My 3 weeks experience with vbulletin 5: things are not going well! Very disappointed!

[badesound]

I own www.bmwpassion.com/forum/, the largest italian BMW community since 2002 with 7 millions posts, and on 8th of june I upgraded the forum from vb4 to vb5.

I knew that many people discourage doing this, but I did it anyway.

I did it because I wanted a responsive site hoping that this would have improved the ranking and I liked the possibility to upload images easily. My members did not like vb4 mobile template because it had few features.

I had two serious problems:

1) vb5 is very heavy, but I have a good server and NOW I don't have problem anymore.

I said "now" because in the first week the server went down every 4/5 hours because of a "cron" (I am not an expert and I don't know if it is correct),a ripetitive operation launched by vb software.
Fortunately my server managers solved the problem.

2) I like the software and its responsive design, but I am very disappointed with the vb assistance. Since the beginning I still have a bug: when a member send a message or PM an error message appear: "empty response".
If a moderator try to move a thread an error message appear and so on.

vbulletin staff did not solve the issue yet.

But the worst thing is that they don't answer to my ticket and they don't let me know when they will think to solve it or if they are working on it even though this is a knowed issue.

I had to write a thread in this forum to complain and they told me that I have to wait.

I know that now I will be answered by someone of the staff and I want to say that normally I am not that kind of person who like to complain, but:

is it normal and professional that in two weeks no one answered my ticket even just to say: "Don't worry! we are working on it, but you have to know that we need 2 weeks to solve the issue" or "We have a lot of work and we think to start to work on your issue within 2 weeks" or "we are not able to solve the problem. Hire someone to fix it.".

I want just answers and to be updated sometime!

I am a forum owner and I know what users complaining and writing bad threads on the forum mean.
In this 3 weeks my forum was the hell!
I have a special thread for complaints and I am practically overwhelmed with users answers.

I told them "Sorry! we are working to solve the "empty response issue" hundreds of times!
And they say: "three weeks are passed. Are you really working on it or you make fun of us?!".

To give an answer is simply a sign of good manners and professionalism!

I know you have other customers and I respect them, but don't you think you shoud give a priority to an historical forum with over 7 million posts?
Do you prefer to let die a so important forum that could be a good advertising for vb5?

Before upgrading I was thinking to write a nice review on vb5 and show other owners that migrating to vb5 is a nice idea.

Instead I am beginning to change my mind about the upgrade and I feel abandoned (and I tried to wait and to be patience).

I don't know when and if someone will solve my problem and meanwhile my traffic is going down and I am loosing my users.
I hope I did not do the biggest mistake of my life!

[Wayne Luke]

In regard to Unknown Server Response:

What is the search type set to under Settings -> Search Type?

If you used an addon link Sphinx in vBulletin 4, you'll need to set it to the default Database and save the page. Then you would have to configure Sphinx to work with vBulletin 5. The instructions are in the do_not_upload folder of your vBulletin 5 download.

[Wayne Luke]

I've deleted most of the posts on this topic. It was getting derailed from the main issue of getting the site operating properly. Technical Support staff can sit here and babysit people arguing or we can provide technical support. We don't have time to do both.

[badesound]

In regard to Unknown Server Response:

What is the search type set to under Settings -> Search Type?

If you used an addon link Sphinx in vBulletin 4, you'll need to set it to the default Database and save the page. Then you would have to configure Sphinx to work with vBulletin 5. The instructions are in the do_not_upload folder of your vBulletin 5 download.

We never used Sphinx in vb4.
I have this setting: DB Search.

[Wayne Luke]

Please save the page anyway to make sure the datastore gets updated properly.

Once that is done, please upload the searchindex.php file from do_not_upload to your vBulletin directory. Then run it from the server command line using this command:

php searchindex.php

It will take a while to run. Just keep the server terminal window open in the background of your workstation.

[badesound]

We did it and the problem has been solved.

I appreciate your help. I am only very sorry because I had to wait 20 days to have an answer for a problem that could have been solved in few hours....