NOTICE: Forums will be offline at some point later today.

[namida]

It will be no less than two hours from the time of this post, and I will give notice on the Discord closer to the time.

This is to do two things:
1. Upgrade the forum software to SMF 2.0.18
2. Replace the SMF CAPTCHA + security questions with reCAPTCHA

As a precaution, an out-of-schedule backup will be taken after putting the forum into maintenance mode but before any further action is taken.

All going well, the downtime will last perhaps 10 - 15 minutes, though may be longer if I run into any snags. In a worst case scenario, I'll have the backup and can simply roll back to the current software.

[namida]

As an update: I have successfully got both changes working on a test copy of the site (hosted on my local machine rather than the live server), as well as pulled the changes to a "staging" repo on the actual server. As these have both been successful, I am nearly 100% sure that it will be a smooth upgrade - however, it's always better to take precautions and not need them, than the other way around.

[namida]

I'll take the forums down for the update in about 10 minutes.

[namida]

The 2.0.18 upgrade is working fine, but I am having issues when going live with the reCAPTCHA integration.

I have restored the forums with 2.0.18 update, but not reCAPTCHA, in place. I'm currently working on the reCAPTCHA issue - at first I wasn't able to reproduce it on my local setup, but I've managed to now, so don't need to be able to use the live site to test. The site will go down again to launch this once it's ready, I'll give some notice first.

[namida]

I'll be taking the forums down again in about 5 minutes to try this again.

[namida]

And we're done. reCAPTCHA anti-spam is now live, as is the SMF 2.0.18 update. Shouldn't be any more downtimes now, but please let me know if you encounter any new bugs.