Major changes are being made to the MyCouncillor System this weekend

Over this weekend we will be upgrading the MyCouncillor system to a more up-to-date version of "WordPress". 

WordPress is the operating platform that the MyCouncillor system runs on. Since we launched the system three years ago WordPress has been updated a few times. It's now time for us to catch up. 

There are a number of other changes that are also happening at the same time, some of which I know people have been waiting (patiently) for for some time. 

Just to be cautious, we're NOT going to be introducing these changes to you this weekend - we just want to make sure the change to the new WordPress works fine first, but we will then tell you more about each of the new features one by one over the next couple of weeks. 

What will happen this weekend: 

On Saturday morning you will be locked out of the myCouncillor system and will not be able to make any changes to the system. 

Members of the public will be able to view the sites as normal. (It may be that there is some disruption, possibly over a period of hours, the length of which is dependent on the volume of activity that the system is experiencing (with "hits" during the day). 

Assuming everything goes to plan, on Sunday morning you will be able to use the system as normal. 

The "back" end of the system will look different - everything that used to be there is still there, but it just looks a little more up to date!

We will be monitoring this throughout the weekend, as will our technical people. 

Any problems don't hesitate to email me: 

tim.pickstone@aldc.org 

The MyCouncillor website server suffered a period of downtime over the middle of the day today. This was as a result of a SPAM problem at the site's hosting agency. 

We think everything is working again now, but please report any issues as soon as you notice them. 

Many thanks. 

Apologies but we are experiencing a prolonged problem with the myCouncillor server today, Thursday 12 November 2009. 

The system appeared to go down in the early hours of the morning, we restarted this at the start of the working day, but it went down again almost immediately. Technical staff are working on this now and we hope to be able to have it sorted imminently. 

Apologies...

As many MyCouncillor users will be aware, we have had ongoing problems since the switch to the new server last week.  To resolve this once and for all, our internet company are switching to a more reliable server.

Unfortunately this will mean that all users will be "locked out" of their sites for the duration of the switch, to make sure that it is a complete copy of the site that it moved across.

We are hoping that this switch will be completed by tea time tonight.  We appreciate this has been frustrating for everyone concerned, but we are expecting the latest glitches to be fully ironed out before tomorrow morning.

If you are still suffering technical difficulties tomorrow, then please email Anders Hanson at anders.hanson@aldc.org

UPDATE - Tuesday PM

We are experiencing problems at the tail end of the alphabet (sites that begin with R, S, T etc).

We understand that this is the system taking time to propogate around the internet to its new location. Most sites are unaffected.

Hopefully this will rectify itself over the next couple of hours, and we are monitoring it over the evening.

tim

UPDATE

As some people will have noticed, the myCouncillor system has been closed to editing during the day today (Monday). This has been to allow for a move of the system to another machine at our hosting company.

Apart from a short period this morning the system was completely down, but for most of the day its been working fine, but you can't edit your sites.

The system has now been copied to its new location and been tested and we are now switching to the new server. This might take an hour of two to filter through, but it should work for everyone early evening.

PLEASE LET US KNOW ANY TECHNICAL PROBLEMS YOU EXPERIENCE - email tim.pickstone@aldc.org - or comment to this post below.

thanks, and sorry for any inconvenience.

tim