Work on fixing Amibay and a request for volunteers

[Harrison]

Aa many of you know we decided early on that vBulletin 5 has not been fit for purpose, with too much broken, missing features and limited third party support.

From February we will begin working on the plans to move Amibay to a different forum platform called Xenforo. This will offer the ability to provide a fully featured feedback system once more.

Initially we will be testing out Xenforo with a test install to get used to how it works and what we can do. Plus testing out addons and plugins such as the feedback system.

I would like to get some regular members involved with this process so we have additional feedback from members on the development, to offer ideas suggestions and feedback, and also to help chase any bugs and issues that arise. If you are interested in helping out please let me know.

As I said this will begin in February. I have a big internet connection upgrade in the first week of the month, so my plan to to begin this once that is in place.

Currently I think a realistic goal to have the real site migrated would be Easter due to everyone's time constraints, but we can't set a firm date as it could be sooner or slightly later depending on how each stage progresses.

Thankyou everyone for being patient with us. We hope to provide you with a far better site and experience with this upgrade.

 

[Sardine]

I can help if needed

 

[Xumet]

Hi! I can help too.

 

[Dano]

Happy to help if required

 

[rgrocha]

I can help too

 

[Harrison]

Thanks for the offers of help. I will contact you all once I have a test site up, so you can be involved.

 

[cugar124]

Admins, please redirect if the wrong thread!! I am wondering when the fixed Amibay might be up and running. two big things I notice is I go to a thread then try to return to the title page only to be stuck there with no forums showing. the Other more annoying is the pictures be put up for the hardware side are so small no detail can be seen. I wonder if it's a mistake by the users i.e putting them in line with the ad instead of separate?

Guys I have noticed that we are not seeing much use in some areas is this because of the problems or just everyone using to other sources?

Thanks, and please don't take this as criticism I love amibay and apart from the odd spat with an admin have had nothing but pleasure from it, having been a hardware tech for many years and having computers from 1981 understand the hardware is a pain let alone something as complicated as this site so as a final word I want to say keep up the hard work guys..

 

[maw2k]

When clicking in whatever thread on the logo to go to the homepage it shows:

That action could not be completed. Please try again, and if this occurs again please contact the system administrator and tell them how you got this message.

It might worth to link the logo for now to : /forum

 

[davideo]

I suggested something similar a while ago but it hasn't been done

 

[Gilj]

Hi, i am a senior web developer, i would be happy to help.

Might i suggest that you add a temporary 302 redirect from the homepage of https://www.amibay.com to https://www.amibay.com/forum in the meantime which will resolve the issue of forums not loading for visitors on the homepage?

Thanks

 

[Harrison]

Hi, i am a senior web developer, i would be happy to help.

Might i suggest that you add a temporary 302 redirect from the homepage of https://www.amibay.com to https://www.amibay.com/forum in the meantime which will resolve the issue of forums not loading for visitors on the homepage?

Thanks

The issue with vBulletin 5 is that /forum doesn't actually exist. It's a virtual url built by the site using mod rewrite friendly URLs. No idea what causes the root to not load into the central body container sometimes, but not other times. Possible page cache issue. The /forum friendly url pulls up the root forum list, rather then gong to the homepage of the site, so it's pointing to one of the other content containers on the homepage causing the issue. Thing is we have given up trying to fix vBulletin 5. Xenforo will remove this headache. Do you have any experience of it?

 

[patracy]

I was reluctant to move my forum from vB to xF. But honestly it's been great. There were a few things we "lost" in the move that users haven't been happy with. (Listing of threads, photo album, exc.) But overall it's all been positive.

Also I second the redirect to /forum to "fix" the current homepage issue.