Uh oh, i hope this isn't right

[Viruseater]

man, I've been using vbulletin for so many years it's funny In fact, I remember the big scramble the forum members made back in somewhere around 2000 that I was changing from UBB Forums to vBulletin.

That was FOURTEEN years ago. holy mackeral!

I don't run much with forums now, but i do still have a few clients using it. Recently I decided to upgrade one to vb5 connect with the mobile suite. I didn't do a ton of research, Iv'e been thinking about it for awhile, but the horrid price bothered me. especially getting only a 40 dollar discount for all my v4 licenses.

Anyway, I bought the software and before I did the install I decided to poke around and see what new nifty mods/products were out.

The mod/style forums are like graveyards. is it just me? am I missing something?

what in the world happened?

[ozzy47]

No, you did not miss anything. Most developers won't work with vB5 because of the lack of the hooks system in the core.

Sad to say, it might get added at some point, but I doubt many of the developers will come back, as they have moved on to other things or other forum platforms.

[Digital Jedi]

vB5 is very new, and as I understand it, essentially rewritten software. Many of the coders from the vB3/vB4 days are no longer developing for it, and the current version is pretty much considered too new and buggy to invest too much time in just yet. I'm also under the impression that it doesn't have a hook system yet, but maybe I'm looking at old info.

There's considerable bias against vB5 at this stage from the development community. Whether it's justified or not, it's had an effect on the number of mods available, and the number of coders stil on vBulletin.

[ozzy47]

Ummm, it is not new, vBulletin 5 Connect was released as a stable 'gold' product on 21 February 2013 still missing many features

Yes the hooks system is still missing.

[Viruseater]

yeah I'm certainly not going to chastize it, it just really shocked me that i had to change the default thread view just to see anything. years back I'd be inundated with mods looking in there.

what a bummer.

I suppose it doesn't help that much of the board community migrated to Facebook

[ozzy47]

I suppose it doesn't help that much of the board community migrated to Facebook

It might not help, but it does not hurt it as much as one would think.

Forum based sites are doing just fine. vB5 had issues from the get go, and it's release 3 years after alot of people paid already to upgrade to vB4, put a sour taste in their mouths.

[Digital Jedi]

I'm 41. That's new to me. :erm:

[Viruseater]

It might not help, but it does not hurt it as much as one would think.

Forum based sites are doing just fine. vB5 had issues from the get go, and it's release 3 years after alot of people paid already to upgrade to vB4, put a sour taste in their mouths.

i see what you're saying but forums are no where near as popular as they used to be, and twitter/facebook have a lot to do with the evolution of community communication.

i mean obviously i'm not saying forums are dead, but their prominance is substantially lower than it was 8 years ago

I'm just a little bummed. I also wasn't aware of the lack of hooks which bothers me because I had intentions of developing some things, but that might not be possible.

I'll figure it out, just very surprised. I'm definitely not looking to change platforms at this point.

[WeeeBen]

How hard are these hooks? I'm guessing hooks are something to hook features onto?
If that's what's killing vb5 then why wouldn't that be the first thing they fix?

[ozzy47]

They removed them intentionally in vB5. :P

[Replicant]

How hard are these hooks? I'm guessing hooks are something to hook features onto?
If that's what's killing vb5 then why wouldn't that be the first thing they fix?

It would have to be something they want before they think about adding it.

Personally, I run VB5 and I like it. The bugs I encountered were dealt with and I have buggy features turned off until they get them working correctly.

I have a couple mods that I wrote that work just fine. When upgrade time comes, it'll be more work for me without the hook system but I don't have a problem with that. I only have one forum to worry about so it isn't a big deal to me.

[ozzy47]

Some things you can not do with a mod without editing core files. The hooks system was intended to stop that.

Turning off features that are buggy is just silly, the bugs should be fixed. But instead they add new features to the core, rather than fixing what is there.

[Viruseater]

yeah no doubt. for the most part you can do whatever you want anyway I mean please, these aren't zend encoded files. PHP is PHP

To Weeben, you use hooks to tap into the functionality of a program.

A hook is an option in a library were the user code can link a function to change the behavior of the library. but the library function doesn't need to run along side the users code or of the library.

There' also "API" mentioned here. an API does things by sending a request in and getting a response, hooks skip that step.

But I remember back in the day we used to have to edit core files for styles. it wasn't until a later point that styles were broken out. I might be remembering UBB but i'm pretty sure vbulletin worked this way too back in the day.

Back then to do any mods you edit core files. T he problem with it is you have to document the heck out of everything because when you upgrade you write over those system files you edited and lose your mod. I mean you should document everything anyway, but... well yeah.

There's also the chance I'm not exlaining it right, but you get the idea

--------------- Added 1421590420 at 1421590420 ---------------

It would have to be something they want before they think about adding it.

Personally, I run VB5 and I like it. The bugs I encountered were dealt with and I have buggy features turned off until they get them working correctly.

I have a couple mods that I wrote that work just fine. When upgrade time comes, it'll be more work for me without the hook system but I don't have a problem with that. I only have one forum to worry about so it isn't a big deal to me.

I'm sure I'll be fine. i'm going to lose some tings I already know, but things change. i'm pretty sure we'll survive on the forum :)

the big difference for me is that I'm migrating a full blown CMS written on a different platform and bringing it into vb to use as a main site and a forum. So i'm a bit stressed how that will all play out. but once done it will be so nice to not run two completely different platforms for one website.

[Replicant]

Some things you can not do with a mod without editing core files. The hooks system was intended to stop that.

I did edit my core files and it would have been nice to have a hooks system. I'm not arguing the point, I want hooks too, but we're not going to see them materialize and I'm not going to hassle with a downgrade to VB4, so I might as well learn to live with it.

Turning off features that are buggy is just silly, the bugs should be fixed. But instead they add new features to the core, rather than fixing what is there.

Again, I agree the bugs should be fixed before adding new features, but leaving buggy features on would be silly.


I'm sure I'll be fine. i'm going to lose some tings I already know, but things change. i'm pretty sure we'll survive on the forum :)



I hope your migration goes as smooth as possible. I don't envy you at all.

[ozzy47]

I mean proof is in the stats, as far as how the development community has taken to vB5.

vB4 was released as Gold in December of 2009. In December of 2011, two years after it's release, these were the stats. (source, https://web.archive.org/web/20111226173153/https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/forumdisplay.php?f=198 and https://web.archive.org/web/20111225232647/https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/forumdisplay.php?f=212)

vBulletin 4.x Add-ons: 1359
vBulletin 4.x Template Modifications: 473
vBulletin 4.x Styles: 313

Now lets look at vB5, two years after it's release.

vBulletin 5.x Products & Extensions: 53
vBulletin 5.x Template Modifications: 21
vBulletin 5.x Styles: 21

Also two years after vB5 is released, the market share of vB5 installs is only at 1.4% of all vBulletin instillation's, which shows, even the member base using vBulletin don't like the direction it went in. (source, https://tools.digitalpoint.com/cookie-search)

Not to mention that many users/coders have moved away from vBulletin to other platforms.

[cellarius]

Just read the threads here and in the licensed customers feedback forum on vb.com. It is by no means just the hook system. vB5, after 2 years out (so much for it being "new"...) still misses tons of features vB had before (and the features present more often than not are badly designed, half-assed implementations). it is notorious for being a ressource hog and still painingly slow, and I won't even get started on code quality.

And I'm someone who never ever thought of abandoning vB.

[Brandon Sheley]

Recently I decided to upgrade one to vb5 connect with the mobile suite.

First mistake

I didn't do a ton of research
See first mistake :up:

[Viruseater]

I've been using vbulletin for 14 years and never had a problem. it's been out for 2 years. I don't think it's a stretch under 99.99% of cases to not do that much looking.

plus it's not like i've even started yet. i just got it

--------------- Added 1421606962 at 1421606962 ---------------

Just read the threads here and in the licensed customers feedback forum on vb.com. It is by no means just the hook system. vB5, after 2 years out (so much for it being "new"...) still misses tons of features vB had before (and the features present more often than not are badly designed, half-assed implementations). it is notorious for being a ressource hog and still painingly slow, and I won't even get started on code quality.

And I'm someone who never ever thought of abandoning vB.

So waht's the deal? i didn't even realize they sold?!?!? so the development roadmap changed? I swear I thought everyone was excited for 5? Then again I never migrate early like that, i always let everyone else do the bug working, and usually dont upgrade till there are 2 minor prs. but 2 YEARS LOL

seriously though, it bums me out. This is one platform that I always bragged about. How the code seemed clean (not pristine but it sure was better than a lot of stuff) and how flexible it got. The swing from 2 to 3 was huge. Then 3 to 4 well, Iam thinking I waited over a year for that one. 2 this time.

This souinds really familiar. i've been a project manager for 26 years, and dealing with vendors when things fall apart like this it is almost always one of two things.

1. company went broke
2. development heads leave and standards/procedures change

sigh. oh well, I'm sure I'll still enjoy working with it, just not as much as before. I always got exc cited when it was time to upgrad a major PR

I WILL say, the only negative thing that comes to mind, it didn't please me that I paid for 4 then in a 2 year span had to pay even more than that purchase, even after considering the 'upgrade' value. I did it based on my faith of the past decade and a half. I'm concerned a bit now. That part bugged me about the upgrade. I get a better discount with just a referal at lots of places. 11% discount for a current customer? wow. i remember thinking "Well, it IS vb, so they're banking on their reputation i'm sure' but i haven't been in the loop for several years. things certainly have changed.

[Max Taxable]

Personally, I run VB5 and I like it..When a crap sandwich is all we know, we might think that crap sandwich is pretty good.

There isn't any amount of selling, pitching, testifying, or anything else that is going to convince people who know what a good sandwich is, into buying the crap sandwich.

There's also not any amount of fixing, redesigning, repairing or putting lipstick on that pig, that is going to make it NOT still be a crap sandwich. Because at its core is, crap.

And that's the memo.

[Replicant]

When a crap sandwich is all we know, we might think that crap sandwich is pretty good.

There isn't any amount of selling, pitching, testifying, or anything else that is going to convince people who know what a good sandwich is, into buying the crap sandwich.

There's also not any amount of fixing, redesigning, repairing or putting lipstick on that pig, that is going to make it NOT still be a crap sandwich. Because at its core is, crap.

And that's the memo.

Ah man, now I'm hungry.

[Brandon Sheley]

I've been using vbulletin for 14 years and never had a problem. it's been out for 2 years. I don't think it's a stretch under 99.99% of cases to not do that much looking.


That's what vb5 is counting on, also they closed down the feedback forums on vb.com a long time ago so the general public couldn't see how horrible the customer reviews are.

Here are a few reviews that I found with a quick google search
https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.vbulletin.com


So waht's the deal? i didn't even realize they sold?!?!? so the development roadmap changed? I swear I thought everyone was excited for 5?
Internet brands bought vbulletin is 2007, which was 8 years ago. It's gone downhill since.
Internet brands sold to KKR last year.

No one is excited about vbulletin 5, which you're figuring out now if you've started playing with it.

[Viruseater]

That's what vb5 is counting on, also they closed down the feedback forums on vb.com a long time ago so the general public couldn't see how horrible the customer reviews are.

Here are a few reviews that I found with a quick google search
https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.vbulletin.com


Internet brands bought vbulletin is 2007, which was 8 years ago. It's gone downhill since.
Internet brands sold to KKR last year.

No one is excited about vbulletin 5, which you're figuring out now if you've started playing with it.

yeah see my problem is as i moved out of development I moved out of that 'loop' or i'd have known all this.

I'm still not terribly worried, althought I have yet, in two tries, to get it to install but I'm sure once i get back up to speed I'll figure it out. I just ran th install script to see if it would work out of the gate.

[nerbert]

I was suspicious when they switched from a license you had to renew annually to a one time for-the life-of-the-version system. The way you make money with that is planned obsolescence and (hopefully) improvements.

I've regarded "New and Improved!" with deep skepticism ever since about 1980 when Heinz 57 Sauce was "improved" to taste like spicy ketchup.

Products seem to travel an arc from their early designs when improvements made them better to a time when 'improvements' just change them to a time when "improvements" make them worse.

[Viruseater]

let's be honest here. Most software that gets huge comes in, gets big, stays awhile then fades and something else comes in.

vb was the defacto bb system for a very long time. it surprised me, but it was alsot pretty nice because i hate having to learn something new (i think that's called being lazy).

Oh well life goes on. I don't think I'll be jumping ship any time soon unless i run into huge problems

[Max Taxable]

let's be honest here. Most software that gets huge comes in, gets big, stays awhile then fades and something else comes in.vBulletin showed no signs at all of fading, until IB totally screwed it up with version 5.

[Viruseater]

that's my point. it weathered that long storm that usually separates the big time programs with the here today gone tomorrow style

[Max Taxable]

that's my point. it weathered that long storm that usually separates the big time programs with the here today gone tomorrow styleBut, that's not what you said. :D

There was no storm, until the release of version 5.

[cellarius]

There was no storm, until the release of version 5.
Definitely not true. Maybe you were not around when vB4 was released, but if that wasn't a strom, I really don't know. People tend to forget that the first versions of vB4 were absolutely horrid. It became usable not before 4.0.7 or so, and what I would call stable not before 4.2. Not it's solid, thanks to the forum's codebase being still largely vB3 code - but if you want to see where vB5 comes from, just look at the vB4 CMS.

[Dave]

Definitely not true. Maybe you were not around when vB4 was released, but if that wasn't a strom, I really don't know. People tend to forget that the first versions of vB4 were absolutely horrid. It became usable not before 4.0.7 or so, and what I would call stable not before 4.2. Not it's solid, thanks to the forum's codebase being still largely vB3 code - but if you want to see where vB5 comes from, just look at the vB4 CMS.

I agree although I have a feeling they simply ignore feedback and feature requests for vBulletin 5?
vBulletin 5 could be a good product if they simply listen to the developers and customers.

[cellarius]

And why should they now, all of a sudden, after six years (at least), do that? It will not happen.

Anyway, I have seen enough of vB5 code that there will ever be a turnaround. Even if they would start to listen, by now I doubt that they could do it.

[Max Taxable]

Definitely not true. Maybe you were not around when vB4 was released, but if that wasn't a strom, I really don't know. People tend to forget that the first versions of vB4 were absolutely horrid. It became usable not before 4.0.7 or so, and what I would call stable not before 4.2. Not it's solid, thanks to the forum's codebase being still largely vB3 code - but if you want to see where vB5 comes from, just look at the vB4 CMS.Yes I remember all of this but it never seemed to be as bad as the v5 reaction. At least with v4 there was still SOME resemblance to version 3. Plus people by and large, seem to really like v4. Initial reaction may have been bad but nothing like we're seeing now.

[HM666]

Personally, I run VB5 and I like it. The bugs I encountered were dealt with and I have buggy features turned off until they get them working correctly.


Why? Why just "deal" with buggy software until they "fix" it? That is just out of the question. When you pay $250-$285 for software it should NOT have so many bugs out of the gate and pretty much EVERYTHING should work out of the box! When are they going to fix it? Its been over a year now so when does the fix come? Dude, I'm sorry but there is NO WAY I'd run something extremely buggy if I could help it with a promise of we will fix everything.

[Digital Jedi]

Why? Why just "deal" with buggy software until they "fix" it? That is just out of the question. When you pay $250-$285 for software it should NOT have so many bugs out of the gate and pretty much EVERYTHING should work out of the box! When are they going to fix it? Its been over a year now so when does the fix come? Dude, I'm sorry but there is NO WAY I'd run something extremely buggy if I could help it with a promise of we will fix everything.
I think the distinction people miss here is the one between the average vB.org user (or vB.com, or TAZ or any of those plances) and the remaining admins who probably make up the majority. I don't really think the majority of people running vBulletin are really all that involved with this, or many admin communities. They might come in, post about a problem, download a few mods, and never be heard from again. Meaning, regardless of how many bugs you know are in there, it's never going to be an issue for these admins who mostly use vBulletin stock. And anything they don't like, they disable. Factor in those people who have no idea what vB was like "before", because they're new forum admins, and you have quite a few people who simply never consider the bugs an issue. Basically, the road is full of potholes. But I never drive far enough from home to hit any of them.

[HM666]

*Sigh* Yeah I know :( Its a shame because it was once really awesome. I miss it.

[cellarius]

Yes I remember all of this but it never seemed to be as bad as the v5 reaction.
That's because many - like myself - were prepared to give IB the benefit of the doubt and a second chance. They tried to pull the same stunt twice. And no doubt, they'll do it a third time.

[Replicant]

Why? Why just "deal" with buggy software until they "fix" it? That is just out of the question. When you pay $250-$285 for software it should NOT have so many bugs out of the gate and pretty much EVERYTHING should work out of the box! When are they going to fix it? Its been over a year now so when does the fix come? Dude, I'm sorry but there is NO WAY I'd run something extremely buggy if I could help it with a promise of we will fix everything.

Trust me, in the beginning, I was really disappointed and pissed at the same time. My first month and a half, basically built the bulk of the content on the site between myself and my users(started out with 12). We all came from a close to out of the box VB4 environment as users, so some of the new features in VB5 were exciting and new to us.

When I realized how many bugs I was dealing with, I wanted to move on to something else but buying IP board was out of the question and "reverting to VB4 is not possible at this time" was the answers I got when I asked. (I didn't even know I had a license to VB4 at the time). So I just rolled up my sleeves and hit it head on. I may be new to forum software, but have used Linux on my desktop for 18 years. Chasing down bugs and working them out is really not an issue for me. I've become very intimate with the database and very seldom use the site builder for anything other than a quick html adjustment. I create my custom pages with cli scripts, adjust routing tables manually when I come across an simple issue that plagues the rest of the user base like renaming articles to homepage. It really isn't that complicated and I have a wide enough skill set to handle it.

I'm happy with the performance of my VB5 as are my users. I've worked out many of the bugs that are still present in the stock installation and I've done some custom work as well and will continue to modify it.

If I get tired of dealing with it, then I will either downgrade to VB4 or move on to another brand.
Probably the latter because lately I see more support issues for version 4 than 5 on VB.com.

[Brandon Sheley]

That's because many - like myself - were prepared to give IB the benefit of the doubt and a second chance. They tried to pull the same stunt twice. And no doubt, they'll do it a third time.

This ^

When vbulletin 4 was released in poor shape many of use wanted to give it a chance knowing how successful vbulletin 3 was for years. When it took 2-3 years before vbulletin 4 was in a stable condition we figured, surely the next version would start off stronger.
We were all wrong.

One thing to note is vbulletin 4 and 5 both had alpha and beta groups go over the code and offer suggestions and explained why something wouldn't work. The really strange thing is both times, in beta 4 and beta 5 groups, for the most part our criticism was completely ignored and the shareholders carried more weight then experienced admins did.

It's obvious to everyone that this is how things will be ran from now on with vbulletin. The management doesn't care about the users or their customers, they only care about sales and how to squeeze more money out of the product. Since vbulletin 4 was released there have been additional addons in the core that are only there to create more income on vbulletins part.. eg the email marketing plugin, the classifieds plugin, the mobile app. With the exception of the mobile app (which has been broken for 2 years) the others are purely there to create addition income for vbulletin themselves and in 99% of the installs I've personally touched, have been disabled and are considered bloatware.

In short.. vbulletin only cares about bringing in more money, they don't care of the product is crap and will in fact sell it as "the greatest forum platform in the world" even if they are 100% aware that it's full of bugs and VERY poorly written as we've all seen vbulletin 5 is.

It's not coincidental that zero of the code reviews for vbulletin 5 have been positive.

[nhawk]

...
One thing to note is vbulletin 4 and 5 both had alpha and beta groups go over the code and offer suggestions and explained why something wouldn't work. The really strange thing is both times, in beta 4 and beta 5 groups, for the most part our criticism was completely ignored and the shareholders carried more weight then experienced admins did.
...

I can vouch for this. We told them vB5 was nowhere near ready for release. But they released it anyway.

[Max Taxable]

I think the biggest difference though between the reactions was, v4 was at least somewhat related to v3. Mods for 3.8 would work or could be easily adjusted to work, with the v4. Therefore the community was alot more forgiving.

v5 is a completely different animal, related to vBulletin in name only. It's like putting Cadillac badging on a Yugo.

[cellarius]

I can vouch for this.
Me 2.

[ozzy47]

I can vouch for this.

Here, here. :)

[Viruseater]

Well,

I thought I'd come back and update this thread.

What a disaster, vb5 was a complete failure for us. it sucked enormous server resources, cost over 200 man hours of work trying to upgrade an 8 year running forum, was so bad once it was finally migrated, 2 days later we reverted.

had a support ticket in at VB which they abandoned after 3 days. SEVEN days later he responds again letting me know he was 'off work for a few days'. unbelievable. As a side note, we don't run FTP services on our servers. the tech demanded ftp access and when told we don't use it, that I wasn't refusing it just wasn't available, he made the bogus claim that FTP is requirement to run vb LOL

submitted for a refund. they were so vindicitive they actually suspended my previous license for vb4, denied the refund, and their reaasoning was that they gave us the link to download the software and the link worked. so no refund.

thankfully i didn't go into this unprotected, and we won a paypal dispute and got our $550 back.

they finally reinstated the existing license for vb4, and I am absolutely, completely done with vb

how they are even still in business is beyond me. they couldn't evne respond to the paypal dispute, i'm sure because they knew they'd lose.

what a debacle.

thankfully I found out what happened after IB bought them, and where the 'fab 4' eventually went, and that's the same trip I'm taking.

I feel sorry for anyone that tries to maintain with vb5. maybe if it's a brand new forum they'd be ok, but upgrading a mature board? over 200 hours, and errors in the logs so bad we had to turn logging off completely because the logs would fill with gigs of data.

unbelievable. i can't even imagine what would happen if the person trying to upgrade didn't know PHP. heck i even posted in their forum, their vbtest script was broken, was looking for the wrong version of MySQL, I corrected it, then realized the error we got was bogus too. it claimed permissions problems on tables. the real problem was it was looking for the wrong version of MySQL, but they had duplicated the index for error response codes. so it was dumping out the wrong failure reason.

when told this, they ignored me completely even though I corrected their test script for them. I downloaded the software a week later and it had the same vbtest script in it that was broken

[HM666]

WOW...Sorry to hear that. I hope things work out for you.

[Viruseater]

Oh no harm here. other than the headache of the upgrade attempt. I gutted it out and finally got it done, but even when done it jusdt.... sucked.

one thing i will say, the original guys (that are now *elsewhere*) did some nice stuff. the CLI install/upgrade saved my ass during this process. having to fight with http overhead i don't think it would have ever gotten done.

So since we did get the money back, it's all good, but honestly I thought we were screwed and wouldn't get that money

[HM666]

Well that's good that you got it sorted. :)