That's one down

I have many many hours invested in denverparking.com, not to mention over $1000 paid to an outside developer that has no idea what it means to communicate with her customers.

I am finished with this nonsense. I have completely deleted this particular site in favor of a static web page. This is only the first ship in my fleet to meet this doom. Watch to see which one goes next. Enough is enough.

What were all the issues? Just curious

I see what you did there.

Kindly enlighten us please. Why have you left? What are your issues? Kindly elaborate so as to help others decide to stay or go.

I need a functioning site. It's really that simple. None of the sites that I have that are Boonex are fully functional. I am not a rocket scientist and that's what you need to be to ever get a Dolphin site working 100%.

My problem is this, I still have 2. One of them is a dream I have been working on for better than ten years. This is my third community project that has failed. After countless months, days & hours and countless upgrades that created more problems than they solved and endless promises from a group of geniuses that can't manage the task of managing the development of this project, I am running out of resolve.

The final issue came when DosDawg spent what had to be several hours carefully wording and creating one of the most insightful posts I have seen on this board in a very long time only to have Boonex swat it aside like a dead fly on the window.

It is becoming very clear to me that there is no finish date for this project and in fact, there never was. It is designed to feed off the masses that are foolish enough to tag along for the ride. If they truly wanted to create something beautiful, they most certainly could have accomplished that task by now.....

.

TRUE!... i couldn't agree more.

Looks like a revolt is brewing..

"The final issue came when DosDawg spent what had to be several hours carefully wording and creating one of the most insightful posts I have seen on this board in a very long time only to have Boonex swat it aside like a dead fly on the window."

That is certainly the most anoying thing ate the moment, for us...when they toss aside helpful contribution that should be taken more seriously or when they send us to "please post in jobs section" when mostly the issues are common Dolphin (dis)functionality.

We are not considering abandoning ship. Site is working as we want it to, thanks to several hundreds of hours of work and piles of coffee, but mostly thanks to the hours Anton and Jomar spent tunning the scripts and the server. This will never be a "free" software, not if you really want it as you feel you need it. Again, this is also ok for us, as we don't except ever to get anything for free, and surely not when we want it "specially designed to our needs" as "there is no such thing as a free lunch"...

For us, right now, the main issue is the amount of server resources hogged by any Dolphin site which relies on heavy profile and photos browsing...I thought, though, that is exactly what a community dating site is mostly about...In the end, you end up needing a dedicated "monster" that will consume at least 300$ out of you every month, and if you keep growing, so will the bill.... And again, this issue is never  and was never addressed here, except by the members (and please do not tell me to read the post on how to tune up the server, all done and more than whats is written there was done...).

I guess I will just pour myself another mug of coffee...

Regards,

PS: Skyforum, please accept my appologies, when trying to quote you, I clicked the "report" button, so sorry for reporting you, but the damn thing does not even ask "are u sure"...best of luck in your "fight".

just thinking out loud, not even being sure if i am correct.

I think that most community owners are using a lot of modules, more modules installed = heavy load on resources ... especially modules that are using video.

Perhaps with a bit less modules installed, the server load will be less .. and dolphin will run a bit better.

Try to use 50 programs on your computer simultaneously, do this while you are converting two video's at once, this will slow down your computer to a near stop. Imagine your webserver, handling 50 online users, and a few of them doing something with video.

Same thing for photos/pictures whatever.

now, i am not sure how SkyForum used her community, lot's of modules or perhaps just a few. But the above is, in my humble opinion, the root of many problems.

Hi,

not the case....we have only mods for shapping the site (one) and 2 other small ones. Video and music is restricted to VIP accounts...Chat is also restricted to 3 windows, max 5 lines showing, per user.

Access restricted by Admin, so around 20.000 registrations, but only 2.300 active accounts...Peak time more than 100 online users, server shows chat and profile browsing as the top processes....neither of them would be removable options lol

It is the script in itself.

Regards

considering that you are facing these problems for some time, i have read some of your posts.

What alternatives are out there, in your opinion? Others than Dolphin?

It would be 'silly' to invest more in a project that when it might become successful, will become a disaster. because dolphin can not deliver.

I looked at a few alternatives, but none of them have the feel as dolphin...

I rather 'bail' out sooner than later, if these problems are real.

Alternatives, for our specific needs, basically none. That is why I said we are ok with paying for whatever we need to shape it as we want it, besides, luckily, having on board someone that can do php...

As the site grows, so our server is upgraded...this has been the solution so far. But this is the only thing we would rather not pay for, when it seems that it could be improved in the script itself...I guess we are one of the fews with this issue.

Regards

excessive resource usage is native to the D7 environment. does not rely or depend on 3rd party modules being installed. the XML.php file is continuously running, the script is continuously checking the database for IM and Invite updates, these are default modules that run continuously and stress the CPU and the database.

you can cache till your eyes fall out, then something jambs up and guess what you gotta 'Clear the Cache', so whats the use in caching if you gotta clear the cache every 30 minutes because the site malfunctions on a cached environment?

the solution is as stated, big money on servers if you intend on running a site that is profitable. there are no models or bench test or case studies to lead one down the correct path, i can tell you this, its upwards of $10k/month to properly scale a site to carry any type of real interactivity with traffic.

What about all those sites in the Website section, many of them are real and growing. How does one explain those? I have not put in the hours you have, but I certainly have commissioned a developer to write a couple of modules for me. So before i go crazy what gives here?

My site will not have video, perhaps no even photos. But when you refer to rms mods; what are you referring to please?

Great news!!! A Dolphin site can run smoothly....but only if you remove some of its core functions...oh, and if you run VPS, of course!

But that does not answer at all the basic point: with all its features and mods enabled (let allone a few more mods from the market), it hogs the server resources! And worse, if you read some of DosDawg post on this issue, with almost no users online.

Regards,

You know Adminmysite; I think most here (especially me) would just like to see the modules that are on the default system function as they should, without so many issues. The software should at least be 90% functional as it should be (nothing is ever 100% including FB). Personally, if the system requirements dictates that we need to have certain hosting environment that is acceptable. (I mean you don't go into a Formula 1 race with a commercial Honda Civic to win.)

I honestly feel that Boonex is trying to please everyone with everything and a lot is not working. So they should spend the time making a great product working well and then move on by adding modules as the need arises. Seems they are rebuilding everything from scratch with every version (or so it seems)

Enlighten us please.

I would appreciate if you would not question my intelligence...

I would not have post this issue if I was on a shared server. Not that is any of your bussiness, but I did mention the need to spend around 300$ a month or more...if you read between the lines, you should have guessed we have a Dedicated, in this case, a QuadCore running on Lite Speed, with 2 additional drives and 12 GB RAM!!! Not to mention that it was fine tuned by DolphinBugFixing (not advertising really, maybe someone needs help here...).

Also, reading more carefully, how were we supposed to run more than 100 online members on a shared server??

Of course if one's expected to run a successfull site, paying for a good server is not even questionable. Whenever this issues of hogging server resources were addressed, it was always considering that shared hosting was not an option.

So, still, question remains the same. And as long as someone like DosDowg says it, I fully subscribe it.

Regards

ha, 2 sites out of 100k+ perfect ratio.

i would think you are very well aware of what is being referenced here in regards to resource usage. you mention a VPS that is running a stripped down, and contains no flash capabilities, or streaming capabilities. though i would still like to see the sites stasts on the CPU and RAM usage. dolphin seldom uses ram, and is a complete and utter hog on the CPU. the infamous file XML.php that those of us who faced the situation back when D7 was released spoke on this in great detail, if you missed it, sorry you were not hear at that juncture.

so in contrast, whereas you know the release date of Dolphin 7.0.0, the problem with resource usage has persisted. as to exactly every situation that would take some snooping in the forums, where you can see many have been suspended for excessive resource usage. though in most cases, yes they were on shared platforms, however, in viewing the hosting page provided from boonex, recommending the $1.99 unlimited hosting services, you would consider these services to be a viable option when seeking out hosting for the boonex dolphin platform, would you not?  and we can talk about VPS | Dedicated | and Shared, because quite frankly, Dolphin 6 ran nicely on shared environments. it wasn't until the release of Dolphin 7 that it became an utter requirement to be able to run the site at an acceptable performance level. i would like to see this purported VPS with 100 users, because from AlexT himself, that unless there is major adjustments done to the script, and the platform that is hosting dolphin, you are going to see a depletion somewhere around 50 users, and he was referencing a dedicated machine Dual Core 2GB RAM as best I recall.

there really is no room for argumentatives here, it has been discussed over and over on these very forums, exactly how resource intensive Dolphin 7.x has become.

and if the core modules cannot be ran then they should not be included on the system as a core function.

Most of the times when I check the dolphin/boonex websites that some of us share with the rest in this forum, I see them cluttered with all sorts of installed modules.

I cant help to think, when i read another complaint of a Dolphin site owner having ALL modules installed, they should use a LOT less modules. Sure, most modules come with dolphin, but that does not mean you can use them all without consequence.

But then again, I also read stories of other users that have very little modules installed and are facing extreme difficulties on resources ... and others that have not a single problem at all ....

The truth is out there ....

No doubt boonex needs to consider making dolphin more efficient

However the 100k dolphin sites which might not be as successful I wouldn't blame on dolphin itself, I'd say 99% of those sites don't get anywhere because of  reasons that I see every day:

sites have no point, overloaded with useless mods, poor management and little or no advertising, etc.. I bet if you would give those people an exact clone of facebook, or myspace software, I doubt they would see an explosion in site traffic and members

"I'd say 99% of those sites don't get anywhere because of  reasons that I see every day"

TThere is still 1% left out to explain then...residual as that may be, it still needs to be explained.

We cope with it, because we can, but stil would like to know how it could be improved.

yeah, i will have to agree with you on some points, overloading the site with modules wrong, or misconfiguration of hosting services.

though, i think 99% is a bit extreme, because i have seen some deep pocket clients that were using premier developers not be sucessful with dolphin. granted the most success i am aware of is from 6.1.4 --> 6.1.6, though, none of these site i am referencing would be considered your out-of-the-box dolphin environment.

boonex provides a foundation, or base, a decent starting point. yes you can build a network, but you are not going to do this out of your loose change jar. there are many contributing factors that cause failure of this application, most of which relates to overall lack of knowledge.

Minimal Skills Required:

Understanding FTP protocol minimum approach

Understanding MySQL

Understanding HTML

Understanding PHP

Understanding jscript and jquery

Understanding CSS

Understanding marketing

Understanding SEO

Understanding apache and apache modules

So basic knowledge of the above mentioned skillsets are required, and the only option is that if you are not blessed with minimal skills, then you need to employ somebody who is, that can manage your site/server

The overall complexity of dolphin presents issues that are not apparent in other CMS applications. however, couple this with actual bugs, and you create a state of turmoil, which leads to frustration and ultimately just as is the case with SF, surrender. SF possesses such minimal knowledge of skills, and has put forth great effort in launching his sites. where he references his frustration from trying to keep up with the changes and determine the functional and non-functional aspects of the dolphin cms, it proves a losing battle, because just as you think you have things working on a half-assed level, something comes up just as this 7.0.6 security patch.

as is evident across the board, there have been many problems faced by many members. the level of support is lacking that is required for these patches to go off sucessfully.

the fact that the script is released on the community, and debugged by novices, then when a bug is confirmed and verified, its listed as an enhancement and pushed to some future release, instead of providing a patch in SVN, and allowing those who can, to apply that patch immediately. why is it considered acceptable to spend $999.00 then have to sit and wait months for a fix of something that is clearly an oversight or error on the developers behalf. either you wait, or fork out money to hire a developer, and your budget goes out the window from what you wanted to get done, to what you end up 'needing' to get done due to the malfunctions released with the CMS.

of course boonex chooses to ignore all of these facts and the position of thats the way it has been and thats the way its going to be, and refusing or failing to provide a true answer to situations that are evident, does not shine the greatest of light.