Board Optimization - [DBTech] vB Optimise 2.0.1 (Lite)

vB Optimise Lite

The newly revamped vB Optimise was created for vBulletin 4, but has now been made compatible for vBulletin 3.8. In this release I have re-coded vB Optimise from the gound and focused stability over features, you'll notice Phrase Caching and vBAdvanced Integration have bit the dust, this is to maintain a sync state between this version and the vBulletin 4 release.

Professional version & feature list available @ www.DragonByte-Tech.com/forum
Priority support for Lite version is handled at the Developers Website.


What does it do?

vB Optimise is intended to optimise vBulletin software by integrating several PHP "cachers" and handling data before vBulletin. This works by encountering and handling data prior to vBulletin in order to skip the arbitary execution that would be more server intensive.

Real-Life Statistics

We've teamed up with some Big Forums to show you the impact of vB Optimise, you can view this public chart which shows both our statistics and theirs:

View Public vB Optimise Resource Statistics

Features

• Supported Extensions
  • APC
  • eAccelerator
  • Memcache
  • XCache
  • WinCache
  • Filecache
• Style Cacher
  Caches style data to globally reduce a query within all vBulletin forum-based pages.
• Template Cacher
  Caches template data to globally reduce a query within all vBulletin forum-based pages.
• Datastore Cacher
  Forces custom datastore items from modifications (including those from vB's blogs) to use your configured Datastore Cache method instead of being forced into the database. This reduces page queries by where affected.
• vB CMS Template Caching
  (Automatic) Corrects many uncached templates within vB CMS to reduce upto 20+ queries on CMS pages (number varies based on content).
• Optimal Settings Check
  Provides a quick interface to identify possible settings which can be changed on your forum for further optimisation.
• Self-System Tester
  Provides a relatively straight-forward system check to ensure your vB Optimise installation works fully.
• Automatic Cache Flusher
  Automatically flushes cache within the Admin CP based on specific triggers to make sure content does not remain stale on your forum.
• XCache Authentification
  Supports XCache Admin Authentification by allowing you specify the username/password in a configuration if needs be.

Features - Pro

• Notices Cacher
  Caches users dismissed notices to reduce a near-global query within all vBulletin forum-based pages.
• Showgroups Cacher
  Caches the showgroups query which becomes more intensive as your user-base grows.
• Forum Display Query Enhancement
  Enhances a stock vBulletin query within Forum Display to speed up the page.
• Forum Home WOL Cache
  Caches Forum Home "Who's Online" to remove an intensive query and allow larger sites to display this data without impact.
• vB Cache Override (Feature not available on vBulletin 3)
  Ability to override vBulletins new built-in database cacher for the CMS / Forum Sidebar Blocks to remove anything from 1 to 20+ queries based on your content.
• Full Guest Caching
  Ability to cache entire pages and serve them saving not only hundreds of queries but upto 90% of CPU processing towards Guests.
• Statistical Resource Savings
  Ability to see just exactly how many queries per day vB Optimise has saved your database. You'll be surprised at the numbers.
• Forum Resource Statistic
  Shows off vB Optimise resource saving statistics directly within forumhome statistics.
• ....and more!

Release Notes

If you've used vB Optimise before you'll be aware the previous version had phrase caching, however this caused complications with the way phrases are used within vBulletin so it has not been ported over at this time.


Available Translations
v1.6.0 French - Thanks to finereader

Change Log

[>>] Version 2.0.1
New launch for vB 3.8

[>>] Version 1.6.1
Automatic Cache Flusher has additional parameters to make sure no data is stale
Resolved Bug: Potential PHP error when using eAccelerator which cannot flush within Admin CP on certain actions

[>>] Version 1.6.0
New OpCode Cacher Support: WinCache

[>>] Version 1.5.0
Resolved Bug: Style cache may have fetched ID 0 instead of correct file
Resolved Bug: Filecache permissions may not have worked
Optimisation: Re-wrote some base code to enhance operations.

[>>] Version 1.0.1
Added XCache Authentification Support
Added Filecache Support

Support

Priority support will be handled at DBTech.

FAQ

Q: I have WinCache installed, but vB Optimise tells me it's not?
A: WinCache only introduced OpCode support in version 1.1, if you're using version 1.0.x you will need to upgrade.

Q: I'm using the XCache method, flushing doesn't work?
A: If you have XCache authentification, turn the admin option on within vB Optimise Settings, then edit ./vboptimise/config.php and specify your XCache username/password. Alternatively you can disable XCache authentification within php.ini:

xcache.admin.enable_auth = Off

Q: I have eAccelerator installed, but vB Optimise tells me it's not?
A: eAccelerator does not provide the caching extension by default, you will need to recompile PHP with additional flags. For more information read eAccelerator documentation located here: http://eaccelerator.net/wiki/CompileConfiguration (Specifically look at: with-eaccelerator-shared-memory)

[tmc]

Yeah, I strongly recommend anyone to NOT install this.. It ended up breaking too many things. Notices, the ACP was screwy and even unusable (with ACP caching turned OFF), and it actually INCREASED server load while it was on because PHP or PHP as FastCGI take up more CPU to serve the massive amount of templates and phrases than MySQL does. There were blank automated threads and PMs from some of my modifications, and I can't even remember what else went wrong....

So I certainly don't recommend using a PHP cache or File Caching with this (still parses through PHP) as PHP has a hard enough time running vB on busy boards.

I may try Memcache soon on a live site, though, but it seemed slightly slower in testing. But I think it may bypass the high CPU issue with using PHP accelerators.. And I'd only use it if the ACP could actually start working again, and I wouldn't be receiving the dozen other errors I had from it.

It's kind of sad, actually, that this is being so blindly voted for in MOTM. Most of the voters don't even need it, or know how it works. Whereas I am a programmer myself and administer all my own servers and can see the havoc this wreaked in the limited time I allowed it to run on a live site.

[Jaxel]

I cant properly uninstall this mod... it hangs at the "Updating style information for each style" while uninstalling.

[neto614]

I Agree with him ( DO NOT INSTALL )

Originally Posted by tmc

Yeah, I strongly recommend anyone to NOT install this.. It ended up breaking too many things. Notices, the ACP was screwy and even unusable (with ACP caching turned OFF), and it actually INCREASED server load while it was on because PHP or PHP as FastCGI take up more CPU to serve the massive amount of templates and phrases than MySQL does. There were blank automated threads and PMs from some of my modifications, and I can't even remember what else went wrong....

So I certainly don't recommend using a PHP cache or File Caching with this (still parses through PHP) as PHP has a hard enough time running vB on busy boards.

I may try Memcache soon on a live site, though, but it seemed slightly slower in testing. But I think it may bypass the high CPU issue with using PHP accelerators.. And I'd only use it if the ACP could actually start working again, and I wouldn't be receiving the dozen other errors I had from it.

It's kind of sad, actually, that this is being so blindly voted for in MOTM. Most of the voters don't even need it, or know how it works. Whereas I am a programmer myself and administer all my own servers and can see the havoc this wreaked in the limited time I allowed it to run on a live site.

[Jaxel]

I was using XCache with this mod... but I saw ZERO performance increase (I think load actually went up)... Not to mention, it screwed with my skins and started mixing images from one skin, with another skin. So now I've uninstalled this, as I feel its a waste of time. The server load got so high that it actually took my website down until I restarted the server.

[BamaStangGuy]

Originally Posted by tmc

Yeah, I strongly recommend anyone to NOT install this.. It ended up breaking too many things. Notices, the ACP was screwy and even unusable (with ACP caching turned OFF), and it actually INCREASED server load while it was on because PHP or PHP as FastCGI take up more CPU to serve the massive amount of templates and phrases than MySQL does. There were blank automated threads and PMs from some of my modifications, and I can't even remember what else went wrong....

So I certainly don't recommend using a PHP cache or File Caching with this (still parses through PHP) as PHP has a hard enough time running vB on busy boards.

I may try Memcache soon on a live site, though, but it seemed slightly slower in testing. But I think it may bypass the high CPU issue with using PHP accelerators.. And I'd only use it if the ACP could actually start working again, and I wouldn't be receiving the dozen other errors I had from it.

It's kind of sad, actually, that this is being so blindly voted for in MOTM. Most of the voters don't even need it, or know how it works. Whereas I am a programmer myself and administer all my own servers and can see the havoc this wreaked in the limited time I allowed it to run on a live site.

Its working perfectly fine for me. No one is blindly voting it MotM. You won't notice a difference or you will notice an increase in load if your server is already overloaded because of PHP/Apache is working harder than MySQL. This mod takes the load OFF OF MYSQL and puts the templates either in memory or in a file. So, obviously, if MySQL isn't your weak spot and you install this you won't notice a difference.

[tmc]

@Bama

Sorry but we're both using the same modification last I checked, and there are more people with the SAME problems, than just you with "no problems".

I even turned the ACP cache option OFF but try the following:

Managing notices
Managing styles/templates
Managing plugins
Using ANY modification that uses phrases and custom templates.

And you'll see that you simply won't be able to. But please, since you know so much, enlighten me.

You will not be able to:

See notices
Save styles or templates
Save plugins, install new plugins, or uninstall plugins
See automated messages from custom modifications (in my experience) but who KNOWS what else is broken when you use custom modifications with this mod.

---

Customer service at vB dot com have even urged people to uninstall this mod, so I can't see why it's still up for MOTM anyway. It causes instability and in some cases completely breaks forums.

I'll stick to my assertion that people are blindly voting this for MOTM, unless you can prove to me that all 133 of them have some inside information that I don't. But I gather it's only because "Optimize" is in the title.

But please, fill me in if there's some magical way you're keeping this modification from breaking your forum. I've looked through the code and it's fantastically coded, but vBulletin just wasn't meant to be caching this information.

Here's a simple test: Write a small plugin that automatically posts to a forum, whenever ______ happens on your board. Have it private message you as well. It's quite easy to code for, but you're going to get BLANK subjects and BLANK messages with this mod. (Make it phrased and templated like most mods).

I can't somehow make it "Flush Cache" everytime it needs to do so on my boards. Since that has been the "Go-to" answer everytime someone has a problem.

Originally Posted by BamaStangGuy

You won't notice a difference or you will notice an increase in load if your server is already overloaded because of PHP/Apache is working harder than MySQL. This mod takes the load OFF OF MYSQL and puts the templates either in memory or in a file. So, obviously, if MySQL isn't your weak spot and you install this you won't notice a difference.

As far as I'm concerned, MySQL is everybody's weak spot. I'm not even using Apache, but php-cgi takes up a huge amount of CPU time. It's already doing all the parsing, and serving a huge amount of data through Xcache's opcode cache, and 10x more from the Var cache (datastore), so why on earth would anybody want to try to fit more data through Xcache? I think PHP took up nearly 2x as much CPU time with this mod installed. And with this mod on/off, there was absolutely ZERO change in MySQL throughput.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm fairly sure if you've let MySQL cache queries it's saving every SINGLE template and every single phrase as a result, since those tables almost never change. Meaning, MySQL actually is not bothered whatsoever by the phrase and template queries, and this mod is therefore useless.

---

Anyway, I'm just trying to warn people that the word "Optimize" sounds awful nice, but if you already have MySQL optimized you're only harming yourself by installing this. Both in the sense that it breaks most things about your forum while increasing load.

And certainly check all your modifications if you're using this. Most likely at least one of them will no longer work.

[KevinL]

I have this working on my board just fine. Not one single problem you have listed above.

[tpearl5]

tmc, this is working wonderfully for me with memcache - How many servers are you running?

See my post here: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=398

[nascartr]

I'm using File Cache and can save templates just fine. No other issues either unless I change phrases and then I can either wait for them to be recached or flush the cache myself. I have actually never had an issue with the ACP from the beginning.

[TheComputerGuy]

It's working fine with memcache as well.