Pavel Chernitsky

The issue turned out to be a defective nexus/data/theme.xml You can see it within the first screenshot I included - an if statement without an endif. Here is the relevant portion of nexus/data/theme.xml: <template template_group="subscription" template_name="profileSubscription" template_data="$member" template_location="front" template_app="nexus"><![CDATA[{{if $subscription = \IPS\nexus\Subscription::loadActiveByMember( $member )}} <div class='cProfileSidebarBlock ipsSpacer_bottom'> <a href='{url="app=nexus&module=subscriptions&controller=subscriptions" seoTemplate="nexus_subscriptions"}'> <div class='cProfileSubscription {{if $subscription->package->_image}}cProfileSubscription--with-image{{else}}cProfileSubscription--no-image{{endif}}'> {{if $subscription->package->_image}} <div class="cProfileSubscription_bg" style='background-image: url( "{expression="str_replace( array( '(', ')' ), array( '\(', '\)' ), $subscriptionbscription_text'><i class="fa fa-certificate"></i> &nbsp;{lang="nexus_subs_subscriber" sprintf="$subscription->package->_title"}</span> </div> </a> </div> {{endif}}]]></template> We have not manually edited this file. @Marc Stridgen, is there a way of verifying the checksum of all Invision Community system files, to spot other such defective files?

Hi marc, how are you? I've of course tried disabling all customizations prior to opening the thread. It didn't help unfortunately.

Yeah, I understood 🙂 I was referring to this:

Hi Jim, Thanks for answering! This is the default php, there are no customizations at all... I'll check about the security modules and update.

Hi team, We've recently updated to 4.7.6 and after the update we get this error when trying to enter user profiles. Checking the default theme php referring to that part and reverting it to default as in the attached screensho: gives the following error: We can only save it if it's empty, but then obviously the profile pages don't work. We need this fixed ASAP... Thanks in advance.

Same here. It's not as bad as it was, but it still doesn't come near what we had on VB. *I've PM'd you with more details.

Coming back to do the updating 🙂 Looks like PayPal suddenly decided that the fact our company's registered name isn't the same as the website's address so they made us jump through some bureaucratic hoops proving we are who we claim we are (after having no issue with it whatsoever for more than a year 🤷‍♂️ Anyways, a few documents later (and literally zero confirmation from them) we got it fixed and are now swimming* in sweet sweet monies again. *the phrase "swimming in money" does not refer to actual moving through a body of water but instead refers to re-activating our few thousand dollar a year income 😂

Thanks Stuart, and yeah, that's what we up with while looking into the issue - That basically they have all the control over the billing process and we have none. That wouldn't have been a problem if they at least gave some info as to the reasons of the billing failing, but they don't really do that either... Anyway, we're talking to them in order to get to bottom of this and get if figured out.

Thanks, It wasn't on my account but the website owner's. I doubt any changes were made but I'll check it and update here.

Hi all. We have more and more members complaining that Paypal started failing to charge them and thus their subscriptions are failing to renew. Nothing I can do through the ACP seems to fix this and currently the only solution I could find was to manually extend the expiration date (losing us money in the meanwhile). Anybody encountered something similar? Or does anyone from the IPS team have any input on the matter?

Hey Jordan, thanks for being open and reacting positively. However, I've written my thoughts on the matter quite a few times already. In the thread about Zappier integration being offered for CiC clients only (Which changed later, so that's awesome), On this thread, and in the one the started myself and PM'd you. I know you probably don't have time to read through all the comments being posted in these forums, but since we've already discussed them, they should be fairly easy to locate. I'm sorry if I'm coming off as prickly or just a plain a-hole, but I've got to say, I kind of lost hope... I wrote my opinion on this topic multiple times to multiple people, and it seemed to have very (VERY) little, if any, any effect. And i'm not even talking about actual changes to the software, but at most situations I didn't even get as little as a professional, straight forward explanation. I'm not criticizing your guys' choices, only the way you communicate them (if at all), and the fact that instead of being transparent and upfront with motives and specifics, you're having to constantly put out fires and apologize because "this wasn't the intent".

Hi Marc, thanks for the help. It didn't outright work since the subscription has already expired But that was the right direction, I just manually added a new invoice for a subscription and only then I was able to edit the expiration date.

I see what you're saying. I really do. But I also disagree with a lot of what you said. Unfortunately I don't have the tools nor the reach to have a bigger sample size of people, but I think that seeing such a result should, at least, urge IPS to have a closer look at the divergence of opinions among a larger group of clients and keep those of us who are active here in the loop. regarding that this does or doesn't make sense as a default feature, I'd accept it if it were something that was asked to be added, but we're talking about something that was an integral part of the system, and in trying to upgrade it (which I really appreciate) they inadvertently downgraded the usage possibilities for some communities, and limited the ways in which members' credibility can be quickly assessed by new members and/or guests. In other words - before the change you had three metrics to judge members: Post count, pips, and reputation (which can be positive or negative, so the member's posts are judged by the entire reader base). now you only have the post count, which may or may not give an idea as to how knowledgeable a member is; and achievements, that can only be "added" (meaning even if say something incredibly dumb, your "rank" can't be lowered). When this is the case - i.e. having a feature limited (even if that were not the original intent) I'd expect to at least be given a long enough heads-up. Like was done with the BBcode deprecation - we started doing our research into switching to IPS in mid 2019 and it was already mentioned in the ACP, while you still can enable it to this day. Moreover, the reputation system as a whole is still fully operational, and is still shown, the score has just been hidden behind an extra click/hover - making it naturally accessible only to those who know where to look. Regarding being given a workaround, I've touched on it before (can't find where exactly). Workarounds and third party addons are great, but they can't be used as replacements for core features. especially ones that were present prior. You can't "count" on a 3rd party dev to keep updating their plugins indefinitely and you can't edit more and more chunks of the code only to be needed to revert everything if you have a support request since IPS don't cover customizations in their support scope. Plus, let's not forget that css edits can and do break the entire design after major updates (we had to revert almost all our edits moving from 4.4 to 4.5). That's actually not very good when you're serving advanced users (community manages/owners) and not trying to appeal to the average Joe. Apple are making products that are designed to be straight forward and easy to use, and are selling them to the end customer. Community members aren't IPS's clients. Community managers/owners are. So they should have a strategy more akin to WordPress - giving their customers as many tools and flexibility as possible, and allowing them to tailor the best solution they can for their community. Firstly, they did not revolutionize anything through their products, but rather through making them accessible, "Dumbing them down" and marketing. Having said that, building what people wanted (smartphones were just starting to gain traction in 2005-6) is exactly what they did and exactly what made them big. Stopping to do so, slowing down innovation, sticking to their "bigger picture" strategy and "ignoring the competition" is what made them drop in position. Lo and behold, launching the M1 devices (in response to a growing criticism of performance) practically made them jump back to first place when recommending a laptop. Thinking you know better than your clients, especially when those clients are advanced users, professionals and even business owners, is - IMHO - a very bad practice.

TL;DR: How to "gift" a limited time free subscription to a paying subscriber? The situation is as follows: A member bought a subscription using a PayPal subscription (the only payment method properly supported for our country, so changing that isn't an option), but due to a bug they were charged more than they should have for a few months. They brought this issue to our attention and we agreed on a limited time "compensation". They will have several months free, and then resume payments. I've entered a credit sum to the member's account appropriate for the duration we wanted to "gift" the user, but the system wouldn't "charge" the credit that's present. Next, I've manually activated the subscription, but couldn't figure out whether there is a way to make it "deactivate" on a set date and then return to charging the members PayPal. Only other way I can see around it is setting a reminder, and when the time comes cancel the subscription and have the member purchase it again - Which is a course of action I'd very much like to avoid since I'd hate to pile on even more inconveniences on the member. Thanks for the help.

I'm very reluctant to say, and it genuinely saddens me to say that, but I just think the IC team doesn't care about the "small client" anymore. since a few months back I've been getting a feeling that IC have had their sights set on some goal (financial, if I'm correctly reading between the lines) and they don't let feedback get in their way. I (and it seems like quite a few different community managers/owners) have been having this feeling since the "Zapier's gonna only be for CiC clients" blog post. Feels like something was "switched on" and the devs' responses to feedback suddenly changed. I myself started a couple of threads about this issue, both were commented on (one of them after having a private conversation with a team member) with something along the lines of "yeah, that's great" or "pretty" and nothing more was done. Here's an example - a poll that ended in a landslide, and NOTHING was done besides some - excuse my french - asinine comments that COMPLETELY ignored that main issue and only acknowledged some side remarks made in other comments. And another one, where honest conversation was exactly what you said - constructive, sincere, and in good faith. Besides the mandatory "yeahhhh dude, we totally get you", pretty much nothing was done to address concerns that were brought up. Lately another line in sand was crossed with an e-mail sent to clients basically saying they're going to pawn off support to the community forums, sorry, I mean they're "keen to invest in our community support by asking that your first point of contact for support as an active license holder be in our new support area on our forums." because "Creating a strong support community backed by our support technicians will result in a more detailed and richer set of answers." I, for one, am on starting to give up any hope that taking any feedback that isn't "that's great!" into consideration is anywhere on IC's roadmap. It's unfortunate especially since we switched to IC from VB for exactly those reasons after years of VB "knowing better" and making their platform more and more frustrating to use. I'd hate to see IC go down the same path. Big sad.