As some of you know, the EP Autos Forum has been offline for a few weeks now. It may be offline permanently – because (apparently) my computer guy cannot access the VBulletin main site or whatever the gobble-de-gook is. The usual corporate remoteness is in effect. No human being can be communicated with. One fills out forms and hopes someone will answer. No one has – and so I am locked out.
I have no idea why the Forum went offline and no idea how to get it back online. I loathe and despise computer gibberish almost as much as Face Diapers. If anyone has any ideas, I’d love to hear them as I hate to have lost 14-plus years of backlogged posts and comments over there.
RE: “I hate to have lost 14-plus years of backlogged posts and comments”
That does suck.
I just figured out that I killed $200.00+ Dollars of hoped-for productive plants, not by adding too much nitrogen, not from wilt, but because I over watered the things.
I drowned potential future revenue. Wood chip mulch kind of hid the obvious as they died day after day. It wasn’t until I got on my knees and dug into it that I saw the obvious.
I imagine your potential loss is even greater.
Plants are hard. Losing money makes it harder. You’ll get there. I switched to a mini spray bottle for my little indoor plants to help control the watering. If they look like they need more then I just give the soil a couple extra spritzes that day and voila, no more drowning. It’s progress.. I’m not ready for all the heartache of real farming yet.
Highly likely you have been canceled for not toeing the line.
That GM article he wrote probably landed him on the SPLC’s watch list.
So… no one responds to emails to support at bulletin dot com ?
Or answers the phone at 877-326-6444?
Anyhow, judging by the ban on your account…
https://ericpetersautos.com/forum/member.php?3-Eric
and Jim’s archive report, I suspect youse was hacked.
Not so sure it was hacked. Could be a software update that went awry, that happens more than you think. Canceled? Possibly, but I suspect it’s some kind of software glitch (which, by the way, is not a “technical” error but a human error – humans write the software, after all, they just like to blame things on “technical” errors). I wonder if your administrator can get access to the database on the server where your forum is stored and make a backup of it. If so, then perhaps reinstalling the forum software (vBulletin) and restoring the database might fix it. Sorry if that’s beyond your comprehension, Eric, but your admin might understand it (and if he/she doesn’t, then you need a new admin).
Judging that the current version of vBulletin is 5.6.4 and Eric is running 4.2.1, any vulnerabilities are out of the wild and exploitable.
Given the all the love Eric bestows to the Covid power monger mobs, that my suspicion some savvy pro-mask/vax karen could have snagged admin rights, banned his account and wiped all the data has validity.
I wasn’t going to comment on Eric’s “computer guy,” but since you did, I agree.
BTW, I just used “Contact Us” and it acknowledged it was sent to the webmaster. The message was the word “Testing.”
Toolbar buttons (Home, What’s New?, etc.) navigate to their respective pages.
Calendar returns a “you are banned” for me as just some one viewing the home page. Also known as a lurker…
I don’t have an account, but some one should log in. If that works, there’s nothing wrong with the core features of forum. I tried a un/pw of test/1234 and the invalid un/pw dialogue appeared.
As such, I believe Eric’s vBulletin web side services are functional. Ultimately, some one on the server side will have to do the mending.
Anyhow, that’s all I got to contribute. Needless to say, Good Luck, Eric!
Just thought of this: Some one trying to log in might get a banned response, which would be correct given the current circumstances.
And I might try and create an account and see what happens.
I just logged in with no issues. Maybe it’s just the admin login that
s locked out?
Ooops, not the site here but the forum! I’d forgotten about the separate forum. Well now, as my role model Eric Cartman would say, this really sucks ass.
I just got a “received” reply to the Contact Us test I did yesterday.
ERIC!
Not sure exactly how you sent “the Vbulletin ‘moderator’ a request to reset the password. I did so days ago. No reply.” If you didn’t send to support@vbulletin.com, it’s unlikely you’ll get a reply as you… are the moderator of your forum, or a trusted some one to whom you assign moderator privileges.
And no one will be resetting your password because of an email.
Here’s vBulletin’s phone number: 877-326-6444
Call them and get the customer support you’re paying for. You are paid up? Right?
Yeah, there should be auto backups. When did it work last?
Judging by the version number it wasn’t set to auto update VBulletin.. sounds like something else must have changed.
https://forum.vbulletin.com/forum/vbulletin-4/vbulletin-4-questions-problems-and-troubleshooting/4457023-help-did-i-just-got-hacked
Hi Moose!
The problem, apparently, is that (somehow) the log in and password info has been lost/changed. I can’t get in. My computer guy can’t get in. The only appeal – apparently – is to send the Vbulletin “moderator” a request to reset the password. I did so days ago. No reply. My computer guy says the old posts/comments and so on haven’t been lost but cannot be accessed/rebooted – whatever it is – without the log in and password info. I’m about at my limit with logging in and passwording. I want a time machine instead. Take me back to 1985, please.
I’m confused.. aren’t the forums hosted on your own webspace though? I would expect there’s just a directory or database to restore from a good backup of it somewhere within your cpanel. Wouldn’t the admin forum account login info just be stored in a database with the rest of the forum user accounts?
Don’t delete anything yet or destroy anything. I’m looking at the Wayback Machine at https://web.archive.org/ to see what might be saved there. Not sure anything is, or anything accessible, but it’s worth a shot. There are other archive services to check as well.
By the way, we had an adage when I was a programmer – back up often! Status: I’m looking at some of the archive captures from your forum site – one capture from July 2nd showed errors. Hmmm… https://web.archive.org/web/20210702031118/https://ericpetersautos.com/forum/css.php?styleid=3&langid=1&d=1604594771&td=ltr&sheet=sidebar-ie.css