well..i think im gonna do 4.x

right now, on my newest adventure...im running 3.8.4. I think im gonna take the plunge and upgrade to 4.whatever is the newest.

Im running vba and everything is running perfect. Theres not a ton of members yet, maybe 20, and theres not a ton of threads/posts...so its no big dealif I just start completly over and fresh.

what do ya'll suggest I do? Just follow the upgrade instrux or erase everything and start a fresh vb 4 install?

Im not worried about losing vba, as I can use the vb suite.

whatcha guys think?

thanks!!

kneel*

 

Fresh Install.
btw, vba 4.0.0 beta is compatible with 4.0.2. And the default CMS well..sucks...

 

With that few members I'd upgrade to vbulletin 4 instantly and use its cms to get a nice start page.

 

I'd upgrade. I don't see any reason for a fresh install.

If you will be using the header/navbar layout pretty much as is, just changing colors & logo, it's really not bad at all. The biggest challenge isn't using the software, it's the absence of organized information about using it. I've hammered away at defining which StyleVar goes with what forum piece, glad to share that as I have time to line it out.

The vb community forum is much better since the upgrade to 4.0.2 because the search function is so much better. Easier, though, to use the tags to find info. But good luck on finding useful info on a specific topic in what has become a hash-soup of a forum. I'm hopeful this aa forum will help fill in the gaps - for info that is probably on the vb community forum, but un-findable.

 

I would be extremely careful, take a couple of backups, get them off the server completely, then play with vb4 on in a test directory.

At least that is what I would do if I was to consider using v4.

 

how do i do a test set up? I've always wondered that..

on a side note.

Like i said, theres only like 600 sum posts on this forum, its not a big deal if i lose anything...

but we're thnking upgrading would be the way to go?

 

I'm assuming you installed vBulletin on your site. You possibly put your forums in the html directory or in a /forums directory under that, to access your forums you go to yoursite.com or yoursite.com/forums.

Simply create another directory called vbtest or testvb or v4test in the public html directory on your server and upload vb into that.

To meet the licensing agreement of vb you are supposed to put a password on that test directory.

 

I downloaded a backup database to a 3.8 test forum, removed all my mods and upgraded that to 4.0. Everything went pretty smooth.
I removed all my mods just because I wanted to. It's not something you have to do, you just have to disable them.

 

Why in the world would you wanna loose 600+ posts? Simply back-up all your stuff before hand so you can easily restore it if trouble ensues. Like Abomination said though, it's best to install a test board for this since it makes it easier to test things without the worry of restoring anything on the main site. Once satisfied upgrade your site, I wouldn't accept loosing those posts and members.

 

This is imo, of course ... Loosing 600+ posts doesn't present an image of stability to your users. And some of them might care about those threads, want to continue those thoughts. There is no conversation to return to if all of them are *poof* gone. I've upgraded 3 test sites from vb 3 to vb 4 and there were no problems.

I think most admins/support folks would say Rule #1 with vb 4 is do it in test first! Although if you don't have much in the way of a recognizable site design you might just upgrade your site and do your testing/setup on the live site. For some of us it's a matter of down time - we need to retain the look of the site, want to minimize the time it's unavailable to users, and haven't wanted to learn how to restore it on the live site while the members are locked out. But if your members will tolerate the down time, or use the forum without being disturbed by you messing around with the colors and things, you might just forge ahead on the live site and skip the test site.

The other big vb4 change most noticeable to users is the navigation. But if you aren't going to try to change/customize that anyway, it doesn't add to the downtime. It's just to preparing them for what to expect. And the search will also be a big change for them.

Setting up a test site was easy for me ... and my host server support crew gave advice and help all the way.

1- create a test site folder on your server file tree
2- create a new empty sql db for your test site ... this is just the most basic creation, you do nothing else with it
3- ask your host server support team to put a copy of your current db into the new test site db if you don't know how to do that yourself, or don't want to monkey with it
4- upload the vb4 files to your test site folder and perform an 'install' - first edit your uploaded /includes/config.php file to point to your test db, not the live site
5- start using your test site - first go to Admin cp > Settings > Options to do all the standard settings - definitely put in a big ***TEST SITE *** label to on the display, as the content will be recent stuff and you don't want to get involved in reading it!

Once you've decided exactly what you want to do once your live site is upgraded then you're ready to alert your users and upgrade it. Most likely your adjustments will be appearance and the logo, unless you have customization. So that's StyleVars and templates. Maybe not so many of them if you don't change the vb color scheme. There really might not be that much time involved in the whole schmear, if you know just what you want to do.

Except ... the cms is a whole other topic ... I myself am just starting that exploration. I haven't yet found where I can turn it off until I have it ready ... to allow an upgrade before it is launched.

Hope that helps. I'm not a technical whiz, but have not had any issues with the basics of creating a test site and upgrading.

 

@3Phase
Turn it off like any other plugin...