Thinking of downgrading and losing everything
 

I absolutely hate the headaches that VB5 is generating for my users. I have been up for less than a month, we have close to 100 members and even sight sponsors who pay to advertise. People say "no hard feelings but you don't have that much on your forum" YES WE DO, there are forums who have been up for years with less members and content than we have. I am not the biggest and baddest and I know this and understand this, but we do have growth. Our growth will only continue from here too. We had marketing strategies in place and thousands of dollars set aside for advertisements, all for what seems like nothing.

Data errors, image issues, site crashing when I post an announcement, PM problems, Avatar problems.

I want to completely delete everything, because VB didnt think it would be a good idea to sell a %$@# software and allow a content transferable downgrade, and start over with VB4.
To be honest I want to get the heck away from VB all together because of this bitter experience, but I have already invested in the software.

I really do not know what to do. I feel like I will lose momentum on the forum if I scrap everything and start fresh. But at the same time it is losing momentum while at this VB5 stand still.

Does any one have any idea when the patch will be released? Is there ANY hope that some of these issues will be fixed soon?

If you decide to downgrade you may make an empty installation and then carefully kraft some queries in order to transfer some of the data from vb5 to vb4. It is not easy, but it's possible.

My problem is I am completely ignorant to all this. Any set up so far has all been paid. I am at a loss for all of this, VB should come in and help with a downgrade if that is what it takes.

I am happy to install vb4 for you for free as i know all the problems you have been having

With all my respect, I believe IB will not invest a single penny into up- and downgrading tools. However if there are quite some people interested, I could give it a shot for downgrading.

Nevertheless I firmly (still) object the selling of vb5 as stable and refuse to sell vb4, while vb5 is still very weak and at the time wasn't much more than a popped beta. I acquired myself a vb5 license but haven't tried it since beta testing, just because I still have the feeling it is going to be a historical flop. IB has the difficult task to keep the customers kicking, while they kick their developers, more or less literally, to higher levels of software consciousness ;)

I really do appreciate everything you have done for me. I appreciate your offer too. I am still just on the fence about this entire situation.

I wish they would have had a warning at the purchase or even install about it still being a beta software or that there are still bugs running rampant. I URGE any one installing VB to run for your life as far away as possible from VB5. The only reason I am still running it is because I have members and content that I do not want to lose.



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How would downgrade and still manage to keep my content and registered users? How possible is this?

Do you not have any old back ups from before the upgrade to 5?

This was my original install.

What big problems are you facing right now with 5?

I bet you could use Impex but I am not positive. Any idea on this if it would work Zachary or anyone?

Just create a new default Vbulletin install of the version you want and import the data from the version 5 forum using Impex.

Nope. Vbulletin 5 isn't a valid source, and there isn't a map for impex for it.

I think time would be better spent identifying the issues that you're having now, and working to correct them.

Image and video issues. Users can not upload videos or pictures with out issue.

Sometimes you go back to a thread and images or videos are missing.

Avatar issues.

Mobile issues, even with tapatalk.

Little things like that. But they keep the users from wanting to come back because of how difficult it is to make a post. Even lost a site sponsor because they could not post pictures of their product. Just had one of my moderators vote to downgrade and start over.

I am thinking this is the route we want to take, but is there ANY way to salvage our content? Will all of our users have to RE-register?

--------------- Added [DATE]1394810491[/DATE] at [TIME]1394810491[/TIME] ---------------

This is what I keep hearing but no one has a solution on how exactly to fix them. I am not a programmer, I am an average Joe who would like to build a forum for a community of people. I believe there is success in this and it will be a very big forum in the future, not with set backs like this though.

how about importing vB5 into another software, then using impex to import to vb4? Theres a vB5 tool to convert to IPB

First, lets start with the images / videos.

You should have no issues uploading either, assuming you had no issues uploading them in 4.

Check your attachment settings: AdminCP > Attachments > Attachment MAnager

Are all of your attachment types setup to be large enough to host the images users want? vBulletin 3/4 will attempt to resize images to fit to the limits, 5 has a bug where it is not. Though this is either corrected in 5.1.0 or 5.1.1, I don't remember which off the top of my head, but I suspect its 5.1.1.

I've never heard of images, or videos disappearing from a thread before.

What specific issue with avatars?

Can you try upgrading to 5.1.0?

Tell me how to upgrade and I will get some one on it.

Avatar issues, it selects what portion of the avatar it wants to and displays it. Certain parts of the image will be cut off or missing and a black box will fill the rest of the avatar area.

Sometimes avatars will upload sideways instead of normal. Some times it will not let users adjust images at all.

<a href="http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/upgrade" target="_blank">http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/upgrade</a>

I've never seen an avatar upload sideways, that is new.

Yeah there are several tricky things happening. Lots of data errors and complications. Mostly with Images.

Hell, I posted an announcement and the entire site crashed. was lucky to open the announcement back up and delete it.

Yea, that is a bug specific to 5.0.5 that has been resolved in 5.1.0.

sent you a PM zach.

Which was very welcomed, I must say.

The bug was pretty specific to a bunch of stuff we were trying to optimize, and sadly, it slipped though the regression testing. We weren't happy about it, we try to catch that stuff before it goes out, but sometimes it does. We do try to make sure stuff like that gets addressed in the next release if at all possible.

--------------- Added [DATE]1394892747[/DATE] at [TIME]1394892747[/TIME] ---------------

Ok we installed 5.1.0 and it is still a bit early to tell if it has fixed anything. We need users to interact and since the majority of our users own a boat of some sorts they are all out fishing :)

After installing it I used tapatalk to see if I could post images and then I got this error message

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/external/2014/03/18.jpg

I logged out and logged back in to refresh the install and I successfully posted a new thread AND a picture. HOWEVER, shortly after that it kept giving users the same message and myself too. Even after logging out and logging back in. No Go, any suggestions?

You'd wanna work with tapatalk on bugs on their end.