VB 4.2.2 is what _caused_ the problem in my gardening forum! I was using the modified uploader and it worked fine. Did the upgrade, and it broke.

Now here's the odd thing... I run multiple forums (I own 8 licenses). They're all running VB 4.2.2 PL1. They're all, as far as I can tell, identical. They're all on the same server.

Two of them exhibit this issue. The others do not. It's reproducible, but not 100% consistent. Every once in a while it will work. Usually it does not.

Why it works in one and not another, all running on the same server and with the same version of VB is a total mystery.

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I don't think it's the flash uploader. In fact, I'm 99.9% sure it's not. The reason I say that is that I did some extensive testing, including "falling back" to the 0 byte swf file which makes it use the old and single file uploader. It exhibits the same problem.

Another reason. The file DOES upload. When you go to the edit the message, it's there. It shows up as a thumbnail and you can move it around etc. For a short time after you upload it, the "attachment xxxx" link actually works. Then, some time later, you get a file not found.

It's as if the file is uploading and being stored in some temp area, but not being written correctly. But the fact it works the same with both the uploader.swf and the basic uploader seem to indicate it's not the uploader.

I keep thinking, in the back of mind, that this problem showed up sometime in the past too. Can't recall if it was an issue with the graphics program, GD or Mogrify or what, but it seems vaguely familiar.

Maybe the process of associating that attachment with the post isn't completing correctly and then when the scheduled attachment cleanup task runs it thinks the 'asset' isn't being used in any posts and deletes it?

Does it show up in the asset manager after it's been uploaded?

That sounds like exactly what happened. I didn't think to check the attachment manager.

I'll check my other forums and see if I have one that's exhibiting the problem. I was sick of all the spammers signing up for that particular forum and since I didn't get any further replies to my question over at VB.com I decided to solve both problems at once and converted it over to Xenforo. And, well, I hate to say it, but it has far surpassed my expectations.

Good plan! That's where we are headed too just as soon as I can put together a XF solution which meets all our functionality requirements.

It's becoming a struggle just to maintain vB4 and the fact that it is basically shelved in terms of development does little for long term confidence.

It was a very hard choice. I really like VB. I'm strongly invested in it, I own 8 licenses for crying out loud, plus another 6 or 8 for my various Photopost and Reviewpost installations. I know it like the back of my hand.

This was a small and fairly inactive forum. I had a Chinese spammer that was signing up 3 or 4 times a day, doing 4 to 8 new registrations each time. Different IPs, but they'd all show up in the same minute, so easy to tell. I tried everything, even going so far as using Cloudflare. No luck, he still got through, though typically StopForumSpam would grabs his posts. But I still had to clean up his crap.

So I bought Xenforo and simply installed the default antispam. It's been online for a week. Every time I'd check, anywhere from 4 to 10 guests were shown as "registering" in the last 15 minutes that it shows online guests. But... Exactly two have even been able to complete the signup. They were both trapped in the stopforum spam approval queue. It's really cool, as you can set what does based on what factors. So I have it tripping on the user name, which I didn't like in VB since it gave false positives on practically every simple name like "Bob" Works great, no spam at all. Compare that to VB which honestly acted like he had a hack to sign up and bypass all the antispam stuff.

Now I do expect that to change once the fact it's a Xenforo forum gets out there via Google and those guys show up. But there's an antispam add on that looks to be very effective when that time comes.

The more I use it, the more I like it. My members love it, clean, functional, easy to use. You can log in with Facebook. It has a built in "Like" button. Installing a photo gallery was so dang simple that I had it done in under an hour including buying and downloading the silly thing. Would have been 1/2 hour if I'd known that you have to set permissions for it to show up. Basically it's exactly like a VB plugin, upload some stuff and install the app. Compare that to the hassle of setting up Photopost. Oh, and when you're done, the gallery is truly and completely integrated, no separate cookies, no log in problems, it just frigging works.

Yep, this is the beginning of the end for me. The only thing I'm asking myself is "Why in the hell did you wait so long?!?!"

http://www.gardenforums.com/forum/index.php

My attachments work in quick reply so whatever problem you seem to be having could be a setting or plugin or some fix you never added to 4.2.2 pl1

Yep, of course, it's something that I did wrong. After all, I've only been using VB for 12 years now, have 8 forums, and I don't know what I'm doing. Even if it was something I did wrong (which it certainly could be) the total lack of any response or help over at VB.com was the final straw and I've started migrating. VB 4 is approaching it's life end and I'm not at all impressed with VB 5, so this was simply a matter of time.

That's OK, Xenforo fixed that problem and lots more. Thanks though...

If it does not work it might or might not be something you did but you seem to be giving up on the problem and it could be just a simple fix. Yes it might take time to track it down but that is part of being a admin/coder and part of the fun for me finding and fixing problems i do enjoy it. But if you want to go to other software thats up to you.

You're right, I gave up. Vbulletin 4 is no longer being developed. VB 5 appears to be a buggy resource hog. There's not much reason to spend a lot of time (I've already wasted about 8 hours on it) tracking this down. I need to migrate soon anyway, so I may as well be now.