Forum Software Migration Hiccup Thread

[Jaime C]

Hi all,

I apologize for the slow response from my side. Unfortunately we had kicked off the upgrade shortly before I went on a trip in which I didn't have an Internet connection. So needless to say I was shocked when I got back and saw the plethora of feedback this thread (and elsewhere) has received. So let me address a few major themes I saw in this thread.

1. Login/Posting/etc and general caching issues

This seems to be a problem in the way vBulletin is now rewriting URLs for vBulletin5. Additionally this was further confounded by the fact during the migration vBulletin did not honor our previous configuration which used a specific caching engine (memcached) and instead relied on a more unreliable database based caching engine. I've made some tweaks which I believe have solved this issue. Please let me know if you are still seeing these issues. It really helps me if you can tell me what specific action you were taking and what page(s) you were on when you noticed it.

2. Communication about forum upgrade

The Admin team had notified the Mod team last year that an upgrade was pending, but we ended up holding off on the upgrade. As others have noted in this thread, vBulletin5 wasn't ready for prime time for quite some time, so we ended up delaying the upgrade for several months. Unfortunately we failed to provide a heads up to the community and to the moderator team when we decided to pull the trigger on the migration.

3. Why upgrade to vBulletin5? Why not something else?

I had proposed a migration away from vBulletin to the moderator and admin team from vBulletin to Discourse which has designed with modern forums in mind additionally the support team behind it seems to be doing a better job than vBulletin has. Unfortunately this proposal was turned down when it was last discussed.

4. Profile picture cropping issues

This seems to be another bug in the way that vBulletin performed its database upgrade from 4 to 5. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find anything I can do to recover previous profile pictures. I apologize that there wasn't anything that could be done there.

So it was mentioned last year? And no further discussion or heads up right before the update?

Most forums I participate in, will run a major update test site, so that they can make sure it works correctly. No internet for almost 2 weeks? The update and total lack of further communication is a huge fail.

Perhaps you don't understand how much the regular users enjoyed and needed a well functioning forum.

[paman]

So it was mentioned last year? And no further discussion or heads up right before the update?

...Most forums I participate in, will run a major update test site, so that they can make sure it works correctly.

That is correct. As I mentioned, that was a total fail on my part and I'm sorry the upgrade didn't go as smoothly as I thought. As for the test site, we had never needed one before as the upgrades have gone smoothly each time. I take a lot of precautions to make sure it does go smoothly, however the VB4 -> VB5 migration was nothing like I've had to deal with before with the forum upgrades. I will definitely do this moving forward.

No internet for almost 2 weeks? The update and total lack of further communication is a huge fail.

Much like the mods on this forum, I volunteer my time on here as well. I know you guys don't want to hear excuses, but to give you context my group at my day job lost 40% of my coworkers. So this past week has been trying to figure out what we can do to ensure we continue as a team/business. Unfortunately my day job takes precedence over the forum. I've already reached out to wm letting her know that she should probably find a backup for me so that the forum isn't just reliant on me moving forward. This should help prevent prolonged absences like what was experienced this past week.

Perhaps you don't understand how much the regular users enjoyed and needed a well functioning forum.

Unlike most posters on here, I'm a lurker on the forums. So I do understand how painful it can be when a forum suffers technical issues. It was quite the shock to me to come back and see how painful things have been since my absence. The last thing I want to see is the community to suffer because of something I did.

[wm]

As mentioned in the announcement at the top of your screen, if you find additional issues that haven't been resolved please email or pm them to me.

[email protected]

[wm]

Regarding reputation questions - yes, it's all handled differently in vBulletin 5 - no negative rep now.

Reputation is the accumulation of Likes in vBulletin 5. The more people that Like your content, the higher your reputation

The orange pips used to be green older versions and are used to show reputation in the user's information.

[scouser59]

the forum seems to be dysfunctional now there are problems with when you login on a topic the new info does not appear ??

[nd_eric_77]

The daily volume of new threads and replies to existing threads seems to have fallen off a cliff since the upgrade. Do the administrators / moderators have any "before & after" statistics? I always liked to use the "New Posts" feature in the old software, and now find that the "Forums -> New Topics" navigation is clunky and error-prone. (I did not think to screenshot it, but have been getting some sort of database error about 60% of the time I try to view the listing of new topics. For what it's worth, I have recently discovered that reddit has a small but active Indonesia community, and I have read some interesting discussion threads over there. (https://www.reddit.com/r/indonesia/) (Yes, you have to bypass certain Internet restrictions to get there.)

[Jaime C]

There are so many glitches, it's hard to know where to start. Logging me on as another user. Posts not showing up. Having to constantly reload to see new posts. New messages seen, but red notification still on, after you hit dismissed. And so many more...

[ScooterIndo]

Right where is the unmoderated section ???

[wm]

RIP Unmoderated section !

[Happyman]

I can't help but wish that this had all been handled differently, in such a way as to allow me to have all the people I've come to know over the years on one forum... Its all a bit sad. Now we have accusations by the admin that the former mod team was engaged in sabotage. Why would we choose to believe that? RIP moderated section.

[wm]

Happyman ... sorry that I can't show you before / after proof ! Should have, if only, wish I had .... all moot at this point

[wm]

scouser59 - the vBulletin 5 has some caching issues that we've done some initial resolution work on. We're working through any addiitonal issues we can find ourselves or that are reported, so let me know the details of anything you're seeing / experiencing that seems like a bug ... as opposed to a "new feature" of vBulletin 5.

Thanks!

[wm]

Jaime C - yes I DO understand how much people have enjoyed the forum - I have been administering this forum (in various software iterations) since 1998. It's unfortunately when an upgrade isn't smooth, we have apologized for that.

There is communication via email / PM that you can't see, so a summary judgement that there was a "lack of further communication" is not quite accurate!

No one said Paman didn't have internet connection, but that his real life (job - that pays for his real life) unfortunately demanded his full time right after the launch of the updated software ... but since he's a volunteer, I exercised patience, instead of instant indignant fury!

That's kind of who I am

[fastpitch17]

OK, I think two forums can exist without problems. They seem to for a lot of other things. The problem I am having is why the former moderators that have supposedly been banned not listed as banned under their handles like all other banned members are. Why are previous mods complaining elsewhere that they are no longer able to log in even though nothing shows them as being banned. Their claim of their accounts being hijacked by the administration seem credible the way things are going. If there are going to be two forums then both should be open and honest about what they are doing and let members in on it. You may own the forum and feel you can do as you please but without members, you have nothing. I know post have disappeared and warning infractions have been handed out freely in the past few days but, time to just be honest and do dignity to yourself and the members. Remember, many of us have known the mods well for many years and really don't know you. We have come to trust their decisions and respect their work. We really don't know your work except you own the site. That means nothing, relationships mean a lot.

[habismandi]

The behaviour of the previous mods who set up another forum (where they can chat to themselves, since no-one else seems to be there) is really bad. They had clearly developed the concept and set up the competitor forum before this upgrade issue occurred. This faux outrage because there were some functionality problems for a few days is transparent. The new bulletin version here works absolutely fine, I can see no issues with it at all. In fact it is better than the last one. Funny how people can get so uptight about an internet forum.