The Upgrade Thread

[pete]

Just amused.

According to the bug report, it has been assigned "highest" priority to fix the several search engine bugs, but it hasn't been fixed. That either means that it's a really hard fix to implement or that it really isn't "highest" priority.

I do know that vBulletin put a higher priority on a) getting vBulletin versions that support languages that read right to left working properly and b) getting vBulletin to work properly with IE 6.

vBulletin did release more functionality in this version of 4, including the ability to log in to a vBulletin forum with a Facebook account -- although they're also saying that Facebook has some "known issues." But I thought you'd be interested in that, Jim.

I've also seen a couple posts saying that vBulletin 3.8.x (which we use) may be supported until vBulletin 4.2 comes out. That means a year or so longer than the information I got (up until 4.1).

[Ed Svoboda]

At this point, it looks like there's no reason to move to it until at least 4.1.

[pete]

Just for kicks, I headed down to vbulletin.com and 4.0.4 is now out. ANDDDD ... the issues I had reported are still not fixed.

I'm not really surprised, but I am a tad disappointed.

For what it's worth, it seems that there are between 200 and 400 bugs fixed with every .0.x release. As an example, 4.0.1 fixed 200 bugs. 4.0.4 is supposed to fix 400-ish.

There has been some work in getting a new search engine put together to replace the one that's broke in vBulletin 4. While Google Search still isn't available, this looks somewhat promising.

The release date for 4.1 is still not available.

Techie joke: I'm surprised anyone could find the 4.0.4 release ....

[Ed Svoboda]

Sadly I got the 4.0.4 joke right away.

It sounds like we will continue to wait until the search issue is fixed or until they force us to upgrade.

[pete]

... as per the 404 joke, it seems like this was an update that failed. Bad.

("404", for those of you that didn't get it, is a "Page Not Found" error on da Intertubes.)

vBulletin's released an update and then an update to the update. Maybe we'll stick with 3.8.x forever ....

[pete]

... 4.0.4pl1 came out a day or two ago. Seems that 4.0.4 really did (I'm not making this up) cause things not to be found.

Irony. Or ironing. Something like that.

Anyhow, 3.8.6 has also been announced and should be available next week. As per my normal testing, I'll wait for about a week to see if there are problems caused by upgrading to 3.8.6 and/or if there is a real pressing need to do that update (i.e. see what bugs are fixed, see if there are any security holes that are patched, etc.).

[pete]

... and 3.8.6 is now available. No real problems reported, yet. The only problems have been in the form of, "I got my license 356 years ago and when I try to upgrade, it says my license has expired!"

[Ed Svoboda]

I glanced at it and so far it looks like it is stable.

[tictactux]

Originally Posted by Ed Svoboda

I glanced at it and so far it looks like it is stable.

Just because it didn't move doesn't mean it's stable. (I got kids, I got wood block toys, I know what I'm talking about)

<sigh> I feel your pain. Personally I'd wait (and carefully collect versions) until it's inevitable...

[pete]

I always try to give it at least a week, unless there's a major security issue.

Along those lines, if you have XP and haven't gotten this month's updates from http://update.microsoft.com, you should.

[pete]

... And, in the "Yeah, it's got great features. It'd be nice if they all worked," category, vBulletin 4.0.5 was released today. I think that's approximately 2 updates a month for this product since it was released. And no, they still haven't fixed the search engine bugs I reported in January.

As far as 3.8.6 goes, I've only seen one real problem posted: it looks like some characters, like the "£" symbol, don't show up properly. One of the vBulletin support staff has recommended a rather easy fix and the person with the problem hasn't responded back yet.

The other problem reported was the "logs me out!" problem that was caused by users upgrading from really old versions of vBulletin: we've already had that problem when we did the 3.8.4pl upgrades, so it's one of those non-issues for us ....

I'll still give it some time. I'm now scheduled to work on Saturdays for the next two months (I need the OT pay, anyhow), so I might do it on a day that I'm "free".

[pete]

Well, they just came out with 3.8.6 PL1. In other words, even though I hadn't seen anyone post any bug reports, there were some.

I'll give it another week before upgrading.

[Gandalfe]

PL 1? What the heck is that?

[pete]

"Patch Level." It's been en vogue recently, especially with McAfee products.

I think I explained it this way:

a.b.c.d pl

a = Major release. Significant change in how the program looks and/or works. Example: vBulletin 3 and vBulletin 4.
b = Significant release. Possible major change in how something works or has a new feature or two, but generally not in how something looks. Example: MacOS 10.5 and MacOS 10.6.
c = Minor release. Generally for major bugs, but no new functionality. Example: vBulletin 3.8.5 and vBulletin 3.8.6.
d = Minor bug fix.
pl = "Patch Level" fix. Generally just a security enhancement/fix.

Yes, I know: vBulletin 3.8.6 pl1 is a bugfix (11 bugs, to be precise) release. That's why I said "generally."

Now, there can be some other letters/numbers. Gandalfe's favorite would be "SP" or "Service Pack." In other words, when Windows 7 SP1 comes out later this year/beginning of next year, it will be a Service Pack release, rather than Windows 7.1, which it really is because it will have some new features as well as bug fixes.

Additionally, when I did code, I went even more granular: I appended a time stamp. This is rather popular with code collaboration tools, as are "version" stamps, like "this is the 186th build I worked on it today."

[tictactux]

Originally Posted by Gandalfe

PL 1? What the heck is that?

Don't think of PL/1.

Don't.

[Carl H.]

Originally Posted by tictactux

Don't think of PL/1.

Don't.

I guarantee I wont.

[Gandalfe]

Originally Posted by pete

Now, there can be some other letters/numbers. Gandalfe's favorite would be "SP" or "Service Pack." In other words, when Windows 7 SP1 comes out later this year/beginning of next year, it will be a Service Pack release, rather than Windows 7.1, which it really is because it will have some new features as well as bug fixes.

Thanks Pete, that makes sense. Actually for the product team I work on, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, it's updates.

[Ed Svoboda]

Originally Posted by tictactux

Don't think of PL/1.

Don't.

I took a PL/1 course in college. The phrase a waste of time comes to mind thinking back on it.

[pete]

Most useless programming language I learned in college: Modula 3. Yes, it was antiquated by about 30 years when I learned it.

[tictactux]

Originally Posted by pete

Most useless programming language I learned in college: Modula 3. Yes, it was antiquated by about 30 years when I learned it.

I still don't understand why Niklaus Wirth thought it necessary to create a pedantic-mode Pascal instead of extending Pascal into what was more successful under the name of Delphi...
(last time I coded some Delphi applet was yesterday)

[Gandalfe]

Originally Posted by tictactux

I still don't understand why Niklaus Wirth thought it necessary to create a pedantic-mode Pascal instead of extending Pascal into what was more successful under the name of Delphi...
(last time I coded some Delphi applet was yesterday)

I just use C#, but that hasn't been in a while. Scripting, that a horse of a different color.

[pete]

I missed two 4.0.x updates that came out in the last couple weeks: 4.0.6, then 4.0.6pl1. The "pl1" release was because two lines of code got mangled in the update and would cause database errors whenever you tried to ... post something.

Ooopsie.

I'm not liking vBulletin's quality control on their 4.x products. I think they hired the guy who sent out that McAfee AntiVirus DAT file that would kill your computer.

================

Anyhow, I've mentioned elsewhere that I'm currently working appx. 50 hours a week and am studying for another computer certification, so I haven't really had too much of a chance to get the 3.8.6pl1 update installed here. I've not gotten any complaints from anyone or problem reports, so I'll just wait out the 3.8.6pl1 update until September, when I should be back to 40 hours a week.

Again, if you see anything that looks really wrong or have any problems, please drop me a line and I'll get it fixed!