The sorting and paging of the SRS Review Summary screen has been fixed.

Thanks to ilya112358 for reminding me in Review Summary Multipage Bug #304.

Server move, server woes

We are working on moving the website to a new platform. Specifically to a LINODE compute instance. In theory this would provide a more reliable uptime than on shared hosting.

I should write more about this later. This has kept me busy since February. The site is running fine on LINODE. The main blocker for me right now is I can no longer use the simple php mail() functionality since those kind of re-usable servers can have their IP flagged and the emails are blocked by the receiver mail servers (or something like that).

In theory using SMTP email sending via Google servers would improve the reliability and delivery of the emails, so this is a good improvement. However I have been struggling this week trying to get GMail via SMTP with XOAuth2 working.

I managed to send a few mails with PHPMailer, but the documentation is anything but clear to me. I haven´t figured out a reliable way for the code to continue refreshing the OAuth tokens. Are there any other packages that I could use with step by step guide on how to set it up and refresh the tokens for a client app like this site?

If I get really frustrated with this there is a simpler method where you can use an "app password" but this requires enabling 2-factor authentication and I hate this feature. I hate having to pickup my iPad or phone whenever I want to sign in GMail. At least the hassle is not worth it on a secondary email account - since this is not my main email account.

If someone knows a good working example somewhere of implementing Google SMTP with XOauth2 and the token refresh part - that would be useful.

I'll be honest I hate that stuff. I hate it with a passion. Every hour I have to spend doing devops/backend stuff, is an hour I could be sitting with FIGMA doing some app design and implementing actual real features on the site and I'm sorry to vent but I am seriously PISSED OFF right now that I haven't been able to do anything worthwhile on this site for two months at least? This small bug fix today was actually a relief, however minor that was.

I have looked at a bunch of email services and they all cost money. Paying ~ 15 USD a month upfront just to send emails for a simple free web app to me is unacceptable. All these costs add up. Database backup, potential upgrade of the LINODE instance, etc.

I looked at various free options, for example SendGrid's free tier is up to 100 emails per day. Unfortunately 100 emails/day is just about the minimum. At peak times the site has seen upwards of 60-80 signups in a day. So if you add "forgot password", "update passord" emails and so on, we're just barely under 100 emails/day.

Google SMTP servers allow to send up to 500 emails for free per day (per rolling 24h to be precise). So this should be plenty for awhile... once I can get it working that is.

Here is Froschroom by Mouse on Mars. 1994 baby! That should soothe my soul for a little while...