new boards

jimf

is it just me or do others find the new boards a nightmare

seriously thinking of giving up

K.Flyer

Hiya Jim, You're up late like me, hope all is well.

Jessssuss, its worse on the computer. I just posted a reply to you, it showed up like a double post, so I tried to delete one of them and ended up wiping the original post, FF sake.

This is the first time to access the site on the computer and I find it worse than the phone.

I wanted to delete all those notifications and try to figure out how to follow forums, but no joy. I didn't think it would take so long to sort out the issues, it's getting a lot of negativity.

Hopefully they get it sorted out soon.

Wearb

I really hated it at first and also thought of abandoning it. But they are SLOWLY making improvements and I'm getting more used to it.

Give it a while longer. I'd guess the small staff are almost exhausted at this stage as things didn't seem to go as planned. They'll get their second wind soon.

@kf I also get that double post issue at times. If it happens on this forum just leave the double post. I'll see if I can delete it without deleting both.

jimf

thanks lads glad its not just me

i used to just log in to my followed forums and post to whatever but i cant even find my forums now

ah well likfe is not all about giving free advice i suppose

oh or upsetting somebody

Wearb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117672029#Comment_117672029

For free? How come you don't get paid like the rest of us senior techs here? Lmho

CalisGirl

I hate it. I'll adjust eventually but the old site was much more user friendly and intuitive. I miss the 'trending' section and being able to look at your account to see the previous threads I posted in, even if I'm not following them. Also, 'Best of' in the new format takes ages to load and it's not my internet.

Cerco

The new system is currently not user friendly. The changes are poorly documented in the brief user guide.

I guess it is difficult to be over critical since it is a free service to the user.

Perhaps further patches will improve the interface so I will hold my judgement for the moment.

I am no way encouraged to use it frequently as it is now.

It clearly wasn’t and isn’t ready to go live.

I’m just surprised they didn’t conduct a public beta with a demo site.

dathi

i see you can not send private messages to half the lads here as well .if they made their profile private they cant receive messages

jimf

i more or less have given up

they have ruined it

was a user friendly forum but now its the hardest ever to navigate

Wearb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117682041#Comment_117682041

Come on Jim. Hang in there. Otherwise there will be no really old guys to help guide us youngsters

Wearb

Below is the latest explanation of where we are now. Here is a summary of how we ended up here:

• We hit our migration handover as agreed and it started as planned. We were expecting it back on the Friday and that did not happen.
• Our theme which was submitted (to make it look like old Boards) was merged into an old version so when we went to go live everything was broken.
• We had to spend another 3 days trying to resolve that issue which put us firmly on the back foot.
• PR's (pull requests for our code to be submitted into Vanilla code) that we had backed up ready to go then all got knocked out of sync.
• Myforums did not migrate and we had to build a new PR to get that resolved
• Navigation on mobile had to be built and with the delays in everything else that got pushed out
• DNS did not resolve ... when we were eventually going to pull the trigger and go live our DNS would not resolve.... that took another all nighter to resolve.

Why is it taking so long to fix things?

• We have actually fixed quite a lot. They probably aren't getting the attention as the hot potato from a community perspective is My forums and Mobile Navigation.
• We need about 3 days to get a PR reviewed by Vanilla. That's assuming that they don't need changes.

---------------------------------------------------

So as you can see, they are still working on it. They will eventually get it sorted. So I'd ask you all to hang in there, or if you fell the need, take a break and check back in a week or so.

I once spent almost six months rebuilding a database from a paper backup, so that's why I have such sympathy for those guys right now.

Outkast_IRE

Its improving gradually but not being able to see what threads you posted in is the biggest thing i miss. I never followed or subscribed to any thread.

jimf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117682858#Comment_117682858

i will have to now to get my revenge on ye home brewing wexford youngsters

K.Flyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117682981#Comment_117682981

Yeah, I keep forgetting to hit that star icon to follow the threads I've posted on.

curryman

i used to login at least once a day if myfourms aint fixed im gone

guil

Same as above, I used to love reading the threads in this forum and a few others as I found some of the stuff interesting. Don't think I have used boards more than a handful of times since the change. I saw someone posting about **** and joined there. Great little community beginning to kick off there

Kencollins

Ah Jim, don't give up on us!

Are you on a PC or Phone? On PC, log in and click "My Threads" close to the top. That will show all the forums you have posted in, most recent activity first.

On the Mobile site, you have to log in, click the profile picture on the right, then on the star that appears underneath. That should show you the forums you have posted to recently.

I was ready to give up but I like the free advice too much!

K.Flyer

But posting on a thread doesn't automatically cause you to follow it?

I have to click that star icon at the top of the thread if I want to follow it an comment further.

Which is a pain if I forget to do it.

Have they figured out how to follow an entire forum eg Plumbing and Heating or After Hours etc.

Wearb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117690577#Comment_117690577

E.G. if you wanted to follow the cleaning forum. Go to Home and Garden. Then click on the cog wheel beside the cleaning forum and chose follow.

K.Flyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117691587#Comment_117691587

Ah great, thanks wearb, we're getting there!

At times it's like wandering around a maze then it becomes familiar and easier 👍

Stihl waters

You know when you see people complaining on the building forums about going for the cheapest quote and how it's usually too good to be true, this is what boards probably done in all its wisdom, it went for the cheapest quote and here we see the product of their labour's, a barely functioning toilet with a faulty fan and cracked tiles

Tom44

What was wrong with the old boards ?

I'm totally lost on this one, it's useless in it's unfriendly form, not that I'm on it much, and will try again in a week or so.

Sympties to the poor workers behind the scenes 👍

Wearb

Tom. I think the old technology (code) behind the old boards was becoming less and less compatible with newer technologies and had so many patches that it was becoming unstable and vulnerable.

Whatever the reason, I hope they manage to salvage it.

jimf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117695294#Comment_117695294

im like you tom gone until its sorted

Wearb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117696318#Comment_117696318

OK then. Collect your holiday pay in the office (I'll throw in a little bonus). I'll give you a shout when all is sorted, 😄

pjmn

Any update as to when (if) this site will ever work properly again? I'm ready to give up...

guil

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117690544#Comment_117690544

Mine doesn't, shows me threads I have started in 2017 and earlier

Wearb

Latest news for those who just pop in here for info.

Morning all

We had expected that we would have an interm fix for navigation and follow forums live on desktop yesterday however that did not happen. I hope that will be live on Monday ahead of a larger update next week which includes amongst other items fixes to navigation on both mobile and desktop

Wearb

Latest news

---------------------------------

Hi all and apologies for taking so long to update you all here.

So.... things did not go according to plan... at all... and while it became a complete mess for a time ... we actually did have a plan. Im going to do a bigger post about that and I will go into the specifics in detail.. but we just did not seem to be able to catch a break at all. There were issues on both sides - Boards and Vanilla. Unfortunately we got overwhelmed with the sheer volume of them and we were hamstrung in a lot of ways as we do not have direct control over the code anymore. But no excuses.... the buck stops with me.

A brief summary....

• We postponed our migration 4 times and could not miss another. We had to postpone it as there was a lot to untangle more on that again
• When we migrated Vanilla left us waiting for our files over the weekend so after going read only on the Wednesday ... It's Monday 2pm before they came back online
• We went to push live and found out or theme had been merged into a very old version and was totally wrong.
• We spend the rest of the week working with them through the night to try and fix it.
• Vanilla is not the cheapest option out there. But it was the most robust fully hosted one that offered all of the features that we have today. We are an enterprise client so not in the cheap seats.... but it's taking us longer to extract all the benefits and we need to get faster with our output.

Mod note I've snipped some out to make it brief, but you get the gist.

Where are we now?

• We have finally started making progress :/ ... (I say that with a lot of fingers crossed).
• We have got a fix in for follow forums, navigation on both mobile and desktop and are now able to focus on the finer detail fixes that you will see coming much more regularly than before.
• We can do a lot more through CSS now - one of those things we can do quickly and I would like your feedback on (separate post)
• We will be outsourcing some of the bigger ticket items like SEO, site speed, ad revenue (which collapsed due to site speed and a few bits)... basically anything that is not customer facing.

So - the team are a bit beaten up. They deserve a massive amount of credit for managing the storm. It has been very very tough and a long few weeks. Not one I will look back on fondly! But even through all the mess it was the right move. If we did not do this we had a couple of months left at best. Now when all this is fixed up we can focus on growing some revenue and improving features for the community - who are rightly pissed off and frustrated with the whole thing.

We will do our best to win back everyones trust.

Thanks to you all again for sticking with us and helping us deal with all....