I don't really have to turn off my board to alter tables do I?

[Gutspiller]

I'm working on installing a hack and it says to turn off my board while I run this:

1) Shut down your vBulletin then alter table - 'user' with this command:

ALTER TABLE user ADD pmunread SMALLINT(6) DEFAULT "0" NOT NULL;

I don't really need to turn it off do I? I've never turned off my board before to install a hack. Can somebody let me know if I need to and what may/could happen if I don't?

Thanks.

[assassingod]

No, never have I had trouble running queries with my board turned on. I highly doubt you would have a problem

[Chris Gwynne]

I assume it's just out of safety for members and them not seeing any errors. With your board turned off they aren't able to see such errors.

[Gutspiller]

OK, thanks. Sheesh, errors are better than a board turned off IMO.

[Erwin]

Today at 04:39 AM Gutspiller said this in Post #4
OK, thanks. Sheesh, errors are better than a board turned off IMO.

Not if the error corrupts your database, and you lose all your users, posts and threads.

[Gutspiller]

Today at 04:53 PM Erwin said this in Post #5
Not if the error corrupts your database, and you lose all your users, posts and threads.

:dead:

That would be bad. Maybe I ought to make sure my host keeps backups every night like they said they do.