How frequently are breaking changes introduced?

[christopher-w]

Hey Folks,

How frequently is Community Suite upgraded in such a way that plugins and themes need updating?

And I guess just as importantly, in the case of the hosted cloud offering, how much notice is given by IPS before they push breaking changes?

Thanks in anticipation,

Chris

[Colonel_mortis]

Many simple plugins can work without being updated for all updates (they wouldn't work with IPS 5, but there's a fair chance that something simple will work with IPS 4.3.5.1), but there is no guarantee offered by the IPS developers with respect to breaking changes, so some plugins, particularly those that hook slightly deeper into the system, could be broken by any software update, such as from 4.2.2 to 4.2.3.

As far as I'm aware, updates aren't pushed automatically to the cloud servers, but it's a simple wizard to update to the latest version.

[Aiwa]

It all depends on how deep the mod hooks into the core. 

My steam integration was released sometime in 4.0 and has had only one small breaking change since and it was in 4.2. Front end theme css selector was modified. 

[gabs007]

For me this is the big problem I face every time there is an upgrade. You have no idea how much this stresses me out

As a rule of thumb, I would suggest you to use only the plugins you essentially need. Every Community is different.
At the moment, I'm using about 25 and there is always something that stops working when I upgrade. Either I have to update the plugin or wait til it gets fixed. It is a lottery.
I'm offering a non scientific estimation, but I think staying between 10 or 15 mods or plugins, you should be more or less safe to make them work.

So keep them all updated and after upgrading the Suite, upgrade as many plugins as you can to the latest version to be sure they are all fully compatible. 
Cause don't think for a moment that staying 1 or 2 upgrades behind is safe. Since the plugin will get unsupported and you will have to update your IPS version to have one plugin fixed, while other stops working with the upgrade. That has happened to me too. 

A final thought:
Before upgrading, please check all the plugins or mods to be sure they work with the latest IPS version ( for example, checking the topic support of the plugin). At least you will have a list of plugins you will not have to worry about.
After upgrading IPS, please revise the functionality of the plugins left to be sure they work fine. If not, contact the plugin creator as soon as possible so others know about it.
This process is easier with few plugins or mods.

 

[christopher-w]

5 hours ago, Colonel_mortis said:

 

As far as I'm aware, updates aren't pushed automatically to the cloud servers, but it's a simple wizard to update to the latest version.

ahh thanks,  that's reassuring.

22 minutes ago, gabs007 said:

For me this is the big problem I face every time there is an upgrade. You have no idea how much this stresses me out

 

Glad to know I'm not alone in feeling this way.

Thanks for your detailed response and advice.

 

[SammyS]

36 minutes ago, christopher-w said:

ahh thanks,  that's reassuring.

 

They are optional, of course (im a cloud client too!). After a major release (such as 4.2.0) you should wait maybe 1 or 2 months before make your upgrade

One advice: keep it as simple as possible, and think well before installing a new plugin or app: (is it really useful and necessary for my members?). The simpler, the better and more reliable from the technical point of view

[christopher-w]

2 minutes ago, SammyS said:

They are optional, of course (im a cloud client too!). After a major release (such as 4.2.0) you should wait maybe 1 or 2 months before make your upgrade

Absolutely.

Glad we are all on same page.

[Jim M]

21 hours ago, christopher-w said:

And I guess just as importantly, in the case of the hosted cloud offering, how much notice is given by IPS before they push breaking changes?

We would always suggest upgrading to the newest release within a reasonable amount of time and especially if you're having issues that are solved in that new release. With that said, there is no iron fist behind the upgrade on Cloud, we still have people we're upgrading from 3.x. However, we are making some infrastructure changes though that require a minimum version of the software to be on so we are going through and letting customers know that we would like to upgrade their instance and getting their feedback. This isn't impacting all cloud customers and not something if you're looking to purchase or recently purchase you'd need to worry about but just a statement that there are rare exceptions where we may ask you to upgrade to better benefit yourself  .

[christopher-w]

15 hours ago, Jim M said:

We would always suggest upgrading to the newest release within a reasonable amount of time and especially if you're having issues that are solved in that new release.

Do you offer a reduced cost cloud staging env where live site can be updated and tested before being pushed live?

[Jim M]

3 hours ago, christopher-w said:

Do you offer a reduced cost cloud staging env where live site can be updated and tested before being pushed live?

Unfortunately, the Cloud license does not come with a staging environment, nor is there an active discount for one. If you are on Cloud and wish to utilize a staging license, whether cloud or self-hosted this would need to be purchased at full cost, I'm afraid. If you have any questions on this, please feel free to reach out to our sales team at sales@invisionpower.com 

[christopher-w]

Just now, Jim M said:

Unfortunately, the Cloud license does not come with a staging environment, nor is there an active discount for one. If you are on Cloud and wish to utilize a staging license, whether cloud or self-hosted this would need to be purchased at full cost, I'm afraid. If you have any questions on this, please feel free to reach out to our sales team at sales@invisionpower.com 

Thanks, was expecting that. But I guess there'd be no issue if I purchased a separate staging facility only for a month or so when a new release needed testing?

[Jim M]

7 minutes ago, christopher-w said:

Thanks, was expecting that. But I guess there'd be no issue if I purchased a separate staging facility only for a month or so when a new release needed testing?

Theoretically you could, however, there would be extra fees involved if you want to recover or move your data from instance to instance or time to time. I would suggest contacting our sales team (sales@invisionpower.com) if you need more detailed information on that cost.

[Rheddy]

From my own personal experience and some limited knowledge where it pertains to IPS' releases, they do not make changes to the code unless it's an upgrade. When I say upgrades, what I mean are releases like 4.1, 4.2, 4.3. Maintenance and security patches that are released do not include any new features or changes to the code that require you to update that plugin, widget, block or application. There are a lot of plugins and widgets that don't require any updating. I noticed that some plugins that I used for IPS 4.1 didn't require an update to work with 4.2. But, that number has been around 25% of the plugins that I currently use.