# Forum software upgrade to VB 3.5.1



## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

Greetings,

DBSTalk has been fully upgraded to the brand new VBulletin 3.5.1!

As with any upgrade, we do the best we can to work out any problems before the actual upgrade but there are always a few tweaks that need to be done after the fact.

Please reply to this thread with any comments or bug reports. Thanks for your help!

You will also notice a new home page portal. The old portal was not compatible with the new software so I upgraded the portal to VBAdvanced which is actually a better portal and should render on all web browsers.

We are still using the old spell checker but I highly encourage those who are using Internet Explorer to download ieSpell and simply use the button labeled "ABC" on the upper right corner of the reply screen. That spell check works fairly well and has a learning feature. Also in the upper right corner is a toggle that takes you from regular editing mode to WYSIWYG. If you want to use the old spell check, simply switch to regular mode.

A few features are missing from the top navigation bar. I will be adding most of them back but I need to work out some issues with certain web browsers.

In this release you will also find a new search feature. It's called "Full Text Search". It works a little differently than the old search but in order to keep our server loads down, I thought I would give it a try. There are options to use Natural Language and Boolean searches which is quite handy. 

I would like to thank the rest of the staff here at DBSTalk and our club members who helped test this software over the past few weeks. This is a major step to keep us current, fast and secure.

Thanks again and hope you enjoy the new software.


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## smentzer (Nov 2, 2004)

When I click on 'discussion forums' on the left of the web page, I get sent to a new page asking for username/password. I enter them, and get the 'please stand by smentzer, redirecting you' message. That goes away and I am back at the username/password page. This cycle repeats as many times as I enter my user/pass...


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

smentzer said:


> When I click on 'discussion forums' on the left of the web page, I get sent to a new page asking for username/password. I enter them, and get the 'please stand by smentzer, redirecting you' message. That goes away and I am back at the username/password page. This cycle repeats as many times as I enter my user/pass...


Good catch! It's been fixed.


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## n0qcu (Mar 23, 2002)

Chris is there any chance you could add the mod that allows users to select what forums get 'searched' when "new posts" is selected?


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

n0qcu said:


> Chris is there any chance you could add the mod that allows users to select what forums get 'searched' when "new posts" is selected?


Yes. That is coming. During the testing phase, it was discovered that some browsers couldn't handle the mod. I have to re-write the code. Give me a day or two. Thanks.


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

Quick note for FireFox users. If no buttons work on the toolbar while posting a message, do a hard refresh "shift-control-r". It will clear the problem.


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## TechnoCat (Sep 4, 2005)

Other than the missing summary of how many new threads there are since my last visit, I wouldn't have noticed a difference. I run Opera. 

And while I'm writing, thanks for this site, Chris!


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

TechnoCat said:


> Other than the missing summary of how many new threads there are since my last visit, I wouldn't have noticed a difference. I run Opera.
> 
> And while I'm writing, thanks for this site, Chris!


Your are welcome! That was our goal..to make the move as painless as possible.

That new threads and posts since last visit was unique to the old portal. I will try my best to port it over in the coming days.


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## invaliduser88 (Apr 23, 2002)

How about a Forum Jump to on the main page. It was there before the upgrade.


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

invaliduser88 said:


> How about a Forum Jump to on the main page. It was there before the upgrade.


I will work on that one. For some reason it's turning out to be a little tricky.


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

Update: I've made a slight improvement to the search system. Apparently the default for full text search under MySQL is 4 characters or more (meaning it won't search for anything under 4 characters long). I have lowered that limit to 2 characters. This should help searching for information on specific receivers we 3 number model numbers (i.e. 942, 811, etc.).


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## Rob Glasser (Feb 22, 2005)

invaliduser88 said:


> How about a Forum Jump to on the main page. It was there before the upgrade.


I'll second that one, I use that feature every time I'm on the site. =)


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## dfergie (Feb 28, 2003)

Quick Edit is absent...


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

dfergie said:


> Quick Edit is absent...


The quick edit feature is no longer necessary. Hit the edit button and look what happens.


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

n0qcu said:


> Chris is there any chance you could add the mod that allows users to select what forums get 'searched' when "new posts" is selected?


Kevin,

Check out the "Quick Links" dropdown on the toolbar. I think you will find what you need there.


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## Cholly (Mar 22, 2004)

The system seems to forget that I'm logged on when moving from one forum to another. When I went to make a post on this thread, I had to log on a second (or was it third?) time. This also happened elsewhere.
I was going to check out Potpourri, and noted that it was listed as being private, and that no posts had been made in the past sixty days! Evidently, my logged status was lost. Also, the Watercooler wasn't visible. I'm gonna try them again.


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## Redster (Jan 14, 2004)

I get that at home. Normally its because I don't accept cookies. I had to add DBSTalk to my allowed sites list both for XP and ZoneAlarm. After that I had no further problems.


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

Cholly said:


> The system seems to forget that I'm logged on when moving from one forum to another. When I went to make a post on this thread, I had to log on a second (or was it third?) time. This also happened elsewhere.
> I was going to check out Potpourri, and noted that it was listed as being private, and that no posts had been made in the past sixty days! Evidently, my logged status was lost. Also, the Watercooler wasn't visible. I'm gonna try them again.


Try deleting all of your DBSTalk cookies from your computer and then log back in again. Also, make sure when you do login, you check the box labeled "Remember". That box is no longer checked by default.


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## Cholly (Mar 22, 2004)

Chris Blount said:


> Try deleting all of your DBSTalk cookies from your computer and then log back in again. Also, make sure when you do login, you check the box labeled "Remember". That box is no longer checked by default.


Actually, what happened to me was this: I logged on to DBStalk, and then did a forum jump. Once there, I had to log in again. But I'll try deleting the cookies and see what happens. BTW, I'm using Firefox.
Found just one cookie for DBStalk, deleted it, logged in, checking the Remember box. Then went to Forum index.
Same behaviour as before. Potpourri shows as private, and member forums are invisible until I log on at the top of the forums page.


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

Cholly said:


> Actually, what happened to me was this: I logged on to DBStalk, and then did a forum jump. Once there, I had to log in again. But I'll try deleting the cookies and see what happens. BTW, I'm using Firefox.
> Found just one cookie for DBStalk, deleted it, logged in, checking the Remember box. Then went to Forum index.
> Same behaviour as before. Potpourri shows as private, and member forums are invisible until I log on at the top of the forums page.


Which version of FireFox are you using? I am using 1.07 right now and having no problems.


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## Cholly (Mar 22, 2004)

Chris Blount said:


> Which version of FireFox are you using? I am using 1.07 right now and having no problems.


I'm using 1.07 also. The problem occurs if I login prior to going to the main forum index. No problem if I don't login until at the forum index.


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

Is anyone else having this problem with FireFox? I can't seem to re-create it.


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## Rob Glasser (Feb 22, 2005)

Chris Blount said:


> Is anyone else having this problem with FireFox? I can't seem to re-create it.


I'm running Firefox 1.5 and do NOT have this problem.


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## Cholly (Mar 22, 2004)

Problem solved! I checked the properties of my DBStalk bookmark and it showed the old numeric IP addressof the site. I edited it to be dbstalk.com, and now everything is fine!


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

Cholly said:


> Problem solved! I checked the properties of my DBStalk bookmark and it showed the old numeric url of the site. I edited it to be dbstalk.com, and now everything is fine!


Great! Thanks for letting us know.


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

Chris,

Are you going to install the quick reply to private messages again? I already miss that...


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

Mark Lamutt said:


> Chris,
> 
> Are you going to install the quick reply to private messages again? I already miss that...


Eventually, yes. I'm waiting for a new hack to get written for 3.5.


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

Mark Lamutt said:


> Chris,
> 
> Are you going to install the quick reply to private messages again? I already miss that...


Mark,

I've inserted a simple PM quick reply. It should work well until a full blown hack is written for VB 3.5. Hope this helps. Clicking on the "Preview Message" button takes you to the full editor if you need it.


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## greywolf (Jul 13, 2005)

I'll post this here because I've been having this problem since before the .2 upgrade. Whenever I post a quick reply, clicking the button results in the thirty second posting rule message. It's as though I double clicked it. It must be on my end because I have two button functions on my notebook plus an external mouse and one of the notebook buttons works properly. I'm posting this in case anybody else is experiencing the same thing.

Edit: I was wrong. All three possible buttons do the same thing. If I click really fast, it will sometimes work normally.


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## JohnH (Apr 22, 2002)

The new Insert Link operation was a bit of a shock. Took a bit to figure how to post the text.


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