Why did we roll back to vBulletin 4?

[Elbereth Gailbridhil]

I can't find any announcement or explanation for the roll back, only this announcement that it happened -- https://www.tarvalon.net/content.php?1299-Welcome-back -- it makes reference to some sort of announcement about the rollback but I can't find it.

 

[Aduiavas Ida]

Short version: vB5 SUCKS

Any longer explanations I'll leave to our tech to answer, if they want

 

[Erin al'Denael]

Rhed posted in Site Announcements on vB5 2 weeks before we rolled back. As that post was on vB5, and we could not bring data back from vB5 to vB4, it is currently in the ether. We are working to get a read-only version up for reference through the end of the year.

We had between 5-10 members who could not access the website at all, and quite a few others who were continually logged out all the time. We could not solve this, despite spending a ridiculous amount of time trying to do so. We turned to vBulletin support (one of the reasons we went with vBulletin back in the day was dedicated support), but their "support" was less than ideal and did not resolve the issue. Even those of us who could access the site were experiencing slowness, delays, and oddities.

 

[Autumn Sapphira]

I have the text of the announcement our Amyrlin made regarding rolling back to vb4, since I copied it to post for our Yellow sisters who weren't able to access those forums at all.

On Nov 16, Rhed posted the following on the vB5 boards:
"After 6 weeks of using vBulletin 5, we have determined that it's not working for us. There are many reasons for this. First, vBulletin tech support is unhelpful, negative, and unwilling to fix the issues we're having. Second, the features that drew us to vB5 over vB4, the features that worked in development and promised to be useful and helpful for us, do not work on the live site. Third, the condensation of information that vB5 requires is creating extreme slowness for many members, leading to frustration with the boards and less activity. Finally, some members cannot access the site at all, which is a detriment to the community as a whole.

The only solution our Director of Technology, Erin Sedai, could find was to go back the last saved version of vBulletin 4, the boards as they were around the first of October.

Unfortunately, this means losing about 7 weeks of data and updates. There's no way around this -- vBulletin does not have a data transfer option when moving from a newer version to an older one.

The transfer back to vB4 will happen the week of November 23 to hopefully minimize impact to the community.

The current theme will be transferred to the vB4 boards. The vB5 boards will be available as read-only for any posts that members want to move over to vB4 until at least the end of this year. User permissions that have changed in the 7 weeks will be effective when we move back. New members who have joined since the switch to vB5 will be documented and contacted by Erin Sedai to let them know that they will need to create a new account. Post count on the vB5 boards will count toward the 25 post requirement for becoming a citizen.

We will be seeking a refund from vBulletin, as the product did not work as promised, though we are not hopeful that anything will come of that. Erin Sedai will start looking at other options for our boards.

We apologize for the board change again so soon. We just did not foresee the issues we'd have with vBulletin 5, and we thought it would be a good change that would work for us.

If you have any questions, feel free to post them here, or email amyrlin@tarvalon.net, keeper@tarvalon.net and technology@[URL="http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Ftarvalon.net%2F&h=qAQFcakPP&enc=AZNeV9_yHrFHUDVSxLrBLSS7Ilg0bPg9tcaLsE1rJM_emk2W9XHfX6kQofLMijtlVQXp92e9JV3ihnZV3ckicevk-tJs5FDDlDwHIt1Rob3N3rAOTIVwKXMFoZ7jvyqXRDXuekNFet0L6XM1WurKBHhO&s=1"]tarvalon.net[/URL][URL="http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Ftarvalon.net%2F&h=qAQFcakPP&enc=AZNeV9_yHrFHUDVSxLrBLSS7Ilg0bPg9tcaLsE1rJM_emk2W9XHfX6kQofLMijtlVQXp92e9JV3ihnZV3ckicevk-tJs5FDDlDwHIt1Rob3N3rAOTIVwKXMFoZ7jvyqXRDXuekNFet0L6XM1WurKBHhO&s=1"].[/URL] "

Hope that helps!

 

[Elbereth Gailbridhil]

Thanks!