SAFETY SAFETY SAFETY!

This is a complaint. Upon searching, i found a few others that feel like I do. I just experienced a site destroying incident that could have been completely avoided if there were any checks and balances in Dolphin.

I accidentally uninstalled all my mods with the slip of a finger while I was recompiling language files. The result was a completely destroyed site. It recompiled language files whilst it was removing the mods. It wrecked my database.

Every major thing you do in a site like this should have built in protections. When you select a mod for uninstall and you click the button to uninstall it, you should be presented with a warning "Are you sure you want to proceed?" If such a warning had been in place yesterday, I would not be trying to fix my site today and get it back online. All of your sites are at great risk from a mistake or a slip of the mouse/finger.

I have a database backup so I will most likely be able to recover most of what I lost but just like a good post that you accidentally delete from the fish forum while you're creating it, the second time around is never as good as the first.

If Boonex really did care about it's users and their experience with this software, they would have ALREADY solved this problem. it's not that difficult to do.

I can't help but feel a little more caution should be used. I take it you don't have any recent backups?

Maybe they will include this in the future update or someone will develop here in the Market for free or with a little fee. 

"Making things possible"

I do have backups and I am restoring as we speak (thanks to HFW btw). I have a full backup as recent as the 5th.

That's not the point. The point I am making is any software developer worth his salt is going to watch out for these kinds of situations and place very simple and effective protections in place to help the user avoid these types of catastrophes.

There is another issue as well. With a simple double click of my mouse, I was able to completely disassemble my Dolphin site to a point it was NOT repairable without a full restore. this is a MAJOR FAUX PAUS by the developers and it needs to be addressed. Everyone here knows that a lot of the mods we use toss their data if they are removed, even accidentally. What happens to the person that loses just one mod because of this? maybe someone with a very expansive and data rich site?

Putting your eggs in this basket is very dangerous because of this apparent lack of concern on the part of the developers.

I second this request wholeheartedly. There are several admin functions that are quite easy to misclick and cause serious damage. (I deleted myself from the system on the member's page once. Silly. And repairable. But completely preventable w/ an easy (and common) "are you sure" prompt.) And comments like "be more careful & cautious" miss the point entirely and are unhelpful. It's seems to be an industry standard operating procedure in other programs that I've used (wordpress, vbulletin, etc.) so I don't see why this wouldn't be standard with Boonex as well.

This has been the biggest boondoggle of my life, I swear.

It's now the 9th and I have yet to accomplish the task of getting my site back online. Between the fact that Dolphin is basically built to fail and HFW's inability to set permissions, I am exhausted, pissed off and losing members at an alarming rate.

I am having some real second thoughts about continuing to put my eggs in this particular basket.

 I DO HAVE BACKUPS!

And making the statement that maybe I should apply a little more caution really ticks me off and absolutely speaks to the fact that Boonex is NOT INTERESTED at any level about helping the end user protect his project.

I just fired HFW. After 2 days time, they have not been able to successfully overwrite my public_html file with the backup copy or correct the permissions so i could do it myself.

I am SO done with this shiit

 You right this realy need to be added on dolphin not only for modules also for blocks, etc

Thanks 4 sharing this man

Well after more than 2 days trying to get a restore done, My site is officially back up. it is still displaying one or 2 errors but it's nothing that can't be worked out.

HFW really dropped the ball here. After 2 days of working with them, I finally told them to go away earlier today as they just couldn't get the permissions set right that would allow me to overwrite the public_html file in my server. Since I also don't have the skill to SSH in and perform such an extensive task, I had to resort to outside help.

Once again, I want to reiterate that everyone here really needs to show disapproval of the way Dolphin handles it's administrative duties. There are NO protections, protections that would have easily prevented me from doing such damage to my site.

2 things are going to happen now. I am not going to rely so heavily on the support staff at HFW. In a pinch, they just can't get it done. I am going to learn how to work in my server without relying on cpanel so much.

One more thing. I employed dolphin_jay from DolphinTechs to help me resolve this issue. He jumped in and in a matter of 2 or 3 hours, all was well again. He is truly a Dolphin master. and loves fixing problems like this. Thanks Buddy for a job very well done.

i have always felt a great deal of humor has to be anticipated with these types of topics. the developer is not at fault for end-user idiocy. 

if you get lax in your administrative functions, then incidents of this caliber are sure to take place. if you buy a pistol and its a S&W, and you turn it backwards, and forcefully squeeze off a round into your face, is this the manufacturers problem? should they have implemented a security feature that would alert you that if you squeeze that trigger, you are going to blow your F'n head off? 

if you purchase an automobile, and are driving down the highway, then decide you wish to relax in the backseat for a moment, and you crash and burn, is this the automakers responsibility to ensure that you cannot leave from the seat while the vehicle is in operation?

if you are screw up something, eat the cheese, and understand that a mistake was made, and that nobody, nobody other than yourself is responsible for that error. learn from that error, express your concern and share about making that error, but dont blame somebody else for a mistake that was made where you had complete and utter control. 

so the thread should be renamed to Pay Attention Pay Attention Pay Attention

:)

One of the most interesting things I've found in my year of dealing with the Dolphin software is the way things* that people request/complain about are explained away with "no, no, you only think you need that."

*Most of these things are in other software that Dolphin disregards. And they're standard in other software for a reason.

Hmmmm,

LOL,

The difference between a gun and software is software has the ability to reason with a person while being used.......the way it is now SKY Forum is pointing out this software is like a gun which has major issues if you get distracted.  Boonex has the ability with a couple lines of code to reason with a client who just might not be perfect.  IMHO 

I propose all guns promt the user to confirm the action before firing. I believe this will be very beneficial to users.

Guns have safety switches on them. This analogy isn't helpful.

I guess all other software, in your book, should get rid of their prompts (again - an industry standard) that say:

You are about to ____. Do you want to continue? Yes. No.

Obviously there's nooooo need for this, so thousands of programs have messed up and only Dolphin's got it right.

I made a ticket for warning message nearly a year ago, and it was pushed back to a future release.

 I am sorry ggsinc but the safety switch is the perfect analogy and is what Skyforum is looking for..........only in code........

Yes, that was exactly what I was saying. That the there ARE indeed safety measures on guns and that analogies of...

... aren't helpful.

I'm sorry DosDawg. You are my friend here but you are wrong on this one. Your analogy doesn't work.

My error happened because I had spent at least 8 hours at the keyboard trying to fix some issues and make some changes to my site. I was tired, my hand slipped and I simultaneously recompiled and uninstalled all my mods. A popup warning would have absolutely saved me here.

Hindsight is 20/20 and a wonderful thing. If I had to do it over again (and I probably will) instead of taking the shortcut and selecting to recompile ALL the mods, I would only select the mod I actually needed to recompile. If I would have done that, the failure may not have been as severe but I am quite sure I still would have been repairing something the hard way.

In the end, not all of us are wonderfully talented code warriors. We don't think about these little things as we fumble our way through a software package that, at best, is difficult to master. After hours of working on it, a little thing like a popup protection script would be warmly welcomed and would cause us to praise Boonex for thinking ahead and helping to protect us from ourselves..

I think all premium members should open a ticket on this problem. maybe they will get the hint. I've never done one before but I think I'll do it right now.

skyoforum ( :) ), one of the most despised functions of windows xp, is that you were asked multiple times if you were sure you wanted to do something, i found that annoying and detrimental to production. should there be some functionality to prevent disasters from happening, yes, however, there is no way to determine every foul move that a user would decide to make. 

so say there is a notice that pops up, annoying if you ask me, since if you select objects on a site, when its dynamic, and you opt for a function to take place, i dont see why one would need to be asked if they are sure they want to do that. 

it has nothing to do with a code warrior, since there was really is really no code involved in the incident that you faced. you admittedly state you were tired, and that was the error, the error per se' is not on the application, because this could have happened just as easily no matter how many javascript popups were placed in front of a user. 

consider this, on boonex.com/unity in order to submit a blog post, there is a notice of rules and etiquette, with a checkbox that says I got it, thousands of users click that box, and have not once read the rules of the site. 

so yes, there are requirements for what is coined 'error trapping' where one would try to ascertain what could possibly go wrong at any given time, and that is at times difficult to come up with. 

i know a person who bought a brand new computer, no knowledge of a computer at all. used the computer for about 2 months, thought he had it all understood, so starts digging in the file system --> system 32 and system directory. he promptly notices there are files in there that he didnt save, and immediately proceeds in removing them. though he was asked if he was sure if he wanted to remove those files, yes of course he wanted to remove those files, because as he stated to me, he didnt save them there. so you get the point there, no matter what pre-determined scenarios you could come up with, there is always going to be the user, who regardless, ends up having the same situation happen to them. 

so basically what i am reading here, that as the administrator of your site, you need to be moderated as to what you can do, thus limiting your power to manage the site, without going through a preliminary security check that you are sure and competent enough to perform the tasks you have requested the application to perform? 

skyforum, and chris, could you come up with a detailed list of every function from the admin panel that would require an 'error trap', not only on the things you have bongled, but based on what you are familiar with on hte script, where it is potentially a situation that could prove disastrous. yes petition boonex, andrew boon, and AlexT to provide a confirmation system, and see if they will put it together. 

but in doing so, i would also like to be able to turn that same system off, because if opt to delete something, i personally do not wish to answer 3 times that i am sure that i am sure that i am sure, that i wish to delete that file or profile, or whatever. 

at any rate, skyforum, was posting on this, as i seen you were annoyed, and i had to get my dig in on you. 

So what you are saying is the developers at Boonex while they are developing something don't ever say to themselves "Boy, somebody could really screw something up here if they weren't paying attention".. "Maybe I can help them a little if I just drop in a little warning popup here"

??? Come on ...... Give me a break....

Fair solution: make the software easier to manage so that people aren't sleep deprived and make the mistakes in the first place!!

As I am entering my 4th hour of editing language keys (yes, 4 hours!) for a new install of Dolphin... I'm noticing that there are quite a few instances of asking "You are about to X, are you sure you want to do this?" for things like Photo Albums.

Funny to me that there are checks in place for deleting albums, text, profile fields, etc. but that there is soooooooo much resistance to adding checks for things like Deleting the Administrator from the entire site, Uninstalling Modules, etc..

Just a lil observation.

 The least they could do is not put the two boxes so close to each other, I triple check each time I go to recompile all modules just because I have done to same thing long ago. It only took once to learn to watch what I clicking but it's very easy to make the mistake giving the Uninstall button between Update and Recompile, it's kind of a stupid place for it.

the "Uninstall" should be else where

/inc/classes  BxDolInstallerUi.php

~line 126

//--- Get Controls ---//
        $aButtons = array(
            'modules-update' => _t('_adm_btn_modules_update'),
            'modules-uninstall' => _t('_adm_btn_modules_uninstall'),
            'modules-recompile-languages' => _t('_adm_btn_modules_recompile_languages')
        );
        $sControls = BxTemplSearchResult::showAdminActionsPanel('modules-installed-form', $aButtons, 'pathes');

change to

//--- Get Controls ---//
        $aButtons = array(
            'modules-update' => _t('_adm_btn_modules_update'),
            'modules-recompile-languages' => _t('_adm_btn_modules_recompile_languages'),
            'modules-uninstall' => _t('_adm_btn_modules_uninstall')
        );
        $sControls = BxTemplSearchResult::showAdminActionsPanel('modules-installed-form', $aButtons, 'pathes');

clever! they need to do this in the next update.. thumbs up

 good one. 

i wonder if there will be any attention given to this? good work, and nicely done. overall dolphin could use a lot of rework. i think the larger problem with this is that the guys who are writing this, are not using it. writing a program, and never really using the application you have written, is extremely non-productive. 

so they code this stuff and lay it out for the community to troubleshoot. there are many many things that are illogical from a users perspective, but logical from programmers perspective. they seem to have no QA, or beta testers. thats us. and of course to thoroughly beta-test something like dolphin, it requires a team effort, and with that team effort (us), collboration on the findings are extremely important. there is nowhere for (us) to fully particicpate in beta-testing, and their trac is locked to members who have purchased a membership type. there are others who use this software who have not paid for a premium user account. 

oh well i will cut this rant short, as i have work to do. but i just want to add,  you are all right on this, and if changes to the UI, are conducive to a better user experience should be looked into by the ones responsible for releasing this application. 

 Thanks Prolaznik. Excellent work. I suppose if one wanted to, they could reduce the size of the 'Recompile Languages' button to just 'Recompile' and put a little more space between all of them. Even with this change though, I still believe a warning popup is warranted here.