errors. When I changed our PHP version to 5 though we started getting a lot of error messages. Googling here and there I found more people in the same situation, and after tweaking some files for a bit it all worked at the end!

In summary, this site should now last many more years. But if you get an error message or find a bug let me know.

I am so turned on by your brilliance right now. Ed, you are a god among men. Glad you figured it out, I've been out of town for work the past month and have been absolutely useless on trying to get around to this!

[Tirrex]

A few things stopped working, like the "DKP" and "More Characters" drop down menus under the avatars. But I tested even the games and couldn't find anything else bugged. I'm still kinda concerned for it being relatively easy to solve.

[Tirrex]

Just for future reference, I gonna post here the errors that needed fixing after switching to PHP 5, so I can delete this .txt from my PC without worries:

Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /homepages/14/d175276832/htdocs/sites/The Brotherhood/includes/init.php on line 45

Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /homepages/14/d175276832/htdocs/sites/The Brotherhood/includes/init.php on line 93

Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /homepages/14/d175276832/htdocs/sites/The Brotherhood/includes/init.php on line 97

Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /homepages/14/d175276832/htdocs/sites/The Brotherhood/includes/init.php on line 105

Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /homepages/14/d175276832/htdocs/sites/The Brotherhood/includes/init.php on line 116

Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /homepages/14/d175276832/htdocs/sites/The Brotherhood/includes/init.php on line 120

Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /homepages/14/d175276832/htdocs/sites/The Brotherhood/includes/init.php on line 128

Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /homepages/14/d175276832/htdocs/sites/The Brotherhood/includes/init.php on line 197

Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /homepages/14/d175276832/htdocs/sites/The Brotherhood/includes/init.php on line 404

Strict Standards: Declaration of vB_Database_MySQLi::select_db_wrapper() should be compatible with vB_Database::select_db_wrapper($database = '', $link = NULL) in /homepages/14/d175276832/htdocs/sites/The Brotherhood/includes/class_core.php on line 1115

Deprecated: Function set_magic_quotes_runtime() is deprecated in /homepages/14/d175276832/htdocs/sites/The Brotherhood/includes/class_core.php on line 1514

Strict Standards: Non-static method vB_Shutdown::init() should not be called statically, assuming $this from incompatible context in /homepages/14/d175276832/htdocs/sites/The Brotherhood/includes/class_core.php on line 2348