Music Boomerang - News And Recent Trades

*** Planned System Maintenance - 07/24/2025 - 9:00 AM CT ***

Here's the latest from @PDH:

I am now planning to take the system down to migrate the data base to AWS RDS running MySQL 8.4 on Thursday, July 24th at 9:00 a.m. CT. I think I should have everything completed in less than an hour.

Once the migration is complete everyone should expect to be able to use the site as normal, however we may find some bugs. If so there may be further down time to either implement fixes or roll back the changes to the old database. If we have to roll back we may lose some trades and / or forum posts so please be understanding, this is a necessary step to be able to keep the site running for the long run.

The dry run went well; the database backup takes only a couple of minutes, cleaning up the dump runs in a couple of minutes, and the restore to the new database only takes 5 minutes or so. I'll have to also change the database connections in the code and test everything, so I will plan for an hour of down time. I'll continue testing but my current plan is to now do this Thursday morning and have the next couple of days to fix any bugs or roll back as needed.

:clap:
 
@PDH reported earlier today that:

"We are now up and running on the migrated RDS database. So far performance seems slower - we are using a free instance of the database. Hang in there while we get some query history for performance tuning."

There are one or two small bugs but trading and the forums are working fine.
 
I've got Music Boomerang down at the moment so I thought I might as well update here: part of the database migration left some tables unconverted and I've been getting them fixed up. The master list of inventory keeps hanging and there is one bad query that really hangs the system. Hopefully I'll have these problems fixed shortly but it's been a bit of a battle.
 
PDH said:
I've got Music Boomerang down at the moment so I thought I might as well update here: part of the database migration left some tables unconverted and I've been getting them fixed up. The master list of inventory keeps hanging and there is one bad query that really hangs the system. Hopefully I'll have these problems fixed shortly but it's been a bit of a battle.
Click to expand...
thanks for your hard work, @PDH. Your expertise is invaluable.

I put up a profile post at the bottom of our homepage here at MG for quick reference.
 
Music Boomerang is running, but I have request matching turned off for the moment. It runs on the same timer loop as request that creates the stats for the home page and it is this latter query that is killing the database. I'll periodically run request matching manually until I get the other query fixed up.
 
Last edited:
Music Boomerang seems to be running close to normally now. I still have request matching turned off. Plan is to turn it back on tomorrow when I can spend some time monitoring the system and fixing any bugs that might cause.
 
@PDH reports:

Request matching has been turned on, I will be monitoring performance throughout the day. If you've been thinking about requesting something new, now's the time to do it....

:cheer:
 
Strange days: I got email working on Music Boomerang over the last couple of weeks and AWS enabled production access last night. Now that it is working there seem to be problems signing on to the site. If you try to sign on and your browser just refreshes right back to the sign on page click the "Remember me" box and sign on. You may have to try more than once.
 
PDH said:
Strange days: I got email working on Music Boomerang over the last couple of weeks and AWS enabled production access last night. Now that it is working there seem to be problems signing on to the site. If you try to sign on and your browser just refreshes right back to the sign on page click the "Remember me" box and sign on. You may have to try more than once.
Click to expand...
Thanks, @PDH. Thus far, Firefox remembers me so I haven’t had to sign in on my phone.

Getting email back is a big step forward.
 
Logging in is back to working properly on Music Boomerang. While debugging it I found some interesting hacking attempts going on centered around using Guest access. Anyone here not a member on Music Boomerang but uses Guest to keep up with the forums?
 
PDH said:
Logging in is back to working properly on Music Boomerang. While debugging it I found some interesting hacking attempts going on centered around using Guest access. Anyone here not a member on Music Boomerang but uses Guest to keep up with the forums?
Click to expand...
We’ve had a lot of unwelcome attention from AI bots over the last year or so.
 
Music Boomerang is back to normal (sorta - we are running on a Test server). Let me know here if you have any problems logging on.
 
The new version of MusicBoomerang is now up and running. The catalog of improvements is amazing:

PDH just posted the following:

Ok, let's make this official. It's been up and running for a couple of days and I'm not seeing any new bugs in the logs as of this afternoon. Here's what's changed:

Functionality Changes
  • HTTPS everywhere, no more having to use insecure browsing
  • Email should be working for everything
  • many bugs (over 100?) fixed, trade matching seems to be working better now
  • when creating a manual add you can now specify "DVD, Cassette, and Book" in addition to CD and Vinyl These are not yet displayed or usable for searches, but that will be the next thing to be worked on.
Under the covers
  • The base OS has been upgraded from Ubuntu 14 to Ubuntu 24. This allows the site to use the most recent AWS Virtual Machines (EC2 instances) and keep the site running more easily.
  • The old site ran test on the same server as production along with the database. These have all been split into separate servers allowing each to be migrated to new OS versions independently.
    For the moment the database continues to run on the old EC2 instance until an AWS discount plan expires in early 2026.
  • PHP has been upgraded from PHP 4.2 to PHP 7.4. Migrating to PHP 8 to be explored in the future.
  • A bunch of Javascript used by the site has been upgraded to recent versions
  • DNS has been migrated from GoDaddy to AWS Route 53. This allows for faster propagation of changes to the Web and better integration between servers and DNS giving better security.
  • Apache has been upgraded from a highly customized Apache 1 instance to a standard Apache 2 install.
  • Sites Certificates are now free certs from Lets Encrypt and are automatically updated in Route 53 monthly.
I would add that furled links to the site now display properly, like so, as compared to the old school bare URL in the preceding post:

MusicBoomerang Used CD Trading - By Traders, for Traders

Trade used CDs gathering dust for music you can't wait to listen to- for just $1. Start trading today with our active community of music lovers. Create a CD wishlist from thousands of great albums.
musicboomerang.com musicboomerang.com

@PDH deserves much credit for handling this complex update and its myriad details so seamlessly. :cheer:
 
I would add that furled links to the site now display properly, like so
Click to expand...
Ahh, so that's what you were getting at. I don't think I can claim credit for that directly, it's likely a result of upgrading to Apache 2, though perhaps some of the changes for stricter W3C compliance helped.
 
Recently I've been posting my MB incoming in the regular monthly thread as "Trade Of The Day" but two recent acquisitions are worthy of note here.

David Bowie - The Singles 1969 To 1993: Featuring His Greatest Hits (Rykodisc comp 1993)

LmpwZWc.jpeg


John Williams - Star Wars: A New Hope (soundtrack 1977, expanded reissue 1997)

OC04NDA1LmpwZWc.jpeg


What do David Bowie and "Star Wars" have in common other than some outer space imagery? The answer for me is that I wasn't a huge fan of either in their heyday. Bowie was a bit too outre for my parochial tastes and I was a dyed-in-the wool Trekkie. Over the years I have mellowed toward both, but it took these two recent MusicBoomerang trades to drive the point home for each.

Ryko was the first and in some ways, still the best steward of Ziggy's vast recorded legacy. I recall when each of their reissue CD's arrived to great fanfare due to the bonus tracks and high quality digital remastering. As Wiki tells us,

...this "singles" collection included some tracks that were never officially released as singles (such as "Ziggy Stardust"). This release marked the first time some 7"/single edits were available on CD, and included some unusual or rare versions, such as the shortened mixes of "TVC 15", "Space Oddity" and "Loving the Alien". The US release included the full-length original version of Bowie's "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)" and the 4:01 remix of "Under Pressure" from Classic Queen.

Hearing these 33 songs together gave me an appreciation for David's ability to craft a tight hook-filled song when the mood struck him.

As for Star Wars, I'm embarrassed to say I never saw any of the films until my new bride took me to see the whole trilogy at the big Twentieth Century Fox Film Retrospective in Century City on October 2nd-4th, 1987. Between the 70mm print and all the cosplayers, not to mention Mrs. Ojai's persuasive powers, I was completely won over from the Dark Side. John Williams' ground-breaking soundtrack played a big role in my new attitude. Despite the hokey "A New Hope" rebranding, this 2-disc reissue is the original soundtrack from the first film, brilliantly remastered and loaded with bonus material. I played it straight through in one sitting and it seemed like it was over before I knew it.

No way would I ever have gone out to buy either of these albums today. But thanks to the essential randomness of MusicBoomerang's algorithm, they both took me by surprise and turned my world around.

:confused::confused:
 
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