UBB.threads PHP Forum Software Community Forums UBB.threads Bug Reports [Confirmed] Group Images to display bug [Fixed in 7.6.0]

I think this is a small bug

a member subscribed to a group > the subscription ended and I the admin got this message in My stuff.
This is all fine and he is now in the user group
BUT he still has his Test member group image in his profile.

There is no > Group Images to display option in his edit profile which is fine BUT the Test member group image is still there to view by the public?

Am I on to something tiny?

Confirming that there is a bug with the unsubscribe coding; this will be repaired in the next release. For those needing a fix to this issue now, open your /admin/do_subchange.php file:

Find:

Add Below:

Code fixed by id242

Giz,
Just to clarify that it should look like this then in the /admin/do_subchange.php file?

OK I did the above but included a line in between the two sections.

Thanks

OK so now I have question number two within this bug.

After the subsciption ended now the system removes the user from that group and removes the image from in the members profile.

After interviewing the member he said he noticed the PM

Which we know but he also said that despite his settings is right he didn't receive an email saying that the subscription expired possible with a link to go back to se subscribe. I think its essential that the email reminder goes out because many members may not be online on the forum all the time.
What can you say about this?

The way that things are currently setup is the correct way of doing it. The software is not a public utility where a notification needs to go out or their service will be discontinued. UBB.threads subscription system is setup like that of Netflix, Hulu, TiVo, DI.FM Radio... and most other digital subscription systems.

Payments by CHECK/MO are considered PRE-PAY style accounts, and there is a notification sent to the subscribing user's PT that the time period they paid for has expired.

The user is also able to log in whenever they want and see when their purchased access will expire: /forums/ubbthreads.php/ubb/subscriptions.html - Everything is listed on that page under the "Your Subscriptions" section; Their Subscription Name. If it's Active. The Current Status. And when it ends or when the next payment is due on.

When a user pre-pays for a service (CHECK/Money Order), there really is no way to setup a reoccurring/auto-renewal for them, since UBB.threads cannot send out Guido or Vinny to "collect" the cash The only way to have a reoccurring/auto-renewal is by PayPal/CreditCard. In that situation, just like Netflix, Hulu, TiVo, and many other online services, there is no email sent out from UBB.threads that says, "Your payment will be due soon. Do not forget to pay it!" because you've already agreed to that automatic payment renewal when you signed up for that automatic subscription renewal setup. PayPal may send you an email ahead of time as a reminder -- and they definitely will send you a receipt of the transaction processing results; "success" or "failed." Your bank will also note that a payment has been made through PayPal on your monthly banking statement.

Also remember that UBB.threads is not a billing software and its main point is to provide discussion forums. The membership subscriptions features that it offers are limited. They do work and they do perform the tasks that they were intended to perform. They do not perform with all the bells and whistles in the way that a full fledged public utilities (hydro/water, electric/power, gas, phone, etc) or vehicle insurance service may perform. Again, they perform similar to how Netflix, Hulu, and TiVo billing performs. There are no late fees or penalties for non subscription renewal... The benefits end when you dont pay. They begin again when you pay for the next term.

Its not really an issue or a problem. You're always welcome to log in to your message forum account and review your subscription's dates if you've failed to remember or note them down in your personal calendar. There are no penalties for late subscription payments. You pay for access to a feature and you get access to that feature for the time agreed upon. When the term is complete, the subscription algorithm just reverts back to the group you were previously at, and you are able to return to the subscription page and renew it again. Just like most every other online service.

There is no benefit to remaining subscribed for multiple years or large periods of time. If the period of time that you've paid for, expires, just renew it if you choose.

If you really wanted to pester your users that have allowed you to send them Emails -- mail OUTSIDE of your message forum software (they can toggle this from their Forum Preferences/My Stuff page):
1. Visit Control Panel » Member Management » Advanced Search Options ( forums/admin/membermanage.php )
2. Choose the Group you have your subscriber in. Click "Submit"
3. Choose "Email" from the Action drop-down menu, and "All Members In Search," followed by the "Perform Selected Action" button.
4. Type up a nice message at the beginning of every month, to kludge anyone in that group that if they have a subscription about to expire, that you would like them to send you more cash to have it renewed, AND if their subscription is still in good standing, you could thank them for remaining a loyal paying subscriber. Kinda/exactly like how monthly emails, newsletters and bulk-mail works.

ID242,

let me go back to the reason I asked in the first place.
the way its set up now is that members can pay membership for one year and payment is recurring.
This works with some but lately some mentioned that they don't like the the fact that Paypal draws the membership silently ea year.
Yes by the fact that they subscribed gives Paypal the right to draw it but they don't like it.
Next group will not join for the reason its recurring. They don't accept. It happens that a member asks to pay outside the subscription feature.

Therefore I searched to find more info regarding recurring payments and really how they work. Now I know so in order to make more members happy I tested the Test membership without the recurring box ticked. so no recurring payment.

This is when I noticed that it ends the subscription and put them back as regular users and they get a message in the My stuff message.
I would say that this is good some will notice and resubscribe if they want to or not. Some may not notice this good enough and will miss out.
Some will miss out because they might not visit the forum that much after a year.
My thinking is that if there was a email notification members would probably like to get this as a receipt on that their subscription has run out.
Some will act on it and renew or revisit the forum or just throw it in the bin.
I don't think it would pest the visitors.

I'm good with your answer and hope that you still would consider to put it in. My suggestion in that case would be good to put a box in the Control Panel » » Edit Subscription Group -

- Subscription:
Subscribers will be automatically billed when the current billing cycle is completed.

- Reattempt on Failed Transactions.
If the initial transaction fails, we will reattempt billing 3 days later and then 5 days after that before finally cancelling the subscription.

- Notify subscriber by email when subscription ends
When subscription ends an email is sent out to inform that the subscriber is no longer within the group

Again just a suggestion from me I will leave it there.
I will change my settings so that our Subscribers will NOT be automatically billed when the current billing cycle is completed.

Thanks

At some point I can see several enhancements to the Subscriptions feature; but right now in the short term we're basically focusing on rewriting the majority of the software, so items requiring rewrites furthering from that just aren't going to happen in the short term.

Things that people have been demanding for years, which basically kill some forums are being written, such as a mobile adaptive design for mobile users.

I'm not saying it's going to not happen, because I can totally see a need here for people who'd be using it for licensing; you'd want your users to pay for continued access as fast as possible, versus them stumbling on it at some point, which is exactly why I'd use it myself.

I see, No worries I can live with this.. its nothing, after all its spring and my vintage motorsickles awaits me to kick start them end and enjoy life.
Cheers

Could be kind of fun to putter around on a vintage bike, lol

Love your reply ID242

It would be nice to get the Message from the system to show the members name and a link .


I always have to copy and paste the link into the address bar just to work out who's subscription has ended.

Gizmo, the Remove Group Image From User, didn't work it exactly as before. Strange

Have you had a user be removed from the group with the new code in place? It won't act retroactively. Unless there is some auto task on login taking place, I don't really see why it wouldn't work currently.

It looks like some code will have to make it into the libs/triggers.inc.php file; id242 says that he'll try to hammer it down when things settle down a bit.

The code works, though it will have to be implemented within two different files. The first file (which was originally mentioned... and fixed) is for manually updating the user's subscriptions. The second location is a "status update" file.

As Gizmo just mentioned above, I will post a snippet of code that will be used within the 7.6.0 release code, for completing this feature.

This combination of settings you are using are not widely used by others, so this issue you're reporting is somewhat rare. Though, it is one that is now getting some attention. Again, the support you are getting in these forums are from volunteers. I certainly am not getting paid by UBBSystems to provide user support or code fixes here -- but to make this work for everyone, It is important that we all share our experience and knowledge. Cheers

Hi
I had one user pay a dollar for the Test member group. Subscribtion lasts one day so the system ended it and put him back as user but the group image was still there and impossible for him to remove. I had to add him manually to another group and login as him and tic image box for that other group. Then I could Remove the image login as him and login as admin remove him from the group.
I understand that that you work as volunteers and am very grateful. Without all your work some of us would have left ubbthreads. So my little dilemma now is that recently I started to use group images and it will become a problem as I have changed to non recurring memberships so every time a subscription ends.. I believe that members like their little group image.

Is there a time schedule when 7.6 is to be launched?

Thanks again for all the work you guys put into this forum

I do believe that you're doing it the hard way. There is no need to; 1) log off your account. 2) log in their user account. 3) tick a box. 4) untick another box. 5) log out. 6) tell the user what you've done.

Until some code is posted, all you need to do it just 1) edit the user by using the "Edit This User" button (shown to admins when they view a user's profile). 2) Select the user group from within the "Permissions" tab, and click "Update Member" button. done.

Or realistically, you can just tell your users that while the Group Image feature is written in the forum code, there is currently an issue where the Group Images are not AUTOMATICALLY removed when the subscription ends -- A minor, non show-stopping bug that will be fixed-officially in the next release. SO, no group images for subscribers until then (or enjoy the perk of a semi non-expiring Group Image as gratitude for becoming an early subscriber and helping Brit Bikes to test these new site features... and hope it never gets fixed )


The UBB.threads 7.6.0 is still being written. So what you're looking for, doesn't exist quite yet. No one is sitting on it, waiting for a perfect date to release it. It simply just is not complete at this time.

What most likely will happen, is exactly what Gizmo already posted just above your reply, "id242 says that he'll try to hammer it down when things settle down a bit."

I'm currently working on several projects this whole week -- several projects. But I have been trying to put what little time I have available in to helping you by providing code and detailed answers to each of your questions. I enjoy working on this software. And I really enjoy helping people get solutions. Some of those long replies in this thread and the other one you have going, were typed out on an Android phone - seriously. they were typed from a phone, while traveling around town. If you thought I sounded distracted in those replies, that probably explains why

When things settle down for me this week, I'll write up some code, test it and then post it for you. Hows that sound?

It sounds perfect ID, I wrote above just to explain how it works for me in current situation. I understand that with a little patience and a little help from UBB friends life will become easier

Happy code writing and happy easter.
cheers.

One last question that is in my mind. when I added the string
Does it matter if I edit using the FileZilla editor and right click the file on the server. I have not saved it locally did all in the FileZilla.

Asking as I am using an IMAC and don't have a special text editor.

As a full recap of all the changes to be made --

In admin/do_subchange.php:
FIND:
This code appears TWO TIMES in the admin/do_subchange.php file;
The first time is around line 60
The second time is around line 110

ADD BELOW EACH OCCURRENCE OF THAT CODE:


In libs/triggers.inc.php
FIND:

ADD BELOW IT:


In scripts/paypal_ipn.inc.php
FIND:

ADD BELOW IT:


DISCLAIMER/NOTICE From the official UBB.threads documentation;
If you choose to modify your stock code for the version of UBB.threads you have installed, and request official support at a later date, you may be asked to remove the modifications before they can assist you.

Basically, keep a backup of your files in case something goes horribly wrong. And no one is responsible for if you edit the wrong files or you break something or your dog decides to bite you or eat your socks As of mid February, I have a new puppy that loves to do both - And she loves to bite my other dog, too. Teething puppies are always biting things.

Thank you ID I have now uploaded the original "do_subchange.php" will alter the strings as you suggest later this weekend as we are about to go on a trip, but first I will do a back up.
I'll report later how it worked
thanks again!

Yeah, I hate when UBB.threads tries to eat my socks; I have to hit it in the nose with a rolled up newspaper.

Unlike previous administration/developers, we are not providing release dates; all providing release dates does is rile the member base when something happens during development that pushes a date back; instead we're letting users see the public progress at UBBDev.

Can I ask, since I really don't have a proper editor in my Mac
what I do is edit in FileZilla as I mentioned. Now I wonder: it seems that first in each row is a tab


// Remove Group Image from User
$group_images = "";
$query = "
UPDATE {$config['TABLE_PREFIX']}USER_PROFILE
SET USER_GROUP_IMAGES = ?
WHERE USER_ID = ?
";
$dbh->do_placeholder_query($query,array($group_images,$uid),__LINE__,__FILE__);

In ID242's post above which shows the scripts/paypal_ipn.inc.php change it looks like its two tabs should I delete one tab in each row or is it irrelevant?

// Remove Group Image from this user
$group_images = "";
$query = "
UPDATE {$config['TABLE_PREFIX']}USER_PROFILE
SET USER_GROUP_IMAGES = ?
WHERE USER_ID = ?
";
$dbh->do_placeholder_query($query,array($group_images,$user_id),__LINE__,__FILE__);

Filezilla should just use whatever default editor is on the system; for example, I opted to use EditPlus as my default client for editing php files, so when I open php files in Filezilla they open in that.

You shouldn't remove anything from supplied code; supplied code is tested and should work as expected as supplied; generally code isn't supplied outside of a version release. You should just simply try to follow directions to add code; if there are several instances then you'll need to adjust those as noted.

Editing stock coding is also outside the scope of your license for support; I think on this one you've reached the point where you should probably just stop and wait until the next version comes out to fix your issue as it seems like we're just running around in circles for an issue that isn't a show stopper at this point and a lot of attention is being invested for it versus the cleanup that needs to get completed in the short term.

Gizmo
I understand what you are saying and you are right i'm not trained to understand the scripts like you guys are. However I just noticed that in ID242's last post above that it looks like
In scripts/paypal_ipn.inc.php FIND: and Below: had been moved a bit to the right and when i looked more closely there was extra "tab spaces" as we say in Swedish you say "instances" and I think that might be the same we are talking about. I was just curious as it seems that in the actual file it is only one tab space/instance.
The reason I asked was just to be cautious.
Maybe I should stay away from editing as you say and wait for 7.6.
The downside is that our members subscriptions continuously will end and the wrong group images will get stuck in their profile 4ever.

The tabbing/spacing shouldn't matter at all; generally it should match unless we say there are two instances (instances/occurrences/times code exists) of coding that need to be replaced. The reason that there is additional tabbing in the code supplied is that we're in the process of updating and cleaning code through the entire product, so the code that is written is formatted for how the file will appear in 7.6.0 versus how it appears in 7.5.9.

I would just not assign a group image, or use a longer subscription timeframe so it doesn't expire, until stock code can be released for your issue.

well the subscriptions is for one year in all cases however they will expire frequently, not that I have many but it happen every now and then. without asking for a launch date will there be a 7.5.10 before 7.6? and are we realistically speaking of 2015 or 2016 for 7.6. I know that you will not say a date but what is your hunch? You know sometimes it itches a bit more when its within the year..

I understood the tabbing/spaces but not the


Its the English > Swedish translation I get lost in


Thanks a bunch for your assistance!

The only reason for a 7.5.10 would be a security issue that would need fixed immediately; of which, none have been reported. As for a release date of 7.6.0, it'll be before any subscriptions end a year from now; we're completely against giving any firm release dates as if it should pass there would be a holy panic like there has been in the past, we don't want any broken promises.

Brooks agreed to 3-4 releases per year, we've released one in 2015; take that as you will.

Regarding tab indents within code -- Google is your friend:
http://www.granneman.com/webdev/coding/formatting-and-indenting-your-html/

You shouldn't ask for ETAs; it was explained by Gizmo earlier in this thread why its not good.

If you do not understand the information already provided to you, you should either give thought to hire someone who does understand it or wait for the next release.