Out of Memory

After just 24 hours of operation in Beta, Bevvy is out of memory. Crap. I was hoping I’d have an extra day or two to figure out how to fix the problem before it got to be too large.

Yesterday transiit called me with a word of caution. Before he headed into work he noticed his account at Bevvy.org had tons of friend requests. He also remembered that I told him I was getting database errors. Not a lot. Just a few here and there.

He proceeded to make an analogy of a valet parking staff and an over supply of people wanting to park and retrieve cars. Short story, I don’t have enough parking attendants. Or maybe they are just slow runners.

I just tried to access my database and found this lovely message: #5 – Out of memory (Needed 1046900 bytes)

I hope this isn’t going to cost much. I can afford a few hours spent in making adjustments to settings. I think that’s about 10Mb of memory it needs. Now to just find it.

No More Screwing Around

I’ve installed things and reinstalled things so many times. Each time I learn quite a bit. Here is a list of things that I need to do. They are in no particular order.

1. set up a subdomain for a development version of bevvy.org
2. create a database for that dev environment
3. dev environments are copies of the regular install. they are for testing. Once members start to log in and create accounts, they will be quite pissed if all their stuff disappears because I started from scratch again.
4. set up a db for the forum and a db for the dev.forum.
5. the bbPress will have its own db because I can’t seem to make it work with just one db. I am assuming from the installation instructions that bbPress can work off the WP db. I have not found definitive proof of such an assumption though.
6. keep up with the call for donations for the media plug in for BP+WPµ install. Kaltura is working on something.

Extended Profiles v0.2

I woke up this morning to see that there was a new version of the BuddyPress extended profile available for download. I grabbed it and tossed it up on the site. Copied right over the existing files. Not a smart idea. Must remember to back up old files before wiping them clean.

One positive is that the comments now work amongst logged in users. When heading over to the Admin account’s comment moderation page, I got this:

That’s right, more warnings. Not a big thing though. It appears that it’s looking for avatar images I created last week. That was before I uploaded the new bp-xprofile directory to the server. It’s looking for a file I most likely wiped away. Or not. Still very new at this.

I have slowly been telling other people about Bevvy.org. It is summer and most don’t seem all too excited about it. Don’t blame them. There’s not much to see.

I’m excited. I can see what it looks like when it’s finished and I won’t stop until I get there. I’m going to need loads more help.

Not sure why my avatar doesn’t show up. I re-loaded it moments before taking this screen shot. I was hoping to eradicate the warning message. No Luck.

Creation of User Accounts

I’ll begin today with what has gone well. I have created a couple of accounts with blogs on Bevvy.org. They appear to be able to send messages between one account and another. The users also appear to be able to create an avatar image using the nifty resize widget.

I’ve modified Gifa’s cropped “B” Bevvy logo and incorporated one of the colors she suggested. After showing a few variations in black and white to some friends, a clear favorite emerged. And here is where all the things that are not going well rush in. I want to add this lovely “B” logo to the main site’s header.

I think I’ll leave the troubles at that. Too little time to go into all the issues. Know that I am working them out. Slowly. But surely.

Wildcards

I uploaded a phpinfo file to the server and checked it for “mod_rewrite” entries. Having found none, I contacted DreamHost support and asked them to activate it for me. I got a prompt response. Very polite. I love this hosting company. They told me I also needed a wildcard DNS entry which they took care of for me. They also pointed me to their wiki on WordPress MU installations.

I sure hope that JJ in support also set up “a wildcard ServerAlias entry” like it says to ask for in the wiki. JJ’s email only mentioned the wildcard DNS entry. We’ll see if that ends up being a problem.

I have yet to create a new user account to see if the subdomain.bevvy.org gets created automagically. Right now I am looking into anti-spam plugins for WPMU. There’s Askimet and Dave’s Spam Karma. I have seen mentions of activating the backend and leaving it deactivated. The activation of the backend, I assume would allow the plugin settings to be passed through to each blog user’s blog. I’m all for giving options but sometimes less choice makes for a smoother operation.

I will also be installing some sort of CAPTCHA for WPMU. I have to be mindful that any plugin I hear about must have a WPMU counterpart. If not, things will break.

One thing I am unclear about at this point is how I enable people to sign up and begin creating their own blog/user page from an index page. Requiring Admin approval is a good safe guard. Right now the only “new user” creation option is in the Site Admin section of the Administrator’s account. I want one front and center on the main page. Perhaps it is also a plugin.

Update I: I have been able to create two new blogs on the site. One for me and one for viscousplatypus. The Edit for the profile does not appear to be working. One can post to the blog and change personal blog settings but that is about it.

Successful Installation

I searched the BuddyPressDev mailing list and did not encounter my fatal error. I saw loads of them over at the WordPress forums. They did give me some hints as to reasons for multiple occurence of “add_third_level”. One person forgot to delete old files after upgrading. To totally wipe out the root directory for web site I needed SSH access.

A quick message to support over at DreamHost got my head clear on the Secure SHell problem. Even though I was doing everything properly to access my server, I had not yet specified SSH access for my DreamHost account even though I created it and had administrative privileges.

Armed with the power I needed, I did the old rm -r *.* and cleared out the Bevvy.org root directory. Then I deleted the database. Made a new database. Just to be safe I re-downloaded the WPµ and BuddyPress files. Added the WPµ files and populated the database. At this point I added the bp-core plugin only. Then I added the subsequent plugins one at a time ending with the theme plugin.

With a bit more time tonight I will begin to tweak the installation, add some Profile fields. Before the end of the weekend I intend on inviting some friends to come and play and break things.

Tracking Progress

This blog will record my progress in setting up Bevvy.org. It is my hope that it will become the new home for wayward duckies and wandering Sports Racers. It’s not going to recreate the ORG though some aspects of that once wonderful place will be present.

The current plan is to employ WordPress MU (multi-blog), BuddyPress (social network) and DiSo (distributed social network). Bevvy.org will be a gathering place but by no means is it intended to house the entire Sports Racer community.

I know next to nothing about PHP. I’ve dabbled here and there with programming languages. Enough to be dangerous.

Here goes. Weeeeeee!