An Alternative to Efiction

But as you can see still the same this is with Php 8.0  https://fiction.simplyjamesmcavoy.com/

In I use 8.1 it gives a 500 error

@marcy Are you using the pack directly from the repo? The latest one (the last change was today)?  That error is that you have the wrong data in the config file. It is not able to connect to the database. Actually, it was tested for the update in PHP 7.4, only then changing the PHP version.  Not for direct use in PHP 8. 

Without direct access, I am not able to say what is wrong.  

@jimmi Ok here's what happened when i moved hosts I changed my database password I don't know how to reset it on the database. I changed it in the config but its not recognizing it. Is there somewhere in the database that I can change that?

But good news is that I can do a new install and it worked fine with 3.5.6

@marcy If you mean database password (global) - you set it on your hosting (Cpanel) and change in config.php. With moving from one host to another 3-4 values can be changed: server, user, database name and database password.  This information is in your hosting account.  But you are probably talking about something else. Let me know.

@marcy I found a reason for the issues -  online table and IP address - it is an integer, but with IPV6 you need a special function for this and it is not supported in older MySQL servers. So I just posted a workaround -  saving IPs only for the correct IPV4 address...    I need to investigate this more. I am afraid it will need new database change.

The next problem in PHP 8 only was the block table and variables - info block options needed to resave (no idea why) and there was the record in the block table and the block file didn't exist...  favauth from efiction 2. 

My test scenario was:  fresh 3.5.6 latest git installation, changing in config file database to 3.5.5 database and run update.  Except problems above it worked. Now there are fixed (better word is workaround, correct fix is something else). 

This is the reason why I need the real data for testing.

@jimmi No all the information is the same I only changed the database password for the user that's it. Database user and Database name is all the same as it was except the password It won't let me use the old password cause it was a security risk basically it was just a bunch of numbers. It required something more complex. say for example this was my info in the config file

$dbhost = "localhost";
$dbname = "abbdelk_fic";
$dbuser= "abbdelk_marl";
$dbpass = "123456";  <--- I changed that to 85N369L!X

Is there a way to import the story information to a new install or will that corrupt it?

I did a new install for this one cause it was small. Works perfect. https://simplyjamesmcavoy.com/fiction/index.php?skin=Reverie

Unfortunately my other installs are much bigger with more information. I would hate to lose all that info.

I have 4 other installs and they all shared the same database user and database password. So when I change that database password they all got corrupted. none of them work

@marcy 

Just if I got it right.

- you have one working database with new install 3.5.6  f.e. abbdelk_fic with some prefix.   Correct? 

My advice:

- revise custom blocks and modules of your site 2, because they weren't updated 

- set your site 2 in maintenance mode and export the database

- change the prefix if needed (in SQL file, not in original database), and import them to the working database. 

- Change the prefix in the config file (database is the same, so it should work)

- Run update. 

Be sure:

- you are editing the config file in UTF8 mode (NotePad is using ASCII by default, if your password has special characters, it will not work)

- you are editing SQL file in UTF8 mode.

- your database should be the database for efiction 3.5.5 

If this fails, you can replace table by table. I wrote an update a different way - if it finds that you are using not updated story table, it sets your site version back to 3.5.5 and the update will run again (you just need to refresh page update.php). 

If you open the update.php file, you will see all database table changes. You can run them manually in phpMyAdmin too. 

P.S.

if 3.5.6 is working for you, then there is always a way how to save your data. So don't worry, it only takes time to find the correct way. 

I'll try this out and let you know. Thanks for all the help.

Had to update one of my site to 3.55 since I was on 3.53 and when I tried to upgrade to 3.56 got this error.

Query: ALTER TABLE `fanfiction_authors` ADD `date_tmp` int(11) NOT NULL default '0'
Error: (1067) Invalid default value for 'date'

I rolled back to 3.55 for this one since 3.5.6 didn't work, this was from the original database from my other host.

https://simplydanedehaan.com/fiction

This one I did table by table and the dates switched to 01/01/70 

https://simplyelijahwood.com/fiction

Here you can see the news date is also 1970.

https://simplyjamesmcavoy.com/fiction

@marcy I noticed this for PHP 5 and some older database server.  I don't know how to fix it, the code is correct.  
I fixed it by removing default value in phpmyadmin manually (before update)  -  something like "0000-..."  for this field (and other date fields). -  And you will see that the code is the same.