Failed upgrade wave to XF 2.3

[Old Nick]

My thought for the day:
I think the wave of failed updates to XF 2.3 should make the XF team rethink their communication about precautions to take before performing XenForo upgrades.

The current communication boils down to one paragraph in the announcement discussion, here it is:

General upgrade guidance​

Note that add-ons and custom styles may be broken after upgrading to 2.3. You must test your add-ons thoroughly or look for updates. Be especially careful with add-ons that cover similar features to ones that are added to 2.3; these may conflict with the core XenForo data. If data conflicts are found, they will need to be resolved in a new add-on release or by removing the add-on before upgrading to 2.3.

After reading it, we clearly understand that upgrading XenForo without checking the compatibility of the installed add-ons risks encountering more or less serious problems. Perfect ! But it is clear that this is not enough given the rather incredible number of members who find themselves with a broken forum.

You will tell me, we are not going to take each member by the hand to ensure that they are doing things well, that's true. But when things go this badly and admitting that the primary responsibility obviously lies with the careless user, the goodwill of the XenForo team should encourage them to do a little more, a little better...

Especially since the message displayed during the update via ACP is not that explicit:

This is a significant upgrade that add new features and contains many changes. Newer versions of styles and add-ons may need to be installed after the upgrade is completed.

Here we are told that third party add-ons or style may need to be updated AFTER the upgrade! We are no longer told to check their compatibility BEFORE!

In your opinion, are there more members who read the warning in the announcement of the release of XF 2.3 or who read the warning in their ACP?

So since the notes displayed in the ACP are essential during the upgrade, they might as well be the clearest and most visible.
There is a message put forward at this time:



Why isn't there a CLEAR message about checking add-on compatibility in a warning block?

Each admin is responsible for their forum and every action they take must be thoughtful and safe. This is not about babysitting, but just about improving communication on a fairly crucial point during upgrades. Broken forums can be repaired, most often with the help of community members, but the XenForo team, one of whose concerns is to put its customers in the best conditions for a quality user experience, should improve this point.

YOUR FORUM COULD BE BROKEN IF YOU DO NOT CHECK THE COMPATIBILITY OF THE ADDONS YOU HAVE INSTALLED!

 

[ENF]

Why isn't there a CLEAR message about checking add-on compatibility in a warning block?

People would still ignore it and keep on clicking through the process.

Each admin is responsible for their forum and every action they take must be thoughtful and safe.

This is the way.™ It's really not XF's job here, they add the warnings but people still will drop new versions without really checking. (Which should always be done on a test site first before rolling out to their live sites...)

 

[Old Nick]

Yes, it's always easier to do nothing...
But at least communication could be consistent and not say white here and black there.

 

[Mr Lucky]

I may be wrong but I think there seem to be a lot more incompatible addons this time round compared with previous upgrades. And I don’t mean those that tend to not normally get a lot of maintenance, quite a few of the very popular paid for addons are still not there this time.

Maybe it’s the specific nature of this upgrade.

 

[Old Nick]

XF 2.3 is a significant upgrade in the words of the XF team so it makes sense that third party add-ons will take longer to adapt but that's not really the point of this thread.

 

[JamesBrown]

I have over 90 plug-ins, and with nothing in 2.3 exciting me too much, I just can't be arsed to go through them all and upgrade just yet. It's a job for the winter I think.

 

[Paul B]

We need Clippy!

This:


Followed by this:

 

[Old Nick]

Yeah, classy and professional response.

No, it's just because they have no class or professionalism.

Otherwise I asked myself a question, are XenForo customers REQUIRED to use this forum? Is it contractual? Because if that’s not the case then we can’t blame them, can we? And so the only information they have about possible compatibility problems with the add-ons they have installed is the message in the ACP which tells them that they will eventually have to update them AFTER the upgrade.

 

[Mr Lucky]

Here we are told that third party add-ons or style may need to be updated AFTER the upgrade! We are no longer told to check their compatibility BEFORE!

To be fair, in some cases of addons there is no version that performs on 2.2 and also on 2.3. I have at least three addons that have one version for 2.2 and another that is for 2.3 so what happens is you need to disable the addon before the xf 2.3 upgrade and then update the addon after the xf upgrade. I found this out by trial and error, not all developers make it clear that you need to disable before and upgrade after.

The only way to test those is to do it on a development installation which is of course best practice but I doubt everyone is prepared to do that.

In fact this was recommend by xenForo at the v1 to v2 upgrade because it was necessary for all addons.

I agree a big notice in the ACP to check addons before upgrade would be a good idea.

Otherwise I asked myself a question, are XenForo customers REQUIRED to use this forum? Is it contractual? Because if that’s not the case then we can’t blame them, can we?

This is absolutely true and it may be that only the geekier among us do come on here and follow all the upgrade development HYS threads - so many admins must just get on with managing and moderating their user base, their day jobs and their family and social lives. So the only interface with xF is the ACP and the messages shown after hitting the upgrade button.

 

[Paul B]

Yeah, classy and professional response.

Nice flex.

For what it's worth, I already suggested more robust procedures and notifications internally.

 

[Arantor]

You can stick a big warning 3 inches high in red bold letters saying “do not use on production forums” for what is clearly advertised as a beta version of a major update, and people still download, install then complain a) that it’s broken and b) their addons haven’t been updated.

I’m not sure this is as much of an aberration as much as it is because people haven’t done it for a while and have gotten complacent that x.y.z to x.y.z+1 is fine therefore x.y.z to x.y+1.0 is equally fine.

 

[Old Nick]

You can stick a big warning 3 inches high in red bold letters saying “do not use on production forums”

On the packages of cigarettes there is the mention "smoking kills" and yet millions of people still smoke... but since it is written on the packages many other millions of people have stopped smoking, not only thanks to this message but it has contributed to it.

Improving XenForo's communication about upgrades does not cost anything, will not take much time for developers and will help users, not all, to better understand this procedure.

 

[Digital Doctor]

A lot of people will have problems especially because Jaxel’s addons use jquery which is gone now.

 

[Chris D]

I haven’t got time to read the whole thread, apologies for that, but I am not exaggerating that we could send @Paul B round in person to every single customer, have a one hour chat with them, and some customers would still completely disregard all advice and do the upgrade anyway - often without a backup or testing first.

You can take a horse to water etc. etc.

 

[Mr Lucky]

All you need is when you hit the upgrade button a nice instructional video from Kier or Chris pops up.

 

[Old Nick]

I haven’t got time to read the whole thread

But you still had time to respond, intellectually it's an interesting approach.
Honestly? Just close the topic.

 

[DragonByte Tech]

You can stick a big warning 3 inches high in red bold letters saying “do not use on production forums” for what is clearly advertised as a beta version of a major update, and people still download, install then complain a) that it’s broken and b) their addons haven’t been updated.

I’m not sure this is as much of an aberration as much as it is because people haven’t done it for a while and have gotten complacent that x.y.z to x.y.z+1 is fine therefore x.y.z to x.y+1.0 is equally fine.

Over the years I've gradually increased the verbosity of my big red "Don't contact me for help with any site that isn't DragonByte-Tech.com, I don't own any other website" block on my "contact us" form.

Every time someone ignored it, I would write them a snarky response and also ask them why they ignored the message. The ones who replied and didn't just tell me to pleasure myself, all said "well I thought it didn't apply because <insert reason that was explicitly mentioned as not a good enough reason to contact me>"

So not only are people conditioned to ignore things, they sometimes have conditioned themselves into reading the thing, understanding the thing, and yet believe themselves to be the exception.

 

[Paul B]

Honestly? Just close the topic.

You can stick a big warning 3 inches high in red bold letters saying “do not use on production forums” for what is clearly advertised as a beta version of a major update, and people still download, install then complain a) that it’s broken and b) their addons haven’t been updated.

we could send @Paul B round in person to every single customer, have a one hour chat with them, and some customers would still completely disregard all advice and do the upgrade anyway - often without a backup or testing first.

^ This Those

While I think having a pop up which requires explicit acceptance and acknowledgement (like the mark all forums read function) would be a good idea, there will still be those who will just blindly proceed with or without reading the warnings.

 

[Chris D]

But you still had time to respond, intellectually it's an interesting approach.
Honestly? Just close the topic.

I read your post and had enough time to give my opinion. I guess I shouldn’t have said anything at all?

 

[woody]

Every Beta and RC announcement contained similar phrasing:

"Add-ons and custom styles may be broken after upgrading to 2.3. You must test your add-ons thoroughly or look for updates. Be especially careful with add-ons that cover similar features to ones that are added to 2.3; these may conflict with the core XenForo data. If data conflicts are found, they will need to be resolved in a new add-on release or by removing the add-on before upgrading to 2.3."

People DO NOT READ DIRECTIONS. Never have, never will.

"when all else fails, read the directions"