SO: Trying to keep this longer story short but also thinking even though this is currently a tech support situation (my last request for help), it might also be a community suggestion situation simultaneously because some other members might helpfully show me theirs? :)

So backup slightly, we currently have every member profile in our new cloud hosting entirely imported FROM our previous self-hosting. AND, we imported all those members via .csv in the admin panel because we were previously and still are using a paperform to collect our sign up member info rather than using the native invision capability to sign up new members?

AND I'm wondering if I could at least entertain a few best case possibilities involving just using what invision offers natively? Best case meaning, suited to us, that is.

However, we also have a LOT of custom profile fields.

I KNOW, you DO NOT SUPPORT THIRD PARTY STUFF, but I'm really trying to explore NOT using third parties in favor of signing up new members via invision only!

What does anyone experience as the upper limit of custom profile fields you can add to the profiles?

(Like, before new users can't sign up without the form or page for that failing to respond properly? Not to be imported via .csv (what we did via self-hosting but it's not working so well currently now on cloud), but signing up natively.)

Does it matter what kind of fields they are, multiple choice vs. text, etc.?

Can you get that to look like something other than one after the other on a very long page, separate pages, conditions, etc.?

Can you make uploading a headshot or other photo required?

Can we somehow experiment with our own forum in terms of trying to "fake sign up" ourselves up on our own future sign up form without ACTUALLY transferring it over in the meantime from our current external signup link while we were tinkering with it? Like on our cute little Guest Message?

Specific suggestions as well as just sending me links to anyone dealing constructively or creatively with a large number of custom profile fields would be lovely!

On the registration page itself, it would just be one after one after one vertically on the page. If you want to allow users to register and then add this data later, you can use the quick registration form and then use Profile Completion in the software to tab this information out by categories you assign to custom fields.

Apart from that, it would require customization in order to get it to look different. I know you're trying to avoid that but there's not really much different than those two options.

7 minutes ago, raincat said:

Can you make uploading a headshot or other photo required?

Are you wanting that to just be an uploaded file or be used as a profile photo? If the latter, that is something that Profile Completion can do but not registration.

8 minutes ago, raincat said:

Can we somehow experiment with our own forum in terms of trying to "fake sign up" ourselves up on our own future sign up form without ACTUALLY transferring it over in the meantime from our current external signup link while we were tinkering with it? Like on our cute little Guest Message?

You can test it but it would need to be visible to all guests of your community. I would just recommend whitelisting your IP address in the Spam Defense system if you do. That can be found in ACP -> Members -> Spam Prevention.

Thanks for your reply!

What if I'm COOL with "one after one after one vertically on the page." (Yep, I know I was describing NOT being so cool before, but let's entertain some notions, I'm brainstorming, so completely open to anyone with cool ideas!)

What if I wanted my possible new members to be able to register an email address, then come back and be required to do a Profile Completion before they'd be able to be full-fledged members of my forum and . . . post stuff or message?

How many custom profile fields can we do before that's a problem?

AND (lol!) can you show me anyone that's ever made that look attractive?

Edited October 30, 2025Oct 30 by raincat

My honest answer here would be to step back. In terms of "can the system cope with it", you could have quite a lot. However as the person who was looking at your ticket yesterday, I can honestly say if I was forced to fill in every one of those fields, you would have lost me as a member. Of course, its up to yourself. Im just giving you my honest feedback. Personally I would have made many many of those optional.

Dont get me wrong. On the subject matter, I can certainly understand why you would want them. However you (in my opinion) are walking a line between gathering the data you want on the left, and maximising the people who register on the right. At present, you're walking to the absolute left of that line. I can see how if you have a physical group, you may well gather all that data (but probably reluctantly). You give that as a long list, its going to be off-putting.

I do appreciate your feedback! However, many of our extra questions simply can't be negotiable, because we use them to determine if it's appropriate to let the new person in or not. Some could go, but the import situation was working so badly it SEEMS like (again, I don't KNOW) but SEEMS like any more than a few extra custom fields would be a huge problem?

Just from the visceral experience of trying to use it, it seems like either my cloud import area itself has a problem that needs fixing, or I'd need to import that data some other way than the intended area in the admin panel because it was never designed to work for more than a few extra custom profile fields?

Does anyone know what's the actual max on custom fields before your new profile becomes un-importable?

And is there any other way to import them? I'm really wondering this because it worked fine with the self-hosting, both importing and . . . we never noticed any other problems either? This causes me to severely wonder if there's some other better way to get the info in there, because the info didn't seem to mind being imported or being in there once imported with self-hosting?

What about un-submittable, if they submitted via your native registration? Are there limits on custom fields there?

Would it help much if I segregated some into a later "profile completion" phase of registration?

I really do want to solve this some kind of way, but we really have to have multiple custom fields required for registration before we let new members in, please help? :)

Edited October 31, 2025Oct 31 by raincat

The member import area is not meant to handle an enormous amount of data without hitting a reasonable server execution time limit. As you have 70+ custom profile fields, that is in the realm of not really reasonable for a base importer to work with and not have a server hit a reasonable execution time trying to import a reasonable number of members with it. We may be able to work with you from a sales perspective with a custom import if that is what you want, please let us know and we can get you in touch.

The native registration process should be able to handle it but I don't think we ever intended it to have that many so it may not be the best process. I would suggest reducing these to maybe a handful of fields that allow you to admit someone for registration. Then, if you so desire, ask the rest via Profile Completion.

Hello again. I remain confused. Primarily because in the meantime, I got some more support email suggesting my severe member import problem might merely be some specifically problematic field entries messing up my import? But it's impossible to diagnose on my end currently with cloud hosting because the whole thing immediately freezes. The other support person showed me a photo of some mismatched fields, but again, I can't reproduce that process on my end. Because of the immediate freezing.

I asked some more questions about that to clarify, but it's crickets again for another day and a half?

SO, is this really the FINAL WORD on the situation? That the import area with the cloud hosting DEFINITELY FREEZES with a significant number of custom profile fields, and there's no way to resolve that on my end while still using that import area?

I don't mean to be rude, but I'm not the slightest bit optimistic about "working from a sales perspective with a custom import" because based on how this is going so far, I'm guessing that would fail. I need to settle on a new solution that's guaranteed to work on my end pretty reliably, and I'm really hoping soon because I've been having some form of severe technical problem with my forum for multiple weeks and I'd be really grateful to move on from this?

21 minutes ago, raincat said:

I asked some more questions about that to clarify, but it's crickets again for another day and a half?

As your ticket is in advanced support, it can take some time to receive a reply back. Please be patient as advance nature of this issue do take more time, I'm afraid.