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It's been a very eventful week here at Invision Community, with the launch of Invision Community 5 and I wanted to take a minute to give an update on what has happened and what we've learned this week. Fixes and PatchesDespite being a brand-new platform, Invision Community 5 has had a very low number of critical issues, primarily thanks to months of careful testing and preparation before this release. We have made two patches this week that fix the following issues: An issue where some Cloud sites would block .svg and webp images when uploaded. An issue where updating the approval queue during the v4 to v5 upgrade could fail. An issue where the Policy Page would show an error when Send Grid is enabled. An issue where some template hook locations were missing. An issue where PayPal attempts to use a full name even when it's not required. We've been reading all your posts about your experiences upgrading to Invision Community 5, and there is one area where we think we can improve. Pages UpgradesRight now, once the v4 to v5 upgrade has completed, your Page Databases retain their custom templates. However, because the CSS framework has changed, those pages look broken. We plan to rename all v4 Pages templates containers and reset the defaults on all the databases very soon (likely 5.0.2) so your pages do not look broken after the upgrade. You can then choose from one of the new default views or move your customisations back into the default templates. We will also add this information to the Invision Community 4 "Prepare for v5" page in the Admin CP. In the meantime, reverting custom Pages Templates will solve broken views. Next ReleaseWe want to continue releasing regular releases as we fix issues. Invision Community 5.0.1 is expected to be available early next week. Before I go, I just wanted to mention that I've heard some customers looking forward to upgrading this weekend. Just keep in mind that support is limited over the weekend, and we always recommend taking at least a database backup before you run the upgrader. Thanks again for all your help this week!

I'm going to assume that you have had a pretty bad day before you came here and thought it was absolutely fine to be rude and abusive to strangers. Normally, we just delete this kind of topic because it doesn't meet our community guidelines in that it is aggressive, rude and full of language that we won't tolerate in a public space. Sadly, we get a lot of this via email and here on the forum from those who allow emotion to cloud fact. However, I suspect at some point you'll decide to post on other sites how Invision Community is ripping you off and increasing your prices and so on, so I wanted to run you through some facts. You currently have our version 4 "IPS Community Suite" license. Invision Community 4 allowed you to pick and choose what apps you wanted. In your case, you have a forum on its own. This makes your current renewal $80 a year as you have stated. Before I continue, if you want to remain on Invision Community 4, which we have stated numerous times will remain supported for a long while yet, you are very welcome to do so. You do not need to do anything else and can remain on your current license and renewal price. If you are still reading, then you must want our brand new version: Invision Community 5. Invision Community 5 is a significant upgrade, with many new features and a significant change in how apps work. Starting with Invision Community 5 it is no longer possible to pick and choose apps; you get them all. This is based on how all our first party apps now interact with each other, and gives us scope in the very near future to build on those interactions without having to consider that some apps may be missing. Moving forwards, you will hear us talking about features more than apps which currently act as silos. Now, if you wanted to think about upgrading to Invision Community 5, then you can visit your client centre and you'll see this: This clearly states it's for the new version, and not something you need to do for your current version. Clicking this checks your existing license and gives you some information on what this optional change will make to your payments: This page sets out what has changed. It explains that you will now get all the apps which would have taken your renewal to $300/year, but we have set the price for all apps to be $199/year and based on your renewal dates, we've given you two months free as a thank you. Personally, I think this is excellent value and you will not get the kind of functionality Invision Community 5 brings with its Theme Editor, drag and drop Page Editor and more for less than our asking price of just under $17 a month. However, if you do not want to do this then you do not have to do this. You can remain on Invision Community 4 and nothing changes. Accusations of us being greedy and immoral are wide of the mark. We ran these license changes past a focus group made up of Invision Community customers and while we accept that for some the price increase is significant, they felt it offered good value for what you get. Some customers with all our apps will save money. Change is never easy but as adults we should be able to have a civil discussion about it and if you eventually want to migrate to a free or low-cost forum only platform then we will thank you for your business and understand your choice with no ill will. Finally, I'm happy to say that our management team has not changed in the 22 years we've been in business but I thank you for your concern.

We're pleased to announce that CSAM scanning is now available at no extra cost. What is CSAM scanning?CSAM stands for Child Sexual Abuse Material. The media served by your community will be scanned to identify any matches in a central CSAM database. These lists are provided by leading child safety advocacy groups, such as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). CSAM scanning is now recommended to increase compliance in many areas, and you can rest assured that Invision Community will now block any harmful media from being shown in your community. Moderating large communities can be challenging when your members are able to upload photos, and this scanning tool offers great peace of mind. What about privacy?Rest assured that privacy is paramount to Invision Community. CSAM scanning is not an AI tool, and neither does it mean media on your site is being shared with third parties for review. Each photo or video is assigned a digital fingerprint, which is checked against a known database. If there is a match, the photo is blocked from being viewed. What happens if there is a match?If we detect a match for CSAM, the media is blocked from being shown. We will then remove the offending media and, where possible, block the person who uploaded the material. This tool is designed to help you, as an Invision Community owner, moderate your community and protect you from unwittingly sharing CSAM. We hope you never have a member upload such material, but it's reassuring to know that your site will not be complicit in its sharing. By identifying and blocking bad actors' access across our network, we can pre-emptively protect you, too. Can I opt out?No, there is no way to opt out. This scanning service offers great peace of mind, protects you from harmful material being shared, helps compliance and prevents bad actors from accessing other communities. Note: this service is not available for Invision Community Classic.

Invision Community 5.0.2 is now available via your Admin Control PanelThis release focuses on bugs reported since the release of 5.0.1 and features many UI improvements. You can see the full list of fixes in our release notes section. This release also resolves several issues with Downloads screenshots and thumbnails. What's next?This week we'll continue to triage and manage incoming bug reports and we expect to have another maintenance release out next week to ensure that bug fixes are resolved as quickly as possible. We then expect 5.0.4 to follow within two to three weeks as we work in some larger fixes that will require more testing. If we see anything more pressing, we'll release a patch which can be applied via your Admin Control Panel. As always, thank you for your testing and reports. It really does help us!

Invision Community 5.0.1 is now available via your Admin Control PanelThis release focuses on bugs reported since the release of 5.0.0 and features many editor and UI improvements. You can see the full list of fixes in our release notes section. What's next?This week we'll continue to triage and manage incoming bug reports and we expect to have another maintenance release out next week to ensure that bug fixes are resolved as quickly as possible. If we see anything more pressing, we'll release a patch which can be applied via your Admin Control Panel. As always, thank you for your testing and reports. It really does help us!

That is an incredibly bold and somewhat bleak statement to make. I don't think any one person has the agency to speak on behalf of all customers. We do of course care what our customers think. We spend a lot of time talking and listening to our customers. The truth is that you cannot make everyone happy. You just can't. Take this one topic for example. One customer is upset at having username log in taken away after we announced it 3 years ago and others have said it's not a big deal and some see the benefit. The best we can do is do what we think is right for the majority of customers. Most of our customers are inside that red circle, with a few outside of it. Does that mean that we don't care about those outside of it? Of course not but we listen to all customers, and combine it with our strong vision for what a community platform would be, and a strong vision is essential for any product. Not everyone will align with it, but a strong vision allows you to build strong, robust and confident foundations and build a cohesive and logical product that follows the rules of that vision. With a strong vision you can build something special. Even if it means not adding every feature that everyone wants. Without a strong vision, and accepting every idea that is passed before us, you get a much weaker product that has no cohesion or identity. Invision Community 5 has been in some form of testing since June 2024 and we've had hundreds of conversations that have shaped the final product. To say we don't care about customers is pretty wide of the mark in my opinion.

We're going to restore that functionality in 5.0.4.

Invision Community 5.0.3 is now available via your Admin Control PanelThis release focuses on bugs reported since the release of 5.0.2 and features many UI improvements. You can see the full list of fixes in our release notes section. What's next?We expect 5.0.4 to follow within two to three weeks as we work in some larger fixes that will require more testing. We may release a beta release ahead of the full release to ensure that any bugs from those larger fixes are caught and fixed early. If we see anything more pressing, we'll release a patch which can be applied via your Admin Control Panel. As always, thank you for your testing and reports. It really does help us!

We always strive for excellent customer service and we work hard to deliver a great product. The hundreds of happy customers that are active on this forum give a fair and balanced view of Invision Community. Despite our best efforts, some relationships with customers break down through miscommunication, misunderstanding, and sometimes we do drop the ball and fall short of the standards we set. However, we genuinely believe that we deserve a better rating than the 2.2/5 we currently have on Trustpilot. Unfortunately a very tiny majority use this review site solely to talk about a poor experience they have had whether it's deserved or not. We do not ask for reviews as part of our onboarding process as many services do, but I am asking for some more honest and fair reviews of Invision Community. Capterra has a mix of reviews with a total score of 4.4/5 which we feel closer represents the customer experience. If you have a few minutes, I'd love if you could leave a few words on your experience with Invision Community on the Trustpilot site.

The star has made its return and should be available in 5.0.2, due next week.

We are toying with the idea of allowing some more 'meta' tag tools for moderators when creating a topic so they can set an o:image for sharing purposes, and also for showing the featured image in other areas.

Sometimes when a heated topic gets locked, some of the bad apples will go and make passive-aggressive reactions on various posts. Would it be possible, in a future release, to prevent reactions being added or removed on a locked thread?

But you’re not doing that. You are just saying, you didn’t notice any problems with it, so you declare that there is no problem to begin with. That’s not how that works. It very much depends on the age and type of community. On my bigger and older communities, I get hundreds of bounced emails every time I send out a newsletter, even though I clean up bounces instantly. So, it’s just a fact that I have thousands, if not tens of thousands of users per community with discarded email addresses – with hundreds more each month. You stating that people don’t use inactive addresses during registration doesn’t change that many people go through many email addresses quickly, especially to sign up on websites. In some areas of the world, this seems to be common practice. And by the way: Pointing to all the improvements in 5.x is irrelevant. If there are 100 improvements and one problem, we can still talk about that one problem and possible solutions to it. Suggesting we shouldn’t because there are also good things is a logical fallacy.

Those reviews and that score is insane. Never done Trustpilot but I’ve just registered and reviewed. Hopefully more clients see this and do the same. More clients = More revenue. More revenue = Bigger better thanks for IC. Better things from IC = Better things for our communities. Win/Win. Much deservedly love from a long time client of yours that does not regret a single penny I have sent your way ❤️

I'm recreating it but I can't find time to finish it: Anyway, I'd prefer it to be returned.

I'm excited to see that Invision 5 is finally out! We've been using it as our main platform since the beta testing phase, and it was definitely worth the risk. However, there's an issue I want to bring to the attention of the Invision Community Team. Our business relies heavily on the subscription system in Invision Community to generate revenue. We've integrated it with our games, and it has been a huge success. Our IC5 website's subscription page is our primary source of income. One of the main reasons we switched from XenForo to Invision Community was because XenForo's commerce system is practically non-existent, and they had no plans to expand it since it wasn’t their main focus. In contrast, Invision Community not only provides a great forum but also empowers users to monetize their platforms, which is incredibly important. In fact, I moved away from Stripe's billing portal in favor of IC5's system because it gives us, as administrators, much more control over pricing, discounts, and customization. While Stripe has to adhere to strict guidelines for large businesses, Invision Community gives us the flexibility to configure everything exactly how we need it. That’s why I'm asking the Invision Community Team to give the commerce system, especially subscriptions - a bit more love. We appreciate the coupon system, but we'd love to see more customization options, such as: More detailed configuration options The ability for users to choose different subscription plans if they pay yearly A better way to showcase subscription plans on the website Fixes for existing bugs, such as user roles not being properly removed when a subscription expires The goal should be a huge overhaul on the commerce system as its pretty dated, help us have the tools to grow bigger. Improving the commerce system would not only benefit users like us but also attract more businesses to Invision Community. The key is empowering us to run our operations smoothly without unnecessary complications. But again, I really do feel this should be looked at as something important. The Invision Community Commerce System has allowed me to grow my business and even buy myself a nice truck! AND THIS IS ALL BECAUSE INVISION COMMUNITY GAVE US THE TOOLS TO HAVE POWER OVER OUR OWN PLATFORM!! ♥️ Thank you for taking the time to read this! I hope to see some awesome updates.

Invision Community 5.0.2 Patch 1 released which fixes: Wallpaper images not showing in Chrome and Firefox (CSS issue) The core issue removing Downloads file thumbnails when Topic Sync is on The issue with the downloads file thumbnails is complex and took a while to track down. You may notice thumbnail loss after applying the patch on existing Downloads Files, and this is because the bug puts the primary thumbnail path and filename into the core_attachments table, instead of creating a new thumbnail. This means when you edit a file, or create a new version, the topic sync function runs which deletes the attachment, and the thumbnail before recreating a new image but the old thumbnail path and filename is still in downloads_files_records which manifests as a missing image. I am going to write an upgrade step for 5.0.3, but also a one-off script today to correct the data in core_attachments which should fully resolve the issue.

The missing "Wallpaper backgrounds" have been fixed and should hopefully be available shortly when Matt pushes the patch. That bug slipped by me as it only seems to happen in some browsers. Regardless, that issue was my mistake, sorry all! 😅

It really should be possible, I've never had all these phone emoji showing on the dropdown

From someone that brought some of these to your attention, would be rude of me to not stop by and say thank you and the team once again. I will never miss an opportunity to fluff up your ego! Raised the issue with the image scanner and template locations, patch released that day within a few hours. Found a couple more with Paypal and Privacy policy the patch released the next day. I get why some big sites prefer to wait, however as an owner of a site with nearly 3m posts, I never doubt the team here to rapidly fix any issues. If we all held back, these issues would take longer to find, so I'm happy to be the guinea pig with my trust so high. 5x has gone down really well with the members so far, they love the new and I quote "sexy" dark mode and the new nav bar on mobile is adored. @Ehren needs a pay rise!

All sites now have a disallow added to robots.txt to resolve this.

I saw that but it's wrong. 'most cases people don't tend to stay on a topic page for long enough' that's true for quiet forums, but active ones there's a good chance they'll see the pop up, especially if they are writing a reply.

I've thought about this a bit and although it sounds simple enough to add another box to accept a 'human name', it's quite complex in terms of adjusting the UI, and for most people most of the time they wouldn't really need to add anything as the software has a good go at figuring it out. I ended up with this, which is an easy way to quickly edit the names of the downloads and doesn't require a lot of reworking. CleanShot 2025-02-27 at 17.18.32.mp4

I just got busted for lazy copy and paste. Thanks, I'll fix that.

Just wanted to give another angle. I've been paying $135 every 6 months ($270 a year) for everything but Downloads. The new license at $199 is a DEAL, albeit I have not converted yet simply bc I'm too focused on my business and have not had to chance to read the difference in Terms of Service / etc.. between my old license and this one. I agree with another poster. IPB has been an excellent investment for my community! Context: I've been a customer since 2004 (21 years, wow.... just saying that) since IPB was essentially "free". I grew a business on the IPB community SW that serves many-many millions of users a month and who's revenue has helped my small family have a little more in life as a result. Thank you. TL;DR Thank you IPB. Things are never a straight line but keep going forward. Adjust, pivot. IPB 5 is a huge shift. Older communities like me will likely wait a bit to let things smooth out (and give us time to adapt / migrate)... but I appreciate the need to innovate and keep relevant. My only ask is that you keep self hosted around :-). Thanks again!

Handled better than I would have @Matt, I would have had to redact myself 😂

As noted in https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/topic/481420-disable-helpful/#comment-2991401 it’s not possible to turn off the “helpful” feature. It should be. On our site, we are a community of humans who know and respect each other, and don’t wish this intrusion from the system.

I was about to order an immediate and critically important Pizza Party for the office (max. two slices each please) based on your review alone until I spotted the word "almost" which honestly does take the shine off the whole thing as it infers we were close to making it too good but fell short. So instead, I got this made for reception.

When you're presented with a new way of working, it can be daunting and your first thought might be to reject those changes without investigating further. However, you can still do most of what you need with our template hook system which allows you to add your custom code to preset points within our templates. While editing templates was very convenient, it also had a lot of overhead in that processing those templates was slow effectively converting text to executable code on the fly with every click hundreds of times per page load. It was also very easy to break your community with a misplaced variable or bad edit. Upgrading was a chore because those with heavily customised templates had to either not have the latest fixes or work through a three way diff to figure out what has been changed. Now, we can pre-compile those templates as executable code, so they are much faster, you no longer have to worry about upgrading and working through changes. If you let us know what you need, we can point you in the right direction. Make sure "Theme Designer" is enabled in ACP > Themes. Then head to Theme Designer: Templates: Then Create a new template, choose the hook type and select the following: This will allow you to add any code after the opening <head> tag.

This is more of an oversight. I'll mark it as a bug and we'll discuss the best way forward.

We're pleased to say that Invision Community 5.0.0 is now available to all customers.It's been a long journey, but we are now ready to support v5 as our primary release and offer our thanks to all of those who been involved in our beta testing program. What does this mean?We are currently in the soft release phase to help us manage the influx of feedback from those choosing to upgrade. We also have some new documentation to finish, and some website changes to make. If you're unsure what new features v5 brings, you can check out our "What's new in v5" page. Can I still use v4?Absolutely! And we would encourage you to plan your upgrade carefully. Version 5 is not a normal upgrade, it's a brand new platform with many significant changes including how themes are created, how widgets and blocks are managed and it comes with a brand new editor. We still be supporting v4 for quite some time with important bug fixes and security updates. What does the upgrade from v4 look like?It's important to know that any custom themes, applications and plug-ins will not work on version 5. These items are not deleted, but they are disabled. You will need to recreate any custom themes, and contact the authors of any third-party applications to see if they have updated versions ready to use. Upgrading for Invision Community Cloud CustomersYou will see a new section in your client area. Clicking "Request Upgrade" will show you some very important information which you should ready carefully and review before continuing with the upgrade. Please note that you need to be on the latest version of Invision Community 4 before you can upgrade to v5. Upgrading for Invision Community Classic CustomersThose who host their Invision Community remotely will see a new button when managing your purchase. What's next?Invision Community 5 is the very beginning of our brand new platform and we can't wait to start evolving the new features set to better serve your community needs. Please post your feedback in the feedback forum. Let us know what you think!

On the who's online block, the number of members and guests have been removed. You can access the full list and it will tell you the number of members online, not the guests, which I'm not hugely bothered by as many were bots. I just kind of miss having that number there to gauge how busy it is on the home page than trying to guess looking at a block of text. I renamed in languages Whos Online to Fans Online to suit my site, but like this would be nice whilst retaining the language string so a Taylor Swift fan site could have 267 Swifties Online for example.

Just to add to this - I am very grateful that an issue was reported, identified and a patch issued same-day. Really appreciate the work going on around this release! I have a community with ~10million posts / 200,000 users and very few bugs found. Keep up the amazing work.

Yeah being able to assign different designs on a per-forum basis would be a nice inclusion. I'd also like to see that for the Forum Index layout options too; it'd be good to have forums under one category displayed as Grid and another category displayed as List, for example :)

I'll make it more like the link in the menu, with the alert and using a language bit instead. I'll update this topic later.

Yeah, it's super easy in Invision Community 5. Barely an inconvenience. The javascript I paste in is this: <script type="text/javascript"> document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function () { let newLi = document.createElement("li"); let newLink = document.createElement("a"); newLink.href = "#"; newLink.innerText = "Back to Top"; newLink.setAttribute( 'style', 'padding: .8em'); let newIcon = document.createElement("i"); newIcon.classList.add("fa", "fa-arrow-up"); newLink.prepend(newIcon); newLink.addEventListener("click", function (event) { event.preventDefault(); window.scrollTo({ top: 0, behavior: "smooth" }); }); newLi.appendChild(newLink); let ul = document.querySelector('nav.ipsBreadcrumb--bottom a[data-action="defaultStream"]').closest("ul"); if (ul) { ul.appendChild(newLi); } }); </script>

Terabyte's solution here is correct for your situation. 🤝 For anyone interested, I thought I'd clarify why this happens. The image thumbnails in your screenshot are slightly too small in dimension to fill the masonry grid. The way they've been handled (with the transparent space) is intentional, because sometimes tiny images (imagine an emoji or a small icon) are uploaded, and it wouldn't always be ideal to stretch these to fill the entire image cell. Here's an example, where the worm image is a small one (72x72 pixels), and so it's displayed in its natural dimension: With fill applied, it'll stretch the image so it fills the entire cell. This solution works fine for your site, but as a default value, it might not be the best as it'll stretch thumbnails beyond their natural size: With version 5 being used more and more in the wild, if this situation comes up often, I'll look into adjusting this by default so images always occupy the image cell.

I would love to see improvements to the Recent Topics Widget, particularly in Minimal View, to enhance usability and relevance. Specifically, I’d like to request an option for the widget to display the Username and Profile Picture of the most recent poster rather than the original topic creator. Often, the topic starter may have posted years ago and is no longer active, making their details less relevant in the context of recent discussions. In a previous version, a custom code fix allowed this functionality, but it is no longer compatible with the current version. It would be great if this could be included as a built-in feature. Additionally, I believe the widget could benefit from more customization options, including: Displaying the most recent poster’s profile picture and username. Showing the most recent post time in a "Posted X minutes/hours ago" format instead of the time of the original post. Preventing multiple entries from the same thread (so only the latest post from each topic appears in the feed). Displaying the forum section the post came from. Displaying the amount of posts or replies in that thread. Ensuring that clicking on a topic takes logged-in users to the first unread post rather than the start of the thread. I appreciate the various view options currently available, but these changes would greatly improve the widget’s functionality and user experience. If needed, I’d be happy to provide further details or feedback. Thanks in advance for considering this request!

i have done a review as well. Seems people only post bad reviews when they moan about something. Best software i have used in years, rely on it, secure, i can trust that if i go on vacation, the software is working as it should. (as long as server is ok of course) Certainly does not deserve those silly negative reviews, probably disgruntled because too impatient to learn the functionality of the software, and need to blame someone else and not themselves. Ask people to write a review matt, i think you will find it will go the other way

Allow us to pick which emoji display, and in which order. The custom emojis I uploaded are 20 x 20px. When posted they are far smaller than that. Allow them to be posted in the uploaded size. Thanks

I can state we have a local branch where you will be able to toggle any of custom emojis, native emojis and Font Awesome Icons to come in a future release. For the time being, you can do this to show your custom emojis up top, just replace Emoticons in the last rule set with the name of your custom category. .ipsIconPicker [data-role="icons"] { display:flex; flex-direction:column; } .ipsIconPicker__container [data-icon-category] { order: 1; flex: 0 0 auto; } /* List out any category titles you want up top here */ .ipsIconPicker__container :is([data-icon-category="Emoticons"]) { order: 0; }It also should work with multiple custom categories by adding them inside the :is() clause, separated by commas .ipsIconPicker__container :is([data-icon-category="Emoticons"], [data-icon-category="Other Custom Icon Category"]) Applying to this site with dev tools, it looks like this

Generally speaking, I think most communities will just have one theme now. Of course there is always space for novelty themes during holidays but the need to maintain separate dark and light mode themes is thankfully over.

Ok, thanks for confirming. This bug has traumatised me for weeks and will haunt my dreams for longer.

Upgraded. 🕺

I believe they removed the code that checks if the function exists before calling it. Since all new extensions are supposed to extent the base abstract class which will contain all empty functions regardless.

It's something that came up in alpha testing, and I think at some point we might re-add them, but it's not a simple task and on our backlog.

I have made some adjustments for 5.0.1 which should resolve this issue

Same steps as above, the JS is: <script type="text/javascript"> document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function () { let newLi = document.createElement("li"); let newLink = document.createElement("a"); newLink.href = ipsSettings.baseURL + 'markallread/?csrfKey=' + ipsSettings.csrfKey; newLink.innerText = "Mark Site Read"; newLink.setAttribute( 'style', 'padding: .8em'); let newIcon = document.createElement("i"); newIcon.classList.add("fa", "fa-solid", "fa-eye"); newLink.prepend(newIcon); newLi.appendChild(newLink); let ul = document.querySelector('nav.ipsBreadcrumb--bottom a[data-action="defaultStream"]').closest("ul"); if (ul) { ul.appendChild(newLi); } }); </script> I did it first without recording, then removed it but didn't refresh the page before recording, that's all.

Yeah, this may be an oversight. I'll move it in to our bug tracker.