4.0 upgrade - DON'T DO IT if you have any Mods - and probably, don't do it period!

[MikeF]

OK, as far as the "Backup" argument goes. How about forums with Paid Memberships and things of this nature. Do you want to revert those to with your backup? Its clear they never intended to support 3.8 modifications and with the release of vBadvanced CMPS Beta 1 for vBulletin 4 their CMS is already inferior.. lots of wasted code here. I wish they had just improved upon the 3.8 series and not redo the entire plugin/product/attachment system. It is a horror. I have been trying to make some sense out of the methodology that was used in making these decisions, and my only conclusion was that it was time for them to make more money. I mean the attachment system in 3.8.x worked fine. The product system worked fine. The style system worked fine. Why I paid for it, I have no friggin idea...

[Jafo]

No, I really don't. vBulletin.com was down for an unprecedented 28 hours. The site was largely inaccessible for the next 3-4 days due to massive performance issues.

The pricing structure is epic fail. And vBulletin 4 just as a product is woefully underdocumented, a confused tangled web of StyleVars and CSS, the CMS is half-baked and a performance liability, and there is no product roadmap after 6 months of promises. And the project manager (Ray Morgan) literally quit and moved to the tropics.

In what way would you say this does NOT qualify as a train wreck?

So you are comparing this site with a regular VB site? You do realize there is much more here than a standard VB install right? The pricing is pretty straight forward to me, what part of it is a failure for you? I will agree the product needs some serious documentation but what you describe is far from a trainwreck. Well maybe I like to look at the glass half full, or maybe I just thought it obvious that you backup everything before you upgrade..

[Jafo]

OK, as far as the "Backup" argument goes. How about forums with Paid Memberships and things of this nature. Do you want to revert those to with your backup?

What the heck does paid memberships have to do with backups? I mean, when you make a backup you basically take a snapshot of your entire site in real time. If the upgrade does not go well, you revert the site to that snapshot... Why you would lose any membership information is beyond me.

[xinnek]

I don't necessarily agree.
A smart admin create backups, tests to make an educated decision.
They don't blame others for their mistakes. They need to take some responsibility for their actions.

I agree, Don't try to update without a backup! That's just plain stupid. Vbulletin techs have warned and warned against upgrading without backing up. So you shouldn't blame them, blame yourself.

Sure, 4.0 isn't the "Gold" program that it should have been. And I'm in the same boat as you in a way because of this, but still, don't blame others for your own mistakes.

[feldon23]

So you are comparing this site with a regular VB site? You do realize there is much more here than a standard VB install right? The pricing is pretty straight forward to me, what part of it is a failure for you? I will agree the product needs some serious documentation but what you describe is far from a trainwreck. Well maybe I like to look at the glass half full, or maybe I just thought it obvious that you backup everything before you upgrade..

The upgrade of vBulletin.com from 2.0 to 3.0, 3.0 to 3.5, 3.5 to 3.6, 3.6 to 3.7, 3.7 to 3.8 all took just a few hours with little website instability afterward.
The upgrade of vBulletin.com from 3.8 to 4.0 took 28 hours of downtime and the servers were unstable for 3-4 days.

The pricing is a 200% increase, when figuring the cost for most active 3.8 licenses and the expected vB5 release in 2011. Those who try to say it's not a price increase, read Wayne Luke's post saying the pricing had to be increased because they could not hire additional staff [at California wages] at the current pricing structure. So far, have we gotten the 200% features, stability or performance?

vBulletin has gone from the strongest level of brand loyalty (impossibly high, similar to Apple, Disney) with owners of vBulletin forums actively recommending the software to friends, family, co-workers, and other businesses, to a pile of question marks and missed promises. I've gone from a loyal customer actively recommending this software to friends, other businesses, to warning other customers to wait and see or consider other options.


Do you play the stock market? You seem especially talented at buying into companies that just had a huge management shakeup, on speculation that they might have a turnaround.

[Grover]

The upgrade of vBulletin.com from 2.0 to 3.0, 3.0 to 3.5, 3.5 to 3.6, 3.6 to 3.7, 3.7 to 3.8 all took just a few hours with little website instability afterward.
The upgrade of vBulletin.com from 3.8 to 4.0 took 28 hours of downtime and the servers were unstable for 3-4 days.

The pricing is a 200% increase, when figuring the cost for most active 3.8 licenses and the expected vB5 release in 2011. Those who try to say it's not a price increase, read Wayne Luke's post saying the pricing had to be increased because they could not hire additional staff [at California wages] at the current pricing structure. So far, have we gotten the 200% features, stability or performance?

vBulletin has gone from the strongest level of brand loyalty (impossibly high, similar to Apple, Disney) with owners of vBulletin forums actively recommending the software to friends, family, co-workers, and other businesses, to a pile of question marks and missed promises. I've gone from a loyal customer actively recommending this software to friends, other businesses, to warning other customers to wait and see or consider other options.


Do you play the stock market? You seem especially talented at buying into companies that just had a huge management shakeup, on speculation that they might have a turnaround.

Amen. I am in the exact same boat (or should I say train) and it saddens me that I find myself subscribing to everything you are saying in your posting, Feldon. It is time for me now to leave these forums and spend my valuable time more wisely and effectively.

[MikeF]

What the heck does paid memberships have to do with backups? I mean, when you make a backup you basically take a snapshot of your entire site in real time. If the upgrade does not go well, you revert the site to that snapshot... Why you would lose any membership information is beyond me.

You back up the forum (now your site is losing any revenue which helps offset hosting costs and perhaps pay for future promotions and/or upgrades), you then test it for awhile (again it is down because if someone signs up as a Paid Member then you know they're going to be reverted if you restore from backup), so you are basically stuck doing a live upgrade and making a backup as a last resort type of deal. For example, I upgraded my site, and about two weeks later, everyone starts b*tching (justly so), about how they have lost such and such features, about how this doesn't work and that doesn't work... so if you look at it from the perspective of a big, active, advertisement-driven forum, you are looking at a major disaster.

This is not to say I am not satisfied with the effort vBulletin put into the code, it is just a troublesome scenario for existing forum owners who have a true blue established forum. No one wants to upgrade, and the ones that did are kind of resentful that they went down that route so quickly... but we had the "presale" so we wouldn't get gouged.. I mean lets be honest here.

[Reeve of Shinra]

The upgrade of vBulletin.com from 2.0 to 3.0, 3.0 to 3.5, 3.5 to 3.6, 3.6 to 3.7, 3.7 to 3.8 all took just a few hours with little website instability afterward.
The upgrade of vBulletin.com from 3.8 to 4.0 took 28 hours of downtime and the servers were unstable for 3-4 days.

The pricing is a 200% increase, when figuring the cost for most active 3.8 licenses and the expected vB5 release in 2011. Those who try to say it's not a price increase, read Wayne Luke's post saying the pricing had to be increased because they could not hire additional staff [at California wages] at the current pricing structure. So far, have we gotten the 200% features, stability or performance?

vBulletin has gone from the strongest level of brand loyalty (impossibly high, similar to Apple, Disney) with owners of vBulletin forums actively recommending the software to friends, family, co-workers, and other businesses, to a pile of question marks and missed promises. I've gone from a loyal customer actively recommending this software to friends, other businesses, to warning other customers to wait and see or consider other options.


Do you play the stock market? You seem especially talented at buying into companies that just had a huge management shakeup, on speculation that they might have a turnaround.

Best summary ever!

[Don Maddox]

You back up the forum (now your site is losing any revenue which helps offset hosting costs and perhaps pay for future promotions and/or upgrades), you then test it for awhile (again it is down because if someone signs up as a Paid Member then you know they're going to be reverted if you restore from backup), so you are basically stuck doing a live upgrade and making a backup as a last resort type of deal. For example, I upgraded my site, and about two weeks later, everyone starts b*tching (justly so), about how they have lost such and such features, about how this doesn't work and that doesn't work... so if you look at it from the perspective of a big, active, advertisement-driven forum, you are looking at a major disaster.

This is not to say I am not satisfied with the effort vBulletin put into the code, it is just a troublesome scenario for existing forum owners who have a true blue established forum. No one wants to upgrade, and the ones that did are kind of resentful that they went down that route so quickly... but we had the "presale" so we wouldn't get gouged.. I mean lets be honest here.

Hate to say it, but there is a lot of truth to this. I upgraded to 4.0 and have taken a never-ending stream of grief from my members ever since. I have been using vB for years and have never hesitated before installing a gold product. My experience with vB has been quite good all things being equal. Until 4.0. This latest version has so many bugs and poorly designed features that I'm afraid that from now on I'm going to be a lot more cautious about vB products. I have way too much time and effort invested in my forum to see it wrecked.

[the geek]

Why keep complaining? I see absolutely zero interest from anyone at vBS or IB about the matter. I've voted with my feet and found farrrr better options. I strongly urge everyone that feels the same to do the same.

[smirkley]

Hate to say it, but there is a lot of truth to this. I upgraded to 4.0 and have taken a never-ending stream of grief from my members ever since. I have been using vB for years and have never hesitated before installing a gold product. My experience with vB has been quite good all things being equal. Until 4.0. This latest version has so many bugs and poorly designed features that I'm afraid that from now on I'm going to be a lot more cautious about vB products. I have way too much time and effort invested in my forum to see it wrecked.

But truth,.. is mearly perception.

What perception do you exude.




I am not an old school vB user, but I am pretty old as far as bbcode goes.

And I see vB as definetly forward motion.

What is it that you prefer,... motion,... or forward motion.

[Paul M]

But truth,.. <snip>

What ??

Why keep complaining? I see absolutely zero interest from anyone at vBS or IB about the matter. I've voted with my feet and found farrrr better options. I strongly urge everyone that feels the same to do the same.

Sadly, this seems to be coming up more and more - people either sticking with 3.x, or moving to something else.

[cbiweb]

I've voted with my feet and found farrrr better options. I strongly urge everyone that feels the same to do the same.

I've considered it, but have no idea if my vB forums can be imported into other forum software. I'm not 100% ready to jump ship yet, but in case I do....

[MikeF]

I've considered it, but have no idea if my vB forums can be imported into other forum software. I'm not 100% ready to jump ship yet, but in case I do....

My take on this is very simple. Its clear that we would not be posting in such a thread if we did not love vBulletin software. We have gone to great lengths to pay for the licensing, to, in many cases, post bug reports, and support the community wherever it may be deemed appropriate. The problem really would not be the pricing structure for vB4, but does in fact have to do with the weirdo system they put in place for products and plugins, which completely negates all of the work that thousands of individuals have put into modifying the code to get the most out of the features. The amount of resources that they commited into the CMS system is so far out there, I know not of what to even make of it. Had they pooled these resources and used them directly on the forum code, providing compatibility support for older plugins, and doing the right thing by their customers, people would have cheered on this release. I must say that the current release is truly a disappointment, and I say this only so that anyone who may be listening, as part of the vBulletin decision-making group, can come to a consensus about where their priorities will be in the future. Either you intend on supporting products like VBSEO, vBAdvanced, and all of the countless modifications that make your software unique to the world, or you intend to abandon this and try to undercut those people with your own half-asssed version of the some thing.

Ultimately it comes down to vBulletin's willingness to work with their community of paying customers to make their software better, and not just go down some yellow brick road to nowhereland. Other forum software development will take the lead if that type of development model continues. They should focus entirely (and I do mean entirely) on enriching the feature set that exists for the forums and their Blog product... and stop whiping out forums on a gold release.

[Grimday]

it worked for me..now i can start removing them