Frequently Asked Questions

​I need to transfer my site to another folder on my server. What do I need to do?

​How can I change the time zone in Dolphin?

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I need to transfer my site to another folder on my server. What do I need to do?

1) First of all, you need to move the whole structure of the Dolphin installation directory to the folder you like. You can use the "move" command in your FTP client or run this command

cd DOLPHIN_FOLDER
mv * DESTINATION_FOLDER

in your SSH account, where DOLPHIN_FOLDER is the folder where Dolphin is installed and DESTINATION_FOLDER is the folder where it needs to be placed.

2) Then you need to edit the paths in the file inc/header.inc.php: change the values of the following variables according to your current settings: $site['url'] and $dir['root']

3) Then change the path to dolphin directory in your crons. You can do that in your host's control panel account (for example, CPanel or Plesk) or in your SSH client by running this command:

crontab -e

4) And the last step is to clean /cache/ and /cache_public/ folders.

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How can I change the time zone in Dolphin?

You may know that all actions in Dolphin have their date/time specifications, such as Spy events, Blog and Forum posts, Chat messages, etc. All these events are stored in a MySQL database which by default uses the server time zone for them. But your web server may be located in a different country, so it may be necessary to adjust Dolphin time according to your (admin) location.

You will also need to change the default time zone for PHP so it could correspond to MySQL time zone. So here's how you can do it:

For PHP

Edit the file inc/header.inc.php.
Input this line:

date_default_timezone_set( timezone_identifier );

after

mb_regex_encoding('UTF-8');

There are a plenty of timezone_identifiers, but to make it simple, I will show only those that use GMT offsets.

It's strange but it's true that PHP uses these offsets in a different way: a negative offset becomes positive and on the contrary.

For example, if you live in the US/Central time zone, your GMT offset is supposed to be "-6", but you need to specify "Etc/GMT+6" as the timezone_identifier, and if you live in Europe/Berlin timezone, your GMT offset is supposed to be "+1" but you need to specify "Etc/GMT-1". Those who live in London, should specify "Etc/GMT" (please mind the quotation marks).

Those who live in time zones with fractional GMT offsets, will need to use their areas timezones in this format: "Asia/Rangoon", "Australia/Adelaide", etc.

The list of supported time zones can be found ​here.

For MySQL

You will need to change the time zone offsets in 3 files: for Dolphin itself, for Orca and for Ray.

The offset parameter should specify your time zone offset in comparison to GMT time, for example: +6:00, -7:30. And these offsets are already the ones we got used to.

Here are these files:
1) For Dolphin:
edit /inc/classes/BxDolDb.php
find the line:

mysql_query("SET sql_mode = ''", $this->link);

and put this line right after it:

mysql_query("SET @@local.time_zone='offset';", $this->link);

2) For Ray:
edit flash/modules/global/inc/db.inc.php and put this line

mysql_query("SET @@local.time_zone='offset';", $this->rLink);

after

mysql_query("SET @@local.connect_timeout=9000;", $this->rLink);

3) For Orca:
edit modules/boonex/forum/classes/BxDb.php and put this line

mysql_query("SET @@local.time_zone='offset';", $this->link);

after

mysql_query ("SET NAMES 'utf8'", $this->link);

Then you need to recompile Orca languages in Admin Dashboard -> Modules -> Orca Forum -> Manage Forum and also clear the site cache in Admin Dashboard -> Quick Overview -> Clear Cache

This is it. Now the time on all pages and in all widgets should correspond to admin's local time.