Miss_B

You could share the host log in details amongst yourselves (admins) to avoid situations like this. Or you could look into hosting your forum with Invision and you will not have to worry about stuff like this anymore.

Unfortunately, I am unable to reproduce this. Both marking it hidden during the creation process and after the topic has been created both are appearing in the Activity Stream. I would advise looking at your activity stream settings (if it isn't the "All Activity") or ensure you're logged in as someone who can view hidden posts.
If all the above looks correct, checking your third party applications/plugins and themes as well is advised.

Yes, it is possible through custom coding. However, I am not sure that I understand the dashboard page part. Can you please post a mock up screenshot of what you mean by that? 

Can you check the installed App's/plugin 's page here at the Marketplace to see if any of them is not compatible with php 8? That might save you some time. You should look especially into the apps/plugins that have to do with topics, as the error messages you posted above indicate that
 

☀️ Welcome to this week's Invision Community Insight! ☀️
Thank you for checking out this quick, round up post. It's hard to believe that we are entering into a new month! I hope your week as been pleasant. 
 
Current Happenings
The August release will be ready late this month just as it was in July. A few of you have asked about Spam improvements. Those will be in an upcoming release ... August if we are lucky. 🤞
 
Our update is brief again this week. Version 5 has been a big focus for our team so far this year and we are making great progress! We will begin sharing non-technical updates soon and once we do, I'll share those here.
 
Changelog
With that said, changes for version 4 are limited for now but for those that like to see what we are up to line by line, here is the changelog for the week for version 4. 
 
 

UI Extensions part 2 of 3:
 

I couldn't like this post enough and I completely agree 100% with the above.
Personally, I truly appreciate the way that Ips management keeps their customers in the loop, listens to us and interacts with us. 
You don't see this at other community platforms, where there is only silence from the management, and indeed, bad and barely support. 
Ips is and will remain the best and leading community platform in the market.

As always, keep calm and talk to us if it’s unclear. We are here every day. 

The new pricing structure is very fair imho. People will get their money's worth and then some, no questions about that. Personally I find it a very good deal. But unfortunately, no matter what you do, you can't please everyone.
 
 

No punishment at all! In fact, there is no "catch up" on annual renewals. If you let an annual renewal expire for example for 6 months, you can just pay the normal annual fee 6 months later.
There is only a catch up on the monthly because it's kind of like a finance plan for the annual. If that makes sense 🙂 

The new pricing structure is very fair imho. People will get their money's worth and then some, no questions about that. Personally I find it a very good deal. But unfortunately, no matter what you do, you can't please everyone.
 
 

The new pricing structure is very fair imho. People will get their money's worth and then some, no questions about that. Personally I find it a very good deal. But unfortunately, no matter what you do, you can't please everyone.
 
 

The new pricing structure is very fair imho. People will get their money's worth and then some, no questions about that. Personally I find it a very good deal. But unfortunately, no matter what you do, you can't please everyone.
 
 

Thanks for your reply! I know some people get all worked up if costs go up even a tiny bit but we really tried to balance this.
All with the eye toward making Classic, self-hosted viable for the future, we:
Took feedback from a private group of clients for month to refine the new terms Lowered the initial purchase price. Include all the apps with the new terms. Gave people the option to stay on old terms if they want. Give you several months of free time when you switch. I am actually very proud of our ability to keep Classic around in a world where people just do not use self-hosted as much anymore. And, again, I thank our private client feedback group for helping us shape this in a way that is beneficial to most clients.

I couldn't like this post enough and I completely agree 100% with the above.
Personally, I truly appreciate the way that Ips management keeps their customers in the loop, listens to us and interacts with us. 
You don't see this at other community platforms, where there is only silence from the management, and indeed, bad and barely support. 
Ips is and will remain the best and leading community platform in the market.

I couldn't like this post enough and I completely agree 100% with the above.
Personally, I truly appreciate the way that Ips management keeps their customers in the loop, listens to us and interacts with us. 
You don't see this at other community platforms, where there is only silence from the management, and indeed, bad and barely support. 
Ips is and will remain the best and leading community platform in the market.

I couldn't like this post enough and I completely agree 100% with the above.
Personally, I truly appreciate the way that Ips management keeps their customers in the loop, listens to us and interacts with us. 
You don't see this at other community platforms, where there is only silence from the management, and indeed, bad and barely support. 
Ips is and will remain the best and leading community platform in the market.

I can see how you might look at it that way in terms of saving money. But we spent a lot of time, resources, and money in development of those 3 years of features and other clients have an expectation from us.
The only way to make self-hosted viable for the future is to ensure people are paying for the effort put into developing it. Otherwise we really should just get rid of it. If you are not willing to do that, there are cheap or low cost alternatives out there but you don't get the owners of the company replying to you and you most certainly do not get monthly updates and constant improvements. Look at literally any other community platform and you will see many are at worst dead and at best barely supported.
It is also very, very common. I'm not sure where you have been living in 30+ years of the software world. It's very normal for software to require a subscription fee or to require a re-purchase at major versions. I get emails all the time from software I own that says "new version pay up!"
We are not requiring people to re-purchase for v5 as other platforms would. The "catch up" renewals only apply to the monthly option as it is basically a finance version of the annual fee. You may wish to review the new terms in the client area as you seem incorrect here.
We are growing and, if you are actually serious about your community, a few more dollars a year to get a platform that is actually alive must be worth it. If having something that is actively developed is not worth it to you, then your community will probably suffer with another platform.
But, as has been said a lot already in this topic, you don't have to do anything. You can stick right where you are on your current terms.
 
TL;DR: We are committed to our clients using Classic, self-hosted who are committed to their communities being a success. It is a joint venture.
 
And to your examples:
1. Insurance companies actually do charge you more if you have a huge gap in coverage. They see you as a greater risk. Same idea here.
2. Microsoft does not do upgrade fees they just make you buy the new version outright. If you would prefer that, I would be HAPPY to do that as it would make our software cost way more.

I've done an new guide just for this process, if anyone needs extra guidance on this
 

Thank you for the clarification. Personally I think that this is a pretty good/favourable deal.

Thank you for the clarification. Personally I think that this is a pretty good/favourable deal.

Yes, you will get all the apps.

@Dreadknux and @Miss_B If you click the "switch" button in the client area on your license, it will show you a lot of information on your options. It does not actually switch you over until you approve it.

We did an analysis of all our customers to work out the average renewal cost and buying habits. We made sure that the renewal price point was as close to the average as possible (we actually went under).
We discussed the pricing at length and shared it with a handful of customers in a focus group to get thoughts and feedback, and tweaked accordingly.
We have been as fair as we possibly can throughout this process. Undoubtably some may need to pay a bit more to unlock all that new functionality, but most will pay a bit less. We've found a pricing model that ensures the self-hosting version is viable for years to come.
Invision Community v5 is the start of the next evolution for our community platform bringing in many features to help publish content, monetise the community and more. Just selling a forum app is a market in a serious decline.
But you do not have to do anything. You can stick with your v4 license for as long as you wish. This is not a choice you need to make now, or even this year. Wait until v5 is out and then decide what is right for you. If it's not right for you, then be assured that v4 will remain supported for years to come.

Actually, several clients were invited to a private feedback group and have been giving us feedback for the past several months on how best to re-approach Invision Community Classic. Our goal was to make self-hosting viable for the future.