When do you close your board? (Xenforo related maintenance)

sbj

Well-known member
Hey,

I haven't launched my project but soon hopefully my board will be active.

But I asked myself, because this is my first attempt in running a forum, when I should go inactive with my board.

Like now I can install whenever I want a new add-on and also can rebuild whenever I want caches.
But if my board is active and people are online and messaging, are there any maintenance stuff I should be careful of? Like first closing the board and then doing the stuff I need to do.

Can you tell me which kind of maintenance stuff I should do always when my board is closed?
First just Xenforo related things, but also in general?

When do you close your board?
 
I close it when doing a XenForo upgrade for a second point release, to allow time to update any templates, options, etc, and when I do a full back up of the database and file system.

It isn't usually necessary to close it when updating an add-on but it won't hurt to do so.
 
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Ah, yeah, updating the forum software and backing up of database/files were not in my mind.
I assume at the latest I would realise that I should close my board before I update the forum software and do back ups. Thanks.

So, but for updating add-ons it isnt necessary you say. Ok, good to know. How about rebuilding caches?
 
Again it's not necessary but it won't hurt to do so and may mean it completes sooner if it's a busy/active site.
 
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Uploading latest files from upgrade zip archive will automatically close your forum also ;)
So no need to manually closed your board.
Then it will re-open your forum automatically after you run the upgrade.
 
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My backups run automatically in the background, as above, upgrading auto closes your board... but I do manually close it for major point releases, purely because there are always some minor issues I find, thus allow for them so I can fix before the public view the site.

I may also close it when playing around with add-ons that may break a primary function of the forums operation.
 
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I found that closing my board on off peak hours is a perfect way to do it. I usually give my members a 24-48 hour notice with about how long it will be down. I also do it when I do upgrades etc.
 
If I need to update something that requires closing my board, there's a few things you can do that I advise from experience.

1: Provide a way for users to continue communicating, IRC is a good way of doing this.
2: On your "forum down", provide the time that it'll be back (latest - they'll be happy when it doesn't take that long) and don't tell too much, let them be excited for updates.
3: Do it in AUS hours (early morning GMT) mid-week, possibly 7-10am (UK time).

Gl.
 
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