Does anyone have a Dolphin 7 site that actually works?

It always amazes me, how for no reason whatsoever, my Dolphin site can go to shit without warning... without having touched anything for months.... without any members.... without any traffic.

It's almost time to jerk the plug on this colossal piece of shit.  (My website, that is) 

Sad with dolphin? :-)

I know few websites with Pr4 and good Alexa ratio. Thats mean that websites have pretty good traffic.

I already told, that website itself is even less just half of success. We don`t should forget and about website promotion step. No need to hope that after creating website and adjusting it - You will immediately see traffic. No of course

And, this is not related on dolphin version, it can be even dolphin 6.x - and good success with website.

5 years ago i was using PHP-nuke  had a PR 6
now spent 3 years with dolphin PR0 and still in development lol...

Think you guys are missing the point here and have gone way off topic he is talking about his site breaking all the time when he dont even have members or traffic ect.

He is not asking about SEO

 Exactly.  This platform is a constant flow of things going wrong for no apparent reason.  One day things work, the next day things are AFU.   It really wears a person down.  I thought this would be fun when I got into it three years ago.... boy was I ever wrong.   This is Zero fun.

My new home page:

Fatal error: Call to a member function getParam() on a non-object in /home/xxxxxx/public_html/inc/db.inc.php on line 83

Nice, isn't it?

I'd try to fix it, but to tell you the truth, I just don't give a shit anymore.

no it's not normal  that your site not work -  maybe you have made ​​too many changes

 I oversee the management of a site with D7.0.6  - it's not my personal site - with about 1,000 members - some 40 members connected to the same time  -   it works well

Introducing Dolphin 12, with newer, faster, and fancier bugs than you've ever seen before!

honestly I've had a few glitches with 7.0.7, but little that I haven't been able to either solve myself, or find solutions to on this forum.  I consider myself lucky, as I've seen many a tale of woe on here, and I believe people who claim that this package is full of bugs....it is at that.  But Maybe it's because I'm young, and often bored, that I don't mind the challenge.

I also test new updates in a sandbox/staging environment first before I apply them to my live site.  That doesn't mean a clean install in a subdomain, that means a complete copy of my live site, which I upgrade exactly as if it were my live site.  I usually do this twice before proceeding.  The first time to hammer out any bugs, and make template corrections ahead of time.  The second pass is to verify my fixes work as I've copied them down.  Then I perform the update on the live site.  Have had very few problems with this workflow.  If a version is too buggy to go live, and I haven't fixed it to satisfaction yet, then it doesn't go live yet.

It's the same as where I work.  We are a software company ourselves, and We test our software in our own staging environment, before we certify it and pass it to clients.  But occasionally a bug slips past our testing scripts, and the client catches it, not on their live servers, but on their own staging server.

While no one wants that extra step and work...as not everyone is a developer...It's nessicary if you want to stay on the cutting edge of versions.  Otherwise, wait a month or two after new version releases, Sometimes it's necessary.  A sad reality, but reality none the less.

I am due to Pre-launch with all the influential people that will make my site a success next week and am battling to stop it all falling to shit too.

It's like you say - you think you have it all sewn up, and then one hole leads to another - leads to another - leads to........ and before you know it, its like melt down. I have a LOT of expert help with my site, and still it is a battle to make it do as it should.

To make it worse, EVERY mod I buy has HOLES in them. They are rushed out to make more money in an uncontrolled market. You get them fixed, prepare to laund and then find more holes in them. Dolphin and its associated mods are like swiss cheese FFS.  I do believe that it is possible to make a very good, compettetive and profitable site using the dolphim platform, but to do so you need VERY deep pckets a truck load of head ache tablets.

so far so good!

2 months away from launch so who knows what will happen.

I am finished except for a couple of minor mods (sic!)

Needed a fair bit of modding along the way but I'm hopeful!

One thing for sure is that i won't buy a full licence until i have it doing exactly what

I need it to do.

Famous last words!

I quit doing major modifications to core files that were to be edited because of a module. Upgrading these sites will give you nightmares.

No more, the market is full of modules that add more headache to site maintenance.

I see they are trying to make the market better, I just don't see how they can correct all the non functioning modules there.

Heavily modded site = no upgrades for some customers.  

[edit] this is exactly what I'm talking about

This is taken from a post just moments after my posting...

"Please advise the status of Ultimate Blogs and 7.0.7 mine broke after the upgrade and was throwing database errors.    " 

This is the best I could do.

It is a constant struggle, between fighting off spammers that now register as product names (thank you, it's pretty easy to identify who I need to delete when you register like this), and keeping the database from blowing up, I'm still trying to determine what platform would be better suited.

Or do I give up completely? I've lost so many members due to these inconsistent glitches, just getting to 1400 has been a pain in the ass and has cost a lot of $$$$$$.

It may have been a mistake listing my production URL above. If you're not in the US and not interested in the purpose of my community please do not register on the site, but feel free to look around.

I have seen many dolphin websites running successfully without any problem for more than a year. The problem I see most often is the poorly coded mods, and unwanted modules kept active.

Regarding your error "Database connect failed". This often comes when your server has insufficient resources to run your dolphin. Also, this error will come again and again. Especially when you run crons. Contact your hosting company regarding this. They will be able resolve this.

Well after making a career of fighting with Dolphin  for over 5 years... (used to have hair, now... NOT).... and went through the initial pains of people not settling in on a system of layout and design that stays consistent. So core file hacks were done by most programmers to get things to work like they should. Upgrading from 7.0.1 to 7.0.2 on 6 sites took several weeks!  God I miss my rum and ExamDiff nights!

So here we go on many site wth 7.0.5 and really feeling the need to go to 7.0.7.... but fearing the worst. I will give a note to people on how to help..... in the header of each file you modify manually in the core for a MOD, make dated remarks  right in the Boonex block about any modifications.  That way it is easier to find and edit versus lining up same files and looking at ALL code.

@HOUSTONLIVELY .... how about a long functioning site which one day stops processing logins for the entire site... including ADMIN... on the public side... but you can log in using the Admin interface... WHY? dunno.... fix?  backup....

Even the Boonex site is buggy and shows no mature programming. If you have a downloadable, licensed product which is updated, it should notify all licensees of an update posted. Not subscribing to a FORUM. Most of the programmers here do not support their mods in a forum.... only the ones who have been around and beaten enough times to automatically start one.

(steps down off soap box)  (takes a deep breath).... AMEN!

I have before jom social with PR 5 when I found about Dolphin my Page Rank now is PR 2

 That is mine and the Blogs threw database error's and will have to be fixed to continue but this an animal that needs constant attention.  I've been at it for 18 months nonstop and I am thrilled with the final product.  However it is a constant battle to keep it moving forward.  I can't wait to see it under stress............The error's will get fixed and over all it does so much to help market properties and that is what I am after.........is it perfect no does it cost you sleep at night, yes...........but most of all it is like a shot to the ribs every-time you do an upgrade and that F****** red database error message is enough to stop your heart..............LOL but really for all that is here and all that is changed to me it is astonishing how smooth it really can go.............   

 Yes that was your response and I feel for you.

Your site is fantastic and heavily modded but serves your members well and I hope you get a quick response from modzzz, I have a lot of sites I work on with his modules installed and have not ran into errors yet.. knock on wood.

I'm sure he will correct the modules, (modzzz) as he has support forums unlike some module creators..

Another reason to watch out for the "3rd" party modules..

This is broken translation but I get the gist of the problems

"1. I forwarded this problem developed  SimpleMessenger module .

2. http://www.boonex.com/trac/dolphin/ticket/2611

3. This problem may occur with third-party modules, I advise you to write the developer of the module so that it corrected this problem, for example in the module solved Store is as follows:

http://www.boonex.com/trac/dolphin/ticket/2611 "

OMG I can't stop this is just too fun about the problem with 3rd party modules and site upgrades...

This is a snip-it from a top notch programmer here. 

"That one i may not be able to help with. Appears as if your sys_page_compose table has additional fields perhaps from a mod that causes it not to match the count for the upgrade."

I think you're confusing mods (that modify core files) and modules (that don't). I think it was established long ago that mods are a bad idea and make upgrading a pain. I don't care about the loss of additional functionality, if it's not a mod that I've done myself, I don't apply it (and I make sure to keep a list of every change I make to edit patches before applying them).

hmmm

Agrees with Richard...... Once upon a time (Pre Dolphin) I too had Hair..... Am seriously considdering starting a support group for the folicaly challenged on here lol.

There are mods, and there are modules. Most of the time it is almost impossible to distinguish.  I have a huge directory of "mods" that are billed as fully installed modules, but still need core file hacks to make work because of shortcoming in the core of Dolphin.

One glaring issue that UE30 (Thanks Chris), addressed was Events a few years ago. How can you have an event module (Boonex) which has all of it's sorts based upon the full country? Ooooh... there is a new event in Russia... wow... think we need to drive or fly?  How about a field for state/region? Oh no! Or how about a POSTAL code for proximity?  Chris took all of this in hand and heavily MODDED the events until we all pleaded that the upgrades to .01, .02, etc were overwriting all his CORRECTIVE code.  So he put togther a satanalone which is excellent and worth every dollar!

Or how about the email system that had no trash folder.. but you deleted messages and could not access the folder to truly rid of them? 

A calendar popup function that works in strange ways and has been asked for years to get rid of?

I think it would be good for a MODULE to be put to the community.... and a wishlist of functions should be taken.... damn.. use Andrew P's Suggestions module.  Then take that month of input, and create the STANDALONE module with proper functionality.

We will see how this turns out for D8... hopefully it will be a lot better and rewrite each core mod with a functionality to truly represent that it would/should be by name.

Since I am asking for SOOOOO much... can I also have a date with Cameron Diaz?  I know.. my chances of either coming true... are NIL

There shouldn't be any confusion. If the "module" requires anything more than installation through the administration panel (such as editing a core file), then it isn't a module. If someone is selling a mod as a module, you should contact them and request they update their descriptions. If they don't, I'll see to it myself.