Extensive forum maintenance is scheduled for 2020-07-18T19:00:00Z → 2020-07-19T19:00:00Z, during which the forum will only be available for read access (all users will be able to read posts and download files, but will not be able to post new content).
This change will enable the transition of uploaded files to a dedicated storage infrastructure, which will increase the performance and reliability of the forum, and at the same time decrease maintenance and overall infrastructure costs.
I have thoroughly tested all the steps, and while every step has completed successfully in the staging environment, there is still an issue of time needed for the entire procedure to complete. In ideal circumstances it takes almost full 12 hours to transfer images and other uploaded files (16k+ files, 50GB+ disk size) and remap relevant links inside posts to the new location.
While the forum could potentially be available during the transition for read and write access, I have opted against it to minimize any loss of data in the unlikely event of failure (this is also a very resource heavy operation, for which the server will be temporarily buffed). There will be a short (~5min) loss of service at the beginning and end of the procedure, but you can use the rest of the 24 hour period to catch up on reading, or just use the weekend day off for a relaxing day in nature.
If you experience any issues after the procedure is finished, please post the reply with as much detail as possible in this topic before trying to reupload any missing images or other content (this includes any missing images in the posts or in your user profile, and missing download links for uploaded content).
