Upgrading forum software Monday AM! You'll have to reset your password after.

[MetroMPG]

EDIT: the upgrade is set for this Monday morning (October 4). Approximately 7:30 AM (EST / UTC-5).

----

Just a very early heads up for everyone:

We're planning to upgrade the forum platform from phpBB to vBulletin at some point in the near to medium future. Testing will begin next week (which won't affect you at all).

Why the change?

Well, phpBB is a good free forum platform, no doubt. But vBulletin is worth the money, from our experience. It's easier to administer, and has some really good plugins that phpBB is missing.

Also, once we've made the change, we're planning to integrate a garage feature - a much better way to show off our rides. (I think there was a garage on AveoClub at one point before Tim (daox) and I got involved, wasn't there? Not sure why it disappeared.)

But aside from that bonus, you won't notice a huge change. All the usernames/postcounts/threads/posts/attachments etc. will be preserved.

Just wanted to let you know what's coming down the road for the site. I'll post updates in this thread when we're getting closer.

[thehunterooo]

i dont remember a garage feature, but it is a good idea, we need it lol

[MetroMPG]

Oh. Well maybe it was just something that Matt tested out - there were directories and database fields in there that definitely looked garage-related.

[serega12]

Well, that would be cool.

[MetroMPG]

Update:

Been testing the upgrade process. It appears to work fine - all the posts/threads/user stats transfer over. But there are a few hiccups:

1) PASSWORDS: This is the biggest hiccup: we will all have to reset our passwords to log back into the forum once it's switched to vBulletin. If you put in your existing password, it will tell you it's wrong.

Passwords are encrypted in phpBB and vBulletin, and they can't simply be copied over from one to the other.

Before we do the upgrade, we'll make sure you know in advance how to reset it. We'll post info, send PMs and email a link (don't want anyone to miss it!) to a page that you can use to reset your passwords.

2) AVATARS: For some reason avatars don't transfer to the new user profile, so you'll have to set that in your user CP (control panel) after you log in.

That's about it for now, still want to do more testing before we announce a switchover date/time.

[lauzon]

great idea to switch to vbulletin we are running that on ot vw site that i mod and it is truly great and the garage feature ROCKS!!!!

[MetroMPG]

Cool - what's the URL of the VW site? I'd like to see their garage.

---

FYI: the server problems that happened over night and this morning were not related to the planned vB migration. Just a coincidence. We're still testing out vB and will make an obvious announcement before we actually do the switch.

[NYChevoo]

I'm excited about having a garage feature!

[serega12]

I'm not sure what that is, but sounds interesting...

[MetroMPG]

Anyone interested in looking around the vBulletin version of the forum before we do the official switchover? (Still testing... looking to switch maybe later this week/early next.)

It might help to have some extra eyeballs to spot any issues we may have overlooked.

Just reply in this thread if you want to. If there are any takers I'll post info on how to access it tomorrow.