Getting sub-forum posts to show up in main forum?

[Platinumgamer]

Hi,

This is a follow-up to this thread: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showt...-in-main-forum and a subsequent support ticket.

Basically, I took over running the community side of a gaming website in February and have been working on a few changes for the forums. The previous Administrator of the forums decided at some point along the line to change the functionality of vBulletin so that posts made in sub forums didn't show up as new in searches or from the index, you would literally need to subscribe to the sub-forum or browse every section of the forums in order to check for new posts. The needs of the forum have shifted, and the need for sub-forum posts to show up has prompted me to try and undo this change; however, I can't seem to do that.

The problem is I cannot find a vB.org related modification that features this functionality (none of the products installed on the forums match this, either), so it had to have been done by the previous administrator. He isn't around any longer, so I can't ask for a hand on that front, and as it's a code modification, vB.com won't provide support. Can anyone here give me a bit of a hand in returning things back to normal functionality?

Thanks for your time!

[BirdOPrey5]

OK there is no built in setting to get subforum posts to show up in the main forum. I have a mod that does this, it requires modification of the forumdisplay.php file.

The mod is here: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=245414
It also links to a thread where getting sub-forums to show in the main forum was specifically addressed.

But if what you are saying is you want sunforum posts to how up in SEARCH results, that would be the default behavior. The old admin may have specifically excluded some forums from search results... Open the navbar template in the template editor and search for "search.php" - I think there are 9 standard occurrences of "search.php" in that template... look if any of the links have the code "&exclude=X,Y,Z" on them where X, Y, Z are forum id's of excluded forums in the search results... if so just remove the 'exclude' statements and it should work as normal.

[Platinumgamer]

Originally Posted by BirdOPrey5

OK there is no built in setting to get subforum posts to show up in the main forum. I have a mod that does this, it requires modification of the forumdisplay.php file.

The mod is here: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=245414
It also links to a thread where getting sub-forums to show in the main forum was specifically addressed.

But if what you are saying is you want sunforum posts to how up in SEARCH results, that would be the default behavior. The old admin may have specifically excluded some forums from search results... Open the navbar template in the template editor and search for "search.php" - I think there are 9 standard occurrences of "search.php" in that template... look if any of the links have the code "&exclude=X,Y,Z" on them where X, Y, Z are forum id's of excluded forums in the search results... if so just remove the 'exclude' statements and it should work as normal.

Hi BirdOPrey,

I checked the modification you posted, and the link posted in the modification thread; however, these aren't quite what I'm looking for. Granted, they would certainly be helpful if I can't get things back to normal (so definitely a big thank you for that one!).

I'm basically looking to restore default functionality, moreso than trying to add another modification. I checked the navbar template before looking for help, but as it relates to all subforums, including ones created just recently, there obviously weren't excluded IDs to be found. Also, it won't be limited to just search criteria, as new posts don't register in the main forum, either (ie: when a post is made in a sub-forum, normal behavior is to indicate that a new post has been made in the main forum. This isn't the case at the moment, as you actually need to be subscribed to or manually searching for the sub-forum in order to see if a new post has been made).

Not sure if that explains it any better, but to see the forums in-action (won't help much, unless you find a sub-forum with new posts...so it would require a lot of searching), take a look at http://forums.gamewinners.com/forums

Thanks for your help!

[BirdOPrey5]

I get what you're saying now, I think... lets say someone posts in your sub-forum- on forumdisplay it should show up as a new post in the main forum, even though the post isn't in the main forum per say... yes that is the default behavior but the only two forums I can see on your main page have the most recent posts in their main forums so I can't see it not working, but I 'll take your word for it...

There's 2 things to do... disable all plugins and see if it still acts the way it does, if so then it was a manual file edit in which case restoring the original (in your case 3.7.2) files should fix it.

[Platinumgamer]

Hi BirdOPrey,

Thank you for your help! I've gone through each and every product/plug-in installed on the forums, and none of them seem to affect this particular behavior. I've also been through every conceivable template that might bring about this behavior, but I can't see anything that might affect it.

I don't think it's a source code modification, but I don't have access to the files in order to check. This is more a shot in the dark / trying to "think aloud," but could there be something I'm overlooking? Obviously there is, or I'd have found the problem and fixed it...I'm just drawing blanks on this, as I've never even thought to change the functionality of vBulletin in that manner, so I don't know where to start looking in order to revert it.

[BirdOPrey5]

It's going to be difficult, if not impossible, to truly admin a forum without file access... all the brainstorming in the world would be useless if it's 2 lines of code changed in forumdisplay.php or the like... If it's not a product and not a template edit then everything points to a file edit. If it really was a setting I would bet someone would have chimed in by now on where to find it.

[Platinumgamer]

Originally Posted by BirdOPrey5

It's going to be difficult, if not impossible, to truly admin a forum without file access... all the brainstorming in the world would be useless if it's 2 lines of code changed in forumdisplay.php or the like... If it's not a product and not a template edit then everything points to a file edit. If it really was a setting I would bet someone would have chimed in by now on where to find it.

I can get the owner of the site to check the files; however, I don't presently have access to them at this point in time (owner runs the website full time, therefore he maintains FTP/server access, leaving me to run the community side with access to everything backend except the files). I'll check with him and see if there's an extra snippet of code or change lingering in one of the files and get him to revert things if he finds it...

Thanks again, I do sincerely appreciate the help!