vBulletin 5 Connect Beta 23 is NOW AVAILABLE for vBulletin 5 Connect license holders to download. Prospective customers may preview vB5 Connect at www.vbulletin.com/vb5demo/. The vBulletin 5 Connect Beta 23 feedback thread for licensed customers is HERE. We use your feedback to improve vBulletin. Beta 23 addresses 103 issues. However, we recommend you not utilize vBulletin Betas for live sites. Note: As with all Beta releases, no phone or ticket support will be provided for Beta 23. However, customers purchasing a vBulletin 5 Connect license will receive 30 days of free ticket support--with a start date commencing upon the Gold release. VBV-6530 Assign Homepage: Not yet implemented (remove non implemented feature) VBV-6327 Using the Add Photos dialog in an album on the Media Tab overwrites the whole album VBV-6379 New channel missing a routenew record. VBV-3900 VBV-3175Stylevars not being inherited by child styles VBV-6319 Moderator Actions are Not Logged for display in the ACP (continuation) VBV-6012 Pagination is broken, it's not displaying all the posts after upgrading VBV-6526 search follow filter is not working properly VBV-6639 Attachment list shows in subsequent posts after attaching an image VBV-5444 Channel manager doesn't show any channels after upgrade VBV-3962 Debug Error Message displayed after enable products and hooks from the Admincp. VBV-5922 Making profile Activities only viewable by Subscribers removes the Subscribe, Visitor Message, and Private Message buttons VBV-3387 Database error when editing a language VBV-2945 Database error when creating a new Language VBV-6186 Unable to send visitor messages (Sorry, you are not authorized to view this page ) VBV-6443 New photo topic with one photo displays "allowed amount of pictures exceeded' error message even though AdminCP is set to "0" (unlimited) VBV-2785 COPPA registration not working on IE9 VBV-1536 "Minimum Time Between Searches" setting doesn't work VBV-5204 Upgrade Bug: max_packet_allowed exceeded in the Admin CP after upgrading 1.6 Million Post site. VBV-5032 Upgrade from 4.2 should respect 4.2 activity stream expires setting VBV-4270 After upgrading, links to the original post for quotes are wrong VBV-1559 Conversation Detail Module can't be edited VBV-3941 VBV-3726Usergroup Permission "Maximum Stored Messages" doesn't work VBV-5654 Error in Admincp when saving settings VBV-6360 Content Unit tests are failing VBV-6555 When posting a Visitor Message, the plain editor is not automatically transformed into ckeditor VBV-6464 datastore getValue performance can be improved VBV-6463 Memory cache writeCache and purgeCache are inefficient VBV-4897 API allows creating a thread starter of content type text with no text VBV-5675 "User List Cache" in vB_Api_Follow doesn't preserve result rows VBV-6374 Old Widget Definition records are not removed VBV-1535 "Search Engine Enabled" setting doesn't work VBV-6487 Saving usergroup changes causes Home Page channel permissions to show as customized (regression) VBV-2630 Include attached script in download package to build config.php files. VBV-5983 Usergroup Setting: Can Use Signatures setting turns off all signature permission settings when set to No. Doesn't return them back when set to Yes. VBV-675 Admins/mods cannot reply to closed threads VBV-6519 userContext::getChannelPermission is inefficient. VBV-6330 Search Page Broken Under Certain Circumstances VBV-6366 Need to manually clear cache for some permission changes to fully take effect VBV-6576 Image Verification for Registration cannot be enabled after disabling VBV-5537 A blank notification is received when your poll is voted on VBV-6597 Lost Password Page inaccessible when Can View Channels Channel Permission is set to No VBV-6687 Quoting does not work VBV-2051 Improve the Error message when inputting an invalid MSN username. VBV-6451 Album doesn't check first photo for album size restrictions VBV-3750 Creating private message folder doesn't display it until page is reloaded VBV-6318 VBV-6360lastcontentid is not being updated when deleting a node VBV-1985 Private Messages "Preview" div will display out of place VBV-3730 "lastvisit" column in user table not updating properly VBV-6305 Quotes from nodes not being properly fetched when passing an array of nodeids to the content link api VBV-6375 VBV-6360Cache not being properly cleared when deleting nodes. [text unit test] VBV-4974 Read Marking options don't work VBV-6397 Mark Channels Read doesn't work VBV-6462 Topic/Forum Read Marking Type "Database (automatic forum marking)" doesn't work properly VBV-6425 IE - "Write something here" text is not removed in Post Reply editor VBV-6361 Improve the <meta> html tag for X-UA-Compatible attribute VBV-6527 Missing HTML code in 'banned_page' template VBV-6525 Forums as default in activity module VBV-6528 Upgrade does not detect proper version number (upgrading from 380 & 414) VBV-1012 Can't alter my profile in frontend if the user is unalterable VBV-6243 Guests Can Access Special Channel VBV-6494 Unexpected error message on session timeout VBV-3948 VBV-3726Usergroup Permission "Can Edit Profile Privacy" doesn't work VBV-2645 Display like count when users are not logged in VBV-6188 Search Tips link missplaced VBV-6497 PHP error in getSGInfo socialgroup API method [unit test] VBV-5347 "buttons" should be capitalized VBV-5049 Phrase has invalid varname: "error_saving vote" VBV-4835 Add debug information back to database error. VBV-6241 Templates don't use post url routing VBV-6563 Reply notification not showing correct username & count VBV-6386 Notification is received for each individual reply VBV-4193 Polls are able to be saved without a description VBV-3988 Go advanced & Preview don't work when editing in activity stream VBV-466 The Flag Reports folder does not display number of items waiting for moderation VBV-2937 Forum Manager links in Page Manager pointing to core directory VBV-4590 Forum channel list in home always shows all channels as containing unread posts VBV-6050 Saving usergroup permissions no longer redirects VBV-2322 Difficulty in re-focusing recipient field after un-focusing when sending Private Message VBV-5915 IE8 - Private messages do not remove the "Write something here" text upon clicking into the field VBV-3311 Typo in phrase VBV-6482 (IE only) User Profile - Media - Upload Photos: "Write something here" default text in description box does not hide when typing text VBV-6489 Row divider goes straight through Last Post text VBV-6185 "Can poll" phrase should be "Can create poll" VBV-6610 Post Settings buttons are in reverse order during Group creation VBV-6575 Registration title text is too small VBV-1365 Social Group Icons not resized on upload VBV-1468 Tabs Styling VBV-2636 Like system produces "reputation" error VBV-4366 Rename "Plugin/Hook System" Group in Options VBV-2805 Improve wording of error message that is displayed when you cannot ban the specified user VBV-6491 Blog Title will not be trimmed on blog admin VBV-6211 Edit Footer shows "Main Navigation Bar" in edit form VBV-6217 Incorrect signature option in Default Registration Options VBV-5837 Modules are referred to as Widgets in Error Message VBV-5978 Improper error message for seach module when there are no results VBV-6102 Error messages phrasing improvements VBV-5861 display_contenttype_conversationreply_threadview_Poll template has a hardcoded phrase VBV-5729 Typo: Change user setting "Show profile picture" to "Show Avatar" VBV-3107 Confusing phrasing on subscribed tab under user profile VBV-6145 Grammar issue for phrases involving "X...[and] me" VBV-5979 Typo for no_permission_images phrase value, has a " mark at the very end. VBV-6109 "Email Flood Check" setting lost its description VBV-6574 See All Notifications button is right-aligned (not centered) Continue reading...
From what I've seen, people are still complaining that there is code from vb2 still in the vb5 release. Also the lack of key elements like infractions and promotions will stop many from upgrading.
I'm not sure any vb2 code would be in it unless they thought some it was better than what vb3 was. vb3 was a complete rewrite. I'm not so sure this team of devs will ever get it right. Until they tear it down and start fresh this what you'll see. Regression and new bugs with each release. IMO since they regressed the code anyway to start they should have threw it all out. Until vbulletin decides to do a complete rewrite this is what you'll get.
Problem is, is a complete vBulletin rewrite even plausible now? For one thing, Internet Brands is so incompetent in terms of programming and what not that making them rewrite it would absolutely kill vB stone dead, you'd end up with a worse and likely more buggy messy than even vBulletin 5. Do you really want to even imagine what you'd get if Internet Brands made all new forum software from scratch via only their inhouse programmers and whoever they outsource to? Secondly, it might be financial suicide to rewrite it, especially now. Now, I'm not saying it's good business sense to do what they're currently doing, but look at it this way: Many, many big companies aren't starting new things from scratch any more. Heck, I don't think Microsoft or Apple even make things from scratch any more instead of building on their past work. And in the gaming industry, even companies like EA, Activision, Ubisoft, Nintendo, etc are reusing engines more with their newest products, likely because of the recession and costs. And Internet Brands is no different. Heck, their business and finance people are probably demanding vBulletin releases a new major product every year or so, quality be damned. I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that vBulletin 6 was already being planned and if vBulletin 5 was marked as being released as is some time in the first quarter of this year. A complete rewrite is probably seen as too much of a 'risk', since you'd either have to rush it out the door (in what's likely a terrible state, like an even worse version of vBulletin 5) or spend a few years working on something you're making no money from prior to release and that could still turn out to be a complete failure. Should they use a full rewrite and tear everything down? Probably. But Internet Brands is a business, and it's probably seen as business suicide to do so.
IB is already bleeding money with vbulletin. If the quality of the product was better they could reverse the trend. Problem is they are building on an old base system. I'm talking a 10 year old base. I know no company that uses anything that old. Even Microsoft completely rebuilt the engine that ran the software, the kernel, in Windows 7 even through the NT kernel had proven to be very stable. If you have a stable engine, which many game companies do, you can build on it. vbulletin has no stable engine. vbulletin 3 was stable, but, the code is not modular and there was really nothing to build on not to mention it got beyond bloated in the end. Instead IB chose to try to introduce modular code into an old codebase and is failing miserably. Even the best programmers in the World can't make a pig a beauty queen. Even Kier knew a complete rewrite was needed. At this stage, in fact it should have happened already, a separate team of programmers, outsourced or not, should be working on a ground up rewrite. If they had done this while vbulletin 4 was being developed you would have a complete fresh rewritten vbulletin 5 ready for release. Contrary to popular belief a complete rewrite will not take years to complete. IPB 3 took a little over a year. It took Kier and Mike a year to get xenforo ready.