Hello all,

As many of you know, the BeechTalk website has not been performing well for the last week or more. Our investigation into the performance issues indicated that there were a number of underlying database issues that needed to be addressed.

We performed a maintenance update earlier today to correct most of those issues, and it appears to have gone well, albeit longer than anticipated. We will, of course, be monitoring the system closely for any issues that crop up, and we would appreciate if you let us know of any you see as well.

Two things to note about this update is that we had to make some decisions regarding some parts of the database that were growing unreasonably large. Two of these which you might notice as you begin to browse around the site again are:

1. The database serving our "View Unread Posts" feature had to be reset

What does this mean for you? It means that if you previously viewed a thread and were on, for example, page 2 of the thread, when you click on the thread now it will take you to the start of page 1. As you navigate back to where you were originally and read new material, it will update your progress as before. It is only that first read through on which you will note any differences.

Also note that once you click the "Mark All Read" link, the board will record your progress as before and you'll be right back where you started before the update.

On that note, it would help us going forward if more of you used the "Mark All Read" link with regularity. Using that link to mark the entire forum read until new posts are submitted not only saves the database from accumulating "gunk", but it also cleans up your unread list significantly. If you haven't tried it before we recommend using it, but wait until you are done reading any threads you currently want to see.

2. The database serving the "Subscribed" threads and forums needed a reset as well

All users wishing to receive an email when a post is added to a particular thread will need to re-subscribe to that thread.

We want to make it clear that NO data has been lost in this update, BeechTalk still retains posts from its early beginnings despite the two changes above.

We apologize for any inconvenience the above modifications cause, but we had to make a decision between on-going performance of the database and a bit of momentary hassle for those us that use the two features above.

Lastly, we do expect one or two more rounds of maintenance in the coming days or weeks as we finalize a new server for the forum, but we don't expect significant downtime. We will update as we get further information about the timing of those events.

Thank you all for your continued presence and support at BeechTalk, and we appreciate your patience as we maintain the server to deliver content expeditiously as we have in the past.

Thank you!

- The Jeffs

Thanks Jeffs.

You had me in DTs for a couple of hours while the server was down, but we all appreciate your effort and time in maintaining this invaluable resource.

Regards

Dunno if related, the search function seems inop.
Maybe it’s on purpose-
Search Cirrus or SR22 and no results.
Search Beech and a bunch is returned.
At least on my IPad at 9 pm, 1/18.

OK, happy to have BT back functional. But... I seem to have lost all of the Read/Unread marks (everything going back years is unread), as well as the Ignored threads (which I use extensively, so again everything is visible).

Is it me? Can it be restored somehow?

Thanks - working great here!

Thanks Jeffs!

Thanks for the hard work to get things back in better shape. Speed is vastly improved.

I don't know the first thing about database management but I'm sure glad you guys do!

For me the search results are only returning for the last couple of days. It will not provide results of posts older than that.

Search for “engine monitor” used to give hundreds of results, now it only gives 4-5 and only a couple days back.

Thanks for the heads up, working on the search function today.

Jeff

I am amazed and dazzled by your efforts.

Thanks guys, appreciate your work. If I may, add a request of sorts. Several of the type clubs (TBMOPA, MMOPA, CPA and probably others) have been bamboozled into adopting Discourse for their on-line platforms. In my opinion the user experience has been horrible. Please do not entertain such nonsense. Thank you again.

Jeff(s);

Assuming the email 'notifications for new posts' on previous 'conversations' are being addressed also? This is referencing threads engaged since yesterdays maintenance.

Thank you

Edit to add: Apparently that has been adjusted, as it seems to be working this evening.

Thank you.

I don't remember the posts that I had subscribed to. Is there a way to access that list so I can re-subscribe to the ones I'm still interested in? I'm hoping the "no data has been lost" is literally true and covers my question above. Thanks for your work.

Having trouble searching for items for sale (For Sale - Aviation Other). For example, looked up Glove Box in For Sale Forum, and it came back zero, yet I can see one for sale in early January (it had sold). I then tried to search for it in "For Sale - Sold" and it still came back null set. Did the reset of the system on Jan 18 cause this issue?

Thanks
Andrew