I've noticed the site has been somewhat unstable since the upgrade. Taking a quick look at it now, but it's getting late here so I might just put a temp-fix (that attempts to auto-restart the database process every so often; the source of the issue is the database process randomly terminating) in place for now and take a closer look tomorrow. (EDIT: Temp-fix is in place. Should the MySQL process terminate, it'll be restarted on the next 5 minute mark. This is the best I can do for now; I'll take a closer look tomorrow if issues persist.)

I've enabled logging that should help pinpoint the cause, too.

Yeah, the new look is part of SMF 2.1.

Video embeds are a native feature in 2.1.

Updated to here.

We're now live on SMF 2.1.4. Enjoy!

Please report any issues, including anything that seems a bit off about the themes. I'm aware of some minor stuff which I'll sort out over the coming days.

Downtime will begin at (give or take a few minutes) 07:00 UTC. I've just finished conducting a "mock run" of the update (taking the existing site data, attachments, etc and running it through the upgrade process; but not pushing the final result live) based on a snapshot of the site taken a couple of hours ago; a few issues were encountered but all was worked out. So I'm now ready to go ahead with the real run (which will use a fresh snapshot of the site, taken after putting the site into maintenance mode).

https://bwgames.org/lemmings-doom

Is this it?

Yes; that's very easy to do when it's a planned and intended downtime and I was intending to do so.

The SMF 2.1-based code is now ready to go live.

As mentioned, some downtime will be necessary for this to happen. I don't want to say an exact time because, quite frankly, I'm not reliable at sticking to those. Instead, I will give a window:

Expect the site (lemmingsforums.net only; this will not affect neolemmix.com) to be down for a while, starting sometime between 06:00 UTC and 12:00 UTC on 2024-09-08. Once it begins, downtime is expected to be around 1 to 2 hours.

To take this concept even further: How important are the mixed rounds, especially given that some rules inherently produce stronger levels than others?

Perhaps a way forward is to get rid of the three rules system, in favor of more frequent contests with a single rule. These in turn could be run in (near-)parallel - essentially, not much different from the current setup, except that each rule is treated as a seperate contest and we just find the winner for each rule, without comparing the rules to each other. This in turn works nicely with "each winner picks one rule", and gets rid of any debate over whether winners should be levels or authors (as we'd be back to one entry per author under such a setup, aside from LOTY which is almost universally agreed should be purely about levels). Voting in turn could be reduced to two or three rounds - all levels for a rule, (maybe) top 3, and finally top 2. Yes, for a set of three rules this would be six or nine polls, but each rule can be run in parallel rather than having to wait for the last one to finish voting, if desired.

And this still allows for creators to get the frequent opportunities with a variety of rules, that was a motivation for the "2 of 3 rules" and eventually "you can enter all 3" changes that were popular.

The one (very minor) concern that comes to mind is, we tend to like having old rules repeated once in a while. But are people with an opportunity to pick just one rule, going to want to sacrifice that on repeating an old one? (Or conversely, will we run into an issue of too many repeats?). Maybe this isn't a problem; if we go this route, I suggest at first just let whatever happens happens and see how it works out, but if we end up feeling that repeats are too rare or too common, one approach could be along the lines of "Rule 1 must always be original; if you win on this, you must come up with an original rule. Rule 2 must always be a repeat, if you win on this, you must pick a past rule to repeat. Rule 3 is free choice and you can go either way."

Mentioned on Discord but, IMO, the best way would be to have two topics that exist solely for the extra polls, and re-use them in every contest (while not allowing replies, except perhaps to bump when needed by a moderator - although this could also be handled with stickies).

Maybe an SMF addon that allows multiple polls per topic exists, but it's not something I'm going to look at while I'm in the process of working on an SMF 2.1 upgrade - more than happy to come back to this once the 2.1 upgrade is done.

Tweaked some settings that may help. If issues persist, can you confirm the size of each individual attachment, the total size of all attachments, and how long it's taking to time out (roughly) from when you hit "Post"?

One other possibility that comes to mind is, during the non-mixed phase, hold all three rules' votes simultaneously. This wouldn't cut down on the number of votes, but would get them done much quicker (and can also potentially be combined with other ideas).

You know the things that have changed are listed in the release topic, right?

Quote###################
# Fixes - Physics #
###################
> Fixed bug: A basher who is also a slider will continue for more strokes than he should if reaching an edge while bashing.
> Fixed bug: A builder cannot be assigned when the lemming's Y coordinate is 1 (ie: the highest position it can be without being considered outside the level).
> Fixed bug: A climber who falls after hitting his head on an overhang, where the fall height is exactly the minimum fall distance that is not survivable, may survive the fall if they started climbing from higher or lower than the floor they land on (due to terrain alterations while he's climbing or wall-grabbing as a Jumper).
> Fixed bug: A lemming moving multiple pixels in one frame may pass through thin trigger areas without being affected.
> Fixed bug: An ascender can get stuck in terrain (which he may then be able to step up through if thin enough) under certain circumstances.
> Fixed bug: A setup involving blockers or one way fields, stackers, and walkers could be used to move a lemming through walls.
> Fixed bug: A slider could be assigned a shimmier as they reach the bottom of a wall and turn around.
> Fixed bug: A slider, in certain setups, may land on a pixel behind him (and turn around) even when no wall is present to prevent him walking the way he's already facing.
> Fixed bug: Blockers' detection of other blockers when assigning was slightly incorrect and could lead to valid assignments being prevented in some cases.
> Fixed bug: Builders and platformers going through a teleporter cannot always be followed by other lemmings.
> Fixed bug: Some object checks don't behave as they should immediately after teleporting.
> Fixed bug: Some Slider behaviors that should also be applied to the Dehoister weren't.
> Fixed bug: Stoner-Ohnoers can enter exits without having ground underneath them.
> Fixed bug: A jumper going through a teleporter crashes the game.

I like the bucket rule because it also gives an idea of the best levels in each category. This could be done with (maybe post-contest so it doesn't delay the overall results) an extra poll or two, though, if buckets were mixed.

All that's left to do now is port (or re-create) the custom themes, and actually convert the site over. (Still no promises on the "when", though, but as it will involve downtime I'll give notice ahead of time.)