Blog Sidebar Broken 3
I love how software is very interconnected these days – NOT.
This morning I needed some information about yard tonics that I know is here and discovered that the sidebar for the blog wasn’t working correctly. There was an error message, so no RSS, search, topics, categories, etc… I haven’t changed anything in the setup for months. Normal fixing steps:
- restart typo – no joy.
- restart the VM – no joy.
- check the logs for an easy answer – nothing.
- log into the admin interface and play around with the sidebar a little – that simply showed that all but the “static” plugin was broken AND that the drag-n-drop interface to manage sidebars was broken too.
- switch to a different browser and see all the same issues.
Ok, so I think it is some remote javascript library causing the problems. I open the source for a page and see that only local javascript is used – I remember now, I didn’t like that remote code would run on my site, so I made a local copy. That’s why the first time you visit here, the page loads slow. Regardless, that’s not the issue.
Google – nobody else is reporting this problem since 2006 under IE6. I am definitely not running IE6 here.
There is a newer version of the code. With all the local tweaks, installing a new version can be a hassle. I’ve been meaning to move this VM to a different 12.04 host anyway … now is as good a time as any – plus it rained today.
In a few hours, this blog should be running on a new physical box, under a different hypervisor, the first VM in my long planned migration. I’d hoped to switch from KVM to LXC for this VM to use fewer system resources, but I’m not prepared for that today.
Wish me luck!
I still need to find that tonic recipe too. Got it, thanks to google again.
Ok, a quick look helps me understand why I haven’t already updated to the latest Typo version – it requires a newer Ruby install than my Ubuntu Server 10.04 LTS supports. The idea of just moving the VM over isn’t gonna work, I need to use a new OS for the VM as well. That is a bigger job than I can tackle today. I guess the sidebar as it is today will have to be good enough for now.
Sorry.
If you need to search this site, but can’t because the sidebar is missing, here’s how you can do it via Google.
“search terms go here in quotes” site:blog.jdpfu.com
Yep. My google-fu is strong.
Usually just use “{X} jdpfu” to do it. jdpfu is unique enough in the world (except a few Japanese and Indonesian websites) that don’t show up in the first 5 pages.
Actually, the built-in search pretty much sucked anyway, so nothing much was lost. ;) I do miss the monthly archives – those still work with just the URL, just not shown in the sidebar.
I updated the ruby gems on the box to see if that helped. No Joy, but I did get into gem dependency hell for 30 minutes – thanks to rack. Put a specific version into bundler’s list and locked it. Those Ruby/Rails guys thought of most issues – some day I hope they make Ruby use less RAM and run faster. You know … like Perl. ;) The Perl guys have been watching the ruby, python, php guys and have released lots of tools too. Perl 5.16 was released earlier this week. I’m not exactly an early adopter with Perl stuff – still running 5.10 here.
Feels like I’m complaining all the time. A few nice things have happened too. Hopefully, as those are completed an article or two will be written that you find interesting. Lots on KVM/LXC under 12.04 LTS.