phpbb updates to 2.0.19

Yeah..another damn update. I am kinda ticked off and started a thread in support. It's bogus on a holiday weekend they release a new update. People shouldn't have to worry about their forums on a holiday weekend.

 

You have two choices.

1) Don't update because you don't want to work over a holiday weekend. Leave your system vulnerable and risk coming back to work on Monday to a hacked website and then restoring your system from your last backup. You have a current backup of all of your files and databases, right?

2) Update now and know your system is secure and be thankful of the phpbb developers for releasing a fix for the vulnerability before your site got hacked.

I apologize for the acerbic response, but being upset that they released a fix for known vulnerabilities as soon as they completed the fix is silly. Security is a 24/7 job. Hackers work over holiday weekends too.

 

On one level I agree, but have you noticed the totally anal retentive nature of a lot of these updates?

e.g. things like:

We have even had indentation fixes as part of these upgrades

 

I guess it is a needed update because some one just messed with our database. http://www.nfsmwforums.com/index.php happened about a few hours ago.

 

I'd be a little surprised to be honest, but if so all the more reason for a security update to be just that. I am working through phpbb on my mirror system doing the updates and I am not quite through the list, mainly because most of the updates are bollux. Security updates should be as quick to apply as possible.

 

is it that simple i am thinking.
Put phpbb2.0.18 to phpbb2.0.19.txt in admin/mods/folder/
then thru easy mod install this mod ...?

 

Depends on how much your board is already modded and how much you trust automatic systems. I am doing mine manually.

 

What all we need to update?

Just Backup the SQL Database & Update the Phpbb?

 

Seems there is a bit of a bug in the update:

http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=353155&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

There are quite a few code changes and a database update to do.

 

So , u mean its not THAT important to update it?

 

It is important as there are security updates as part of it.

 

http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=353359

read that garbage...I am pretty pissed...

 

Read it

Seems that there is a lot of strangeness in phpbb2 deveopment. Features like that which are debatable, and bits of useless minor polishing going on

I think the whole phpbb thing has been left behind in the forum race, by keeping it closed it seems to me that even if phpbb3 gets released it will be "old" from the start, as other forums are much more actively being developed.

I think the only consolation is that who needs a better forum anyway? phpbb does what a forum needs to when you have a few mods added. Some time the extra bells and whistles of a forum like this add little and confuse forum newbies.

 

Yes JEMA and obviously any discussion on the topic is locked. PHPBB is looking more and more like a closed project. The vanilla install of phpbb is so terrible and only the mod commuity makes it strong as a competiting forums software. I look at other packages like punbb and smf and they are really gaining ground on phpbb from a plain install standpoint. It's just a matter of time before SMF has better mods too.

I really can't understand why phpbb is working on 2.0 so much when 3.0 is needed. They tell people to use easymod but then say they don't support easymod. It's insane. All this good code out there and they don't work to incorporate it. I think that's really really sad.

 

That's how I felt. No real major updates to phpBB and phpBB3 has been in development for like what three years now. I have switched most of my forums over to SMF and the few that remain are just really modded.

 

This started with the 2.0.18 update. That one was awful - a hybrid of security patches and phpBB2 mixed with phpBB3 features - the phpBB team screwed up the patch release and then went RZ on anyone who questioned what was going on ("if you don't like it, ask for a refund"). Now along comes 2.0.19: I suspect that some of the problems are second generation ones from anyone who applied 2.0.18 but there seem to be some new ones as well.

There is still no indication as to when phpBB3 will be released. In the meantime, there seems to be little heart left in the phpBB team to put any effort into phpBB2 updates so it has in effect become orphaned. I think phpBB usersw are being used as unwilling phpBB3 beta testers.

I agree with labrocca - this is just unacceptable. I think it's probably time for alternate forum software.

 

I still love phpBB, but unfortunately it's really stripped down and not very useful out of the box. What I don't understand is why doesn't phpBB integrate some of the major mods (ie attach mod, xtreme styles, Some basic SEO, etc) into the vanilla install?

It just doesn't make any sense. When vBulletin users create mods that improve the software, it seems they make an effort to code those into future releases.

 

phpbb is done as I undertstand it by a very small team. Hence they cannot keep up with doing this sort of thing.

 

Feels like phpbb is run by a bunch of kids, has no proper team management, has buggy scripts, and has lots of security holes. Only two things come up in my mind, switch to either VB or IPB, or hire a professional to fix the software. Another idea would be to get 3-4 trully smart developers (which is not very hard), code a stable release of a new phpbb3 and charge $30 per license.

 

I think for me it's going to be #1. I could probably do #2 myself but that means I'll need to do it for every update that comes along from now on...