[mdawg]

Well as noted,
I had to disable this mod for vb 4.2.5 / PhP 7.1.7 as whenever I tried to access admin would get this error

Error: Using $this when not in object context in ..../dbtech/status/hooks/init_startup.php on line 17

I have many DBTech mods installed too, but this one has the above issue. All DBTech mods have issues though, not one of them works perfectly. If you think they all work perfectly, then you are simply accepting that they run without checking all post counts and verifying them, examining carefully the post counts after making PMs versus before PMs (which it should not be adding PMs to post counts), taking a look at unread PM count versus actual unread PM count, looking carefully at the vbshout and the way its options affect results before and after, etc. I'm not getting into the specific issues on which mod rather mentioning some of them, but they are there. For example, create a brand new vb5 forum and install all the DBTech mods on it and take a look at what its InfoPanels mod tells you are the post counts, unread PMs, etc. and you will see how off it is. Or make a vbshout and notice that your post count goes up, which a vbshout is not a post.

The vb5 DBTech mods especially are in need of update.