Welcome to Beta 1

[Gary]

Welcome to the next generation, thank you Invision Community!

P.S. If you have concerns regarding licence pricing, please submit a support request to the team via your Client Area. This is a topic for celebration! 🥳

[mountaininteractive]

6 hours ago, Matt said:

It will, you'll just be changing the license terms of the payments, not the product.

Step 1 will be the ability to clone your production site to test it. We're unsure when we'll enable cloud upgrades, just because it's not very easy to downgrade. It's likely to be a lot further along.

@Matt Interesting, I've been playing around with a cloud v5 test site from the client area. We have the team plan on invision community cloud and are waiting for the beta to hit so we can upgrade. I'm using my community to also gather bug reports to report it to the beta club. Would I be able to get the V5 upgrade?

> Dont know why it posted here that was weird

Edited October 11 by mountaininteractive
oops

[Matt]

11 hours ago, HighlanderICT said:

technically correct but a little bit of smoke and mirrors. The old licenses are perpetual with maintenance and if expired can be renewed any time. The yearly cost is $300 (2 x $150). The 'classic' terms ($199 p/yr) are closer to a subscription where you lose your license if not renewed for 24 months which may affect those of us with dormant licenses we want to reinstate later and prevent us from feeling comfortable converting. 

Will the beta be available to those of us with existing/original and fully paid-up licenses that we can also test? or is this restricted only to those who converted?   

Unfortunately not as it is now not possible to pick and choose apps in v5. As we move forward with v5, we'll be removing the barriers between apps and possibly even merging a lot of first party app code to avoid duplication, etc. We can't do that if we have to keep offering a way to remove app code from the download.

4 hours ago, mountaininteractive said:

@Matt Interesting, I've been playing around with a cloud v5 test site from the client area. We have the team plan on invision community cloud and are waiting for the beta to hit so we can upgrade. I'm using my community to also gather bug reports to report it to the beta club. Would I be able to get the V5 upgrade?

> Dont know why it posted here that was weird

We’re working on a way to clone your real site for proper testing. On cloud an upgrade is pretty much a one way street so we don’t really want to offer it on production sites until we’re a bit further along in testing. 

[Marc]

11 hours ago, Drewfus said:

@fileo Not sure I assume you can try on a test site before you try your live site.

 

11 hours ago, fileo said:

Did you try your live site or is now only test?

We would not advise on upgrading live sites at all currently. I know you mention you have only done your test site at present. We have only done limited testing on upgrades

[fileo]

54 minutes ago, Marc said:

We would not advise on upgrading live sites at all currently. I know you mention you have only done your test site at present. We have only done limited testing on upgrades

Ok, I will wait on upgrading my live site. If I can do that in Admin Panel from my IP4 Forum than is easy for me...but if I have to install than you will do for me, why I pay 199$ per year....we are not all IT professionals ....

[Marc]

21 minutes ago, fileo said:

Ok, I will wait on upgrading my live site. If I can do that in Admin Panel from my IP4 Forum than is easy for me

For the most part, upgrades tend to be from the admin CP. However there will be occasions, such as large upgrades like this, where file upload is required to upgrade

21 minutes ago, fileo said:

...but if I have to install than you will do for me, why I pay 199$ per year

We would not do upgrades on your behalf on a self hosted environment. The $199 a year is what you pay for continued updates on your software, and IPS support and services. 

21 minutes ago, fileo said:

...we are not all IT professionals ....

We agree! We created a cloud based product just for that reason. Feel free to reach out if you would rather not have to deal with hosting of the platform, and would like to convert over to our cloud platform. 

[TheLlamaman]

Are there instructions on how to update an existing v4 test installation to a v5?

[Marc]

8 minutes ago, TheLlamaman said:

Are there instructions on how to update an existing v4 test installation to a v5?

 

You would upload a fresh set of files over the existing ones, then visit /admin/upgrade if you want to test. Note, there has been limited testing on the upgrader at present

[HighlanderICT]

6 hours ago, Matt said:

Unfortunately not as it is now not possible to pick and choose apps in v5. As we move forward with v5, we'll be removing the barriers between apps and possibly even merging a lot of first party app code to avoid duplication, etc. We can't do that if we have to keep offering a way to remove app code from the download.

We’re working on a way to clone your real site for proper testing. On cloud an upgrade is pretty much a one way street so we don’t really want to offer it on production sites until we’re a bit further along in testing. 

What about those self-hosted sites who have purchased, and have active fully paid-up support on the full suite of apps?

 

[BN_IT_Support]

On 10/10/2024 at 2:52 PM, Matt said:

upgrading from v4, so there's likely to be issues for some depending on server OS, and other site specific factors. It's best you don't immediately update your production site

Just a warning for those thinking of upgrading from V4...

I suspect that if your system was relatively recently installed (as V4) for the first time then all may well be OK.

But, if your system was initially installed as V4 some time around 4th October 2019 or earlier then expect problems... If you can log in then the pages will display as blank.

The issue is the following files:

applications\core\extensions\core\FrontNavigation\Promoted
applications\nexus\extensions\core\FrontNavigation\NetworkStatus
applications\nexus\extensions\core\FrontNavigation\Referrals

The above files do not exist in V5 but were present in some very old version of V4 (possibly 4.4.7 or older, but I'm not sure). The way the system loads menus is it searches for files in those folders and attempts to load them but as the files have not been converted to V5 then PHP crashes and you end up with blank pages.

The 'fix' is to delete the files and your pages will automagically reappear when you refresh your browser.

This has previously been reported as a bug - but the answer at that time was that the upgrade would not delete any files. Fair enough - I don't care because I know what to do. If you don't know what to do then expect to trip up 😉

I have a feeling that when I enable IN_DEV mode then I'll run into lots of problems with CSS and JS files being out of date and maybe some others. I think the best advice at this point is to delete ALL dev folders before you install the dev kit

John

5 hours ago, Marc said:

You would upload a fresh set of files over the existing ones, then visit /admin/upgrade if you want to test.

Yes - I can confirm it works (with the warning described above).

• Download the V5 ZIP
• Unpack the ZIP
• Copy the folders over the top of the existing folders
• Browser /admin/upgrade and log in with your normal adminCP credentials (NOT you invision community credentials)

Basically, follow the Installation manual "Manual Install" section.

John

[Hatsu]

I did a fresh install on my dev environment and didn't have any problems while installing. Besides the already logged Pages bug.

[Richard Arch]

6 hours ago, BN_IT_Support said:

The issue is the following files:

applications\core\extensions\core\FrontNavigation\Promoted

I updated a copy of our live site (v4.7.18) and ran into this issue, just had to remove the one file above and we are running. Thanks @BN_IT_Support

Of course all addon applications where disabled and the theme needs resetting as expected and recommended changing php to an 8.2 version but that was really a painless upgrade for the first beta.  Well done to the Invision Community Team 👍

[BN_IT_Support]

15 hours ago, Hatsu said:

fresh install on my dev environment and didn't have any problems

Well, if you did not delete ALL old DEV files first -- i.e. before copying the latest dev files to your system then I strongly recommend that you check the file dates on all your dev files. (It's a lot easier and quicker to clear out the dev folders first as checking file dates of thousands of files takes time...)

You're partly correct that the upgrade of a dev system will go OK. That is, it should be fine as long as you stay OUT of dev mode. If you switch to dev mode and if you did not clear out all the old dev files then there is a strong possibility that some old dev files (CSS and/or JS) will get loaded -- it's just the way that loading CSS and JS works -- it does not load individual CSS or JS files but bundles them so if the old/stale file has a name that matches one of the bundles then it will get picked up and loaded even though you don't want it.

When I had stale CSS and JS files in dev mode then pretty much everything worked -- except a few things like some things did not look quite right and I ended up submitting bug reports for things that were just stale files. So, in particular, if you intend to log bug reports I suggest you make sure you don't have stale files hanging around.

John

[Hatsu]

That‘s why I said fresh install and not upgrade. 

[Sunrex]

It looks like in order to use the beta I have to convert my license.

I understand two things about this:

1) If its not renewed every 2 years I lose the license permanently

2) It's more expensive.

Is there anything else I'm missing?

[My Sharona]

On 10/10/2024 at 9:52 AM, Matt said:

Welcome to Beta 1!

We finally made it! After three months of intense alpha testing, and many more months of development, we're ready to move into beta testing.

For a full run down of how to access the beta, see the overview page.

A reminder that beta software will contain issues. We've done a lot of testing, but only limited testing upgrading from v4, so there's likely to be issues for some depending on server OS, and other site specific factors. It's best you don't immediately update your production site. 🙂 

I want to extend my thanks to everyone that was involved in the early focus group, the very early alpha testing and the more public alpha testing. Each click, each error hit and each bug report moved us forward and I'm very grateful for your help.

Now we enter the most exciting phase, the last stretch before a full release!

You'll be able to download a little later today.

You said- "We are working on a way to duplicate your live cloud site for testing,..."

will there be a way to port that testing over to our live sites?

[LemonGrenade]

Installing a fresh beta install on a subdirectory to test and when adding the license number, it says it's already in use. While obviously, this is correct for the main root forum, there is the test URL listed in client area which I named to match the directory.

Any help from staff or anyone who installed a fresh test on their server would be appreciated.

[Hatsu]

Did you add -TESTINSTALL after the key?

[LemonGrenade]

Just now, Hatsu said:

Did you add -TESTINSTALL after the key?

I did, but get this message even though just one (main) version of 4 running at root.

Quote

A test installation has already been activated for this license key. Your license key entitles you to one test installation only.

 

[Hatsu]

Perhaps, it doesn‘t work on a subdirectory. Don‘t know. 

[LemonGrenade]

12 minutes ago, Hatsu said:

Perhaps, it doesn‘t work on a subdirectory. Don‘t know. 

Apparently, it does, so it might be there is a stray install still showing IPS end on that URL, even though that sub-directory probably hasn't been used since 2 or 3.

Quote

Test Install

Your self-hosted license allows you to have one live installation (your actual community) and one test installation. We also allow an unlimited number of installations on "localhost" domains so you can test locally without restriction.

If you are installing on a test install, enter your license key with -TESTINSTALL on the end. If you are installing on localhost (it must be "localhost" specifically, not "127.0.0.1" or any other alias), this will not count towards either of your installations, however, if you are installing on any other domain, it will count as your test installation.

This means that if you already have a test installation at a different URL, you will receive an error message that says "A test installation has already been activated for this license key. Your license key entitles you to one test installation only." There are three ways to overcome this:

1. You can delete your current test installation and reinstall at the same URL. For example, if your Test URL (as shown in the client area) is "example.com/test", you can install at example.com/test (meaning of course you'll have to delete whatever is there first) and you will not get the error message.
 
2. You can install on a localhost installation: localhost installations do not count towards your allowed usages.
 
3. Test installs are a one time url, so you should use a sub domain of your live site as an example, so in the future if you need to test a new server or setup, you can adjust your DNS to point that sub domain anywhere as needed.

 

 

 

[Matt]

On 10/12/2024 at 2:58 PM, Sunrex said:

It looks like in order to use the beta I have to convert my license.

I understand two things about this:

1) If its not renewed every 2 years I lose the license permanently

2) It's more expensive.

Is there anything else I'm missing?

Best to contact sales, and we can talk you through it in more detail.

On 10/12/2024 at 9:02 PM, LemonGrenade said:

Apparently, it does, so it might be there is a stray install still showing IPS end on that URL, even though that sub-directory probably hasn't been used since 2 or 3.

 

 

 

I've had a look at your account and I can see only one usage. I can generate a new key if you'd like, but you'd also need to update your live site with the new key.

[LemonGrenade]

2 hours ago, Matt said:

I've had a look at your account and I can see only one usage. I can generate a new key if you'd like, but you'd also need to update your live site with the new key.

Thanks @Matt That'd be great! I'll just update the license key on the live site when it's generated.

[LemonGrenade]

Any joy @Matt?

[Matt]

14 minutes ago, LemonGrenade said:

Any joy @Matt?

Um yes. Send you a DM.