Rebuilding GTT - Progress notes

Due to a sustained storage integrity issue, the Game Theory Tools (GTT) website and supporting functionality has been lost and cannot be fully restored from backups.  This page tracks the actions currently underway to bring systems back online.

5/12/20 Status: Newest updates first

  • Help pages are now being populated
    • Some links from previous version may have bad links, it is a work in progress.
    • On the plus side, a much faster and more thorough database backup solution is now in place.  Because... #irony.
  • Pre-alpha testing has completed.
    • Corrected error in mysqli insert ID causing new dilemma creation to fail.
    • Modified instructor scoreboard screen to allow individual team tracking - (improved UX)
    • Corrected order of displays (transaction logs were out of sequence due to rebuilt database being somewhat...scattered)
    • Enhanced database check screen to check for 0-count entries in transaction and point databases, per caper
    • Corrected issue on dilemma edit screen where erroneous "selected" texts would appear
    • Improved transaction reset screen function, added large red reminder for instructor to submit/commit changes.
    • Restored help pages from final ashes of previous site.  New help content will be generated after backups have been tested.  Again.
  • User database reloaded
    • UserIDs have changed as a result of the move, shoudl be transparent to instructors.
    • The dilemma database has been modified to retain all previous caper/dilemma info.
  • Dilemma support restored
    • Found/fixed bug preventing database updates for course names
    • Corrected php7-driven error impacting updates to transaction datanases
    • Excel download is now working
    • Modified support for multiple themes launched - too soon to tell if it is useful or not.
  • Participant's Page Restore
    • Encryption routines are no longer supported under php7 - moved to openssl with variable IV
    • Participant postings have passed testing - encryption routines secure, database updating correctly
  • Database check routines are back, no issues reported. 
    • Drupal account maps needed updating - complete.
  • Dilemmas now showing up in temporary instructor page
  • Scoring systems are working for participants
  • Dilemma edits are now posting correctly
  • Account settings page online (lost ability to change GTT account type in Drupal)
  • Core database rebuilt, backed up, confirmed
  • Core pages mapped out, re-creation underway

 

5/11/20 Status: Newest updates last

  • Server lost between 7:30 - 10 AM.  Roto cause: Hard drive failure
    • Research indicates bad sectors have corrupted three filesystems on drive over several months
    • Backups infected with bad data.  Integrity checks failed since they showed backups matched on-drive versions of files (all corrupt)
  • Attempted to restore using original code, failed due to PHP and Drupal version incompatibilities
    • Attempts to reload older versions of Drupal and PHP abandoned after 5 hours (exec decision)
  • Opted to upgrade DCRE code to support php7
    • Switched from mysql to mysqli
    • Eliminated requirement for session.hander to be user
    • Removed reliance on prfile module (accoutn types will now be set within DCRE code, not Drupal.  Drupal 8 lost that capability)
  • Core code upgrade complete, will require extensive testing once core pages (23) are re-created