Heyhoe Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 I have been a customer with IPS for quite some years now and this is the first time I have felt the need to post feedback. My website is predominately content driven but uses the forum as a side feature. www.kartreview.co.uk When 4.0 was released (after years of waiting) I upgraded to take advantage of the many feature benefits over the 3 series. We spent a fair amount of time getting the site cutsomised enough to differentiate it from other IPS websites. All this took many hours and some hired help (money) A matter of months later 4.1 was released and we were left in an awkward situation. Due to the differences in the themes and templates, we simply do not have enough time to start from scratch and re-do all customisations. we use custom.css for as much as possible but sometimes templates need to be altered etc. The decision was made to hold off on 4.1 until we have more time to upgrade. Now, we recently created a Poll which I agreed to host for a large promotional company, the Poll had multiple questions and various multi option answers as well as more traditional check boxes. As soon as the Poll went live it became apparent that the Poll system was very broken, with incorrect users showing, percentage incorrect & the ability to edit your vote not working. When I contacted IPS with a support ticket, explained the bug and stated "Please do not ask me to upgrade as we do not have time to fix any issues created by the upgrade" I stated this as I know the IPS standard response is to "Upgrade to the latest version it will fix.... etc" So, You can imagine my annoyance when the response was exactly that, to upgrade to the latest version. It was explained that the later releases contained many security fixes and that I was leaving my site vulnerable to attack. I asked why the security releases were not released separately and IPS informed me that this was a company decision to deal with security updates in this way. According to IPS, they only support the latest release. Quote We support the latest release in each line, which at present is 4.1.8 and 3.4.9. I do not think I am being unreasonable to expect support on a release which is not the latest release. 4.1 was pushed out with barely any notice and all of a sudden, 4.0 (which still had bugs) was now out of date and not supported. What IPS is telling me is that to receive support, I must be on the latest version of the software at all times. When did this become the case? I can't believe 3.4.9 is supported, yet 4.0 is not. I feel 4.1 was too much change to 4.0 in such a short space of time. Suggestions, Security patches are released separately. IPS support versions of the software other than the latest release! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevengeFNF Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 Do you want them to support bugs and waste time in things that are already fixed in the last release? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heyhoe Posted February 6, 2016 Author Share Posted February 6, 2016 No, I expect a core function such as a Poll to work. Why should I "Waste time", my time on all the edits necessary to update the latest version because the software has a bug? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve00 Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 If not wanting to upgrade then suppose there is the option of running the theme differences tool and making the changes manually as required ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heyhoe Posted February 6, 2016 Author Share Posted February 6, 2016 That's an option Steve. It's a laborious task which I have no idea how long it will take. Not being fluent in any kind of code, this is not a 10 minute task for me. Does anyone offer to upgrade and alter templates & CSS files to ensure the site looks/works as intended after the upgrade? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve00 Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 24 minutes ago, Heyhoe said: That's an option Steve. It's a laborious task which I have no idea how long it will take. Not being fluent in any kind of code, this is not a 10 minute task for me. Does anyone offer to upgrade and alter templates & CSS files to ensure the site looks/works as intended after the upgrade? CSS files should not be required to be re-done (as long as added to custom.css) templates is another matter as depends how much change is required (remember would have to be re-done with every upgrade you do) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
opentype Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 54 minutes ago, Heyhoe said: No, I expect a core function such as a Poll to work. Which is either the case in the latest release or you can have it fixed in a ticket. Pick one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheSonic Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 Yes, polls were heavily bugged in 4.0 and some of the first 4.1 (if i remeber right). I also make heavy use of polls on one of my sites and haven't had an issue for a longer time now. So yes, polls (with all stuff like multiple questions, etc.) working fine with newer builds of 4.1.x - off course also with the actual 4.1.8.1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevengeFNF Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 4 hours ago, Heyhoe said: No, I expect a core function such as a Poll to work. Why should I "Waste time", my time on all the edits necessary to update the latest version because the software has a bug? You are responsible for the edits you made to your board. Its completely reasonable for ips team to only support the last version. They can't waste time in things to find out the problem was already fixed but the client was not pro-active enough to update the board. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Management Charles Posted February 6, 2016 Management Share Posted February 6, 2016 Yes we really can only support the latest release. If you are experiencing an issue that is fixed in an updated release then there's not much more we can say other than to upgrade. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hexsplosions Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 6 hours ago, Heyhoe said: No, I expect a core function such as a Poll to work. It does work, in the latest release. Seriously, you're being very unreasonable as suggested by @RevengeFNF. You could choose to abandon your customisations and perform the updates. You could also choose to hire a person to perform the template upgrades for you, from 4.0 to 4.1. You're choosing, regardless of whether your hand is forced by finances or time, to maintain your customisations on an outdated version. That's entirely your call, it's really not IPS's fault or problem, nor is it their responsibility to render support for your outdated version. You are also, very likely, risking your customers data by running a version which is no longer receiving security updates. Keeping up to speed with the latest versions ensures not only that bug fixes are provided, and thus might fix your polls issue, but also that security updates are provided as well. Personally, I'd prioritise the software upgrades over customisations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rikki Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 I don't think it's fair to say 4.1 was pushed out with no notice. It was announced at least a couple of months before it was released (as anyone who took part in shaping it via feedback here will attest). The reason 3.x and 4.1 are supported alongside each other is because they are separate codebases. 3.x is EOL soon, however. Unless you've gone really heavy on customizations to templates/CSS, the upgrade from 4.0 to 4.1 really isn't too painful, I promise Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve00 Posted February 6, 2016 Share Posted February 6, 2016 51 minutes ago, Rikki said: really isn't too painful, I promise As the actress said to the bishop !!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heyhoe Posted February 7, 2016 Author Share Posted February 7, 2016 I'm just annoyed that something as broken as this, cannot be patched, I do understand why this is. As far as the security fixes go, I honestly think they should be separate patches outside the main releases. I just want to install the software, make my customisations and leave it alone until we have the time and/or money to upgrade to the latest version. Currently, we are forced to upgrade if we wish to keep the site secure. The only real solution to this is keeping everything default. skins, etc etc. This simply does not work for a content driven site like ours. I can deal with some bugs on the site until we upgrade, but to willingly run the site with security risks, is irresponsible. What am I supposed to do here? Would anyone reading this post be willing to perform the upgrade and what is a rough cost? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ahmad E. Posted February 7, 2016 Share Posted February 7, 2016 8 minutes ago, Heyhoe said: Would anyone reading this post be willing to perform the upgrade and what is a rough cost? Check out my site (link in signature), we do offer upgrade service. (We only upgrade it and get it running, no 3rd party themes/apps updates) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heyhoe Posted February 7, 2016 Author Share Posted February 7, 2016 I'm a cloud customer so upgrades are free anyway. It's more the updating of the theme I am after. Is there a way to see all the changes we have made to CSS & Templates? It's been customised over such a long time, I would not be confident that I could remember all the changes I had made. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ahmad E. Posted February 7, 2016 Share Posted February 7, 2016 In themes, uncheck "Unmodified" to only show modified templates: Then in template you can check "Show default": Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heyhoe Posted February 7, 2016 Author Share Posted February 7, 2016 Now this was handy to know! Not sure why I have never discovered this before. So basically, I should upgrade and then do the above for all my modified files and update the "new" uploaded files with my changes? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin 7 Posted February 8, 2016 Share Posted February 8, 2016 Hi @Heyhoe, What version are you running? I do not mind handing a helping hand. Please email me at the email below, in the signature. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heyhoe Posted February 8, 2016 Author Share Posted February 8, 2016 @Kevin 7 I actually took a day off work to upgrade and go through all the CSS files and templates. It was not as painful as I first thought but there were lots of times where I was unsure whether I had altered the code for any reason or if it was just new and updated code. It seems to have all gone through fine. The biggest issues were trying to style the new menu area butI got there eventually. Annoyingly the Poll system still has issue but I have submitted a ticket to see what IPS can do. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin 7 Posted February 8, 2016 Share Posted February 8, 2016 2 hours ago, Heyhoe said: @Kevin 7 I actually took a day off work to upgrade and go through all the CSS files and templates. It was not as painful as I first thought but there were lots of times where I was unsure whether I had altered the code for any reason or if it was just new and updated code. It seems to have all gone through fine. The biggest issues were trying to style the new menu area butI got there eventually. Annoyingly the Poll system still has issue but I have submitted a ticket to see what IPS can do. Thanks. Good luck, my friend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IveLeft... Posted February 8, 2016 Share Posted February 8, 2016 3 hours ago, Heyhoe said: @Kevin 7 I actually took a day off work to upgrade and go through all the CSS files and templates. It was not as painful as I first thought but there were lots of times where I was unsure whether I had altered the code for any reason or if it was just new and updated code. It seems to have all gone through fine. The biggest issues were trying to style the new menu area butI got there eventually. Annoyingly the Poll system still has issue but I have submitted a ticket to see what IPS can do. Thanks. TopTip = Always comment the code with what you did, why and when - then when you go back months later - you can see your comments Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heyhoe Posted February 8, 2016 Author Share Posted February 8, 2016 I always do this for custom CSS but it's usually a game of trial and error for the templates so once I succeed I forget to comment! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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