Simple press Forum !!!

[Holmey1]

Several weeks ago I migrated a php.bb forum, (www.dwpexamination.org), that I voluntarily look after the hosting of as it looked a brilliant forum platform, was open source and appeared to have excellent free support.

Now, 3 weeks later after I’ve todad updated it, using WordPress update, I find that I am getting –

Fatal error: Uncaught exception ‘Exception’ with message ‘DateTimeZone::__construct() [datetimezone.–construct]: Unknown or bad timezone (UTC 0)’ in /var/www/virtual/blacktrianglecampaign.org/dwpexamination.org/htdocs/wp-content/plugins/simple-press/forum/database/sp-db-statistics.php:312 Stack trace: #0 /var/www/virtual/blacktrianglecampaign.org/dwpexamination.org/htdocs/wp-content/plugins/simple-press/forum/database/sp-db-statistics.php(312): DateTimeZone->__construct(‘UTC 0’) #1 /var/www/virtual/blacktrianglecampaign.org/dwpexamination.org/htdocs/wp-content/plugins/simple-press/forum/database/sp-db-statistics.php(86): sp_set_last_visited(‘458’) #2 /var/www/virtual/blacktrianglecampaign.org/dwpexamination.org/htdocs/wp-content/plugins/simple-press/sp-startup/forum/sp-forum-support-functions.php(126): sp_track_online() #3 [internal function]: sp_populate_query_vars(”) #4 /var/www/virtual/blacktrianglecampaign.org/dwpexamination.org/htdocs/wp-includes/plugin.php(405): call_user_fun in /var/www/virtual/blacktrianglecampaign.org/dwpexamination.org/htdocs/wp-content/plugins/simple-press/forum/database/sp-db-statistics.php on line 312

I go to their website to get support on this and find that there is now no support available unless I pay $39 to obtain this support.

Surly this goes against the open platform nature of WordPress and it’s plugins, how can WordPress support somebody who produces a plugin then demands payment for support for a problem caused by an upgrade that is offered through the WordPress depository>

Can anybody here suggest how I can sort this problem or give me a contact e-mail for somebody at Simple Press.

As you can appreciate, I’m not a happy chappy at the moment, I consider the actions of Simple press to be blackmail, I upgrade a forum on their platform, the upgrade screws it all up and to get support to sort it money is demanded from me.

Any help here on this would be appreciated.

Holmey

[BobHatcher]

I have been reluctant to migrate to simple:press for the same reason. I don’t want to get half way there and have a lot of problems and then have to pay. I actually wouldn’t mind paying a nominal fee to get started.

Can you say something about how the process went as far as the migration? Any issues or was it straightforward?

[Holmey1]

It was and wasn’t straight forward, with me having to run the import scrip more than once, (and delete the installation each time and reinstall before I could try another import), as it missed some of the forums initially, but once it did it right it was fine.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the Simple Press forum platform, I think it’s one of the best available for not only WordPress, but as a forum platform in general, unparalleled for looks, ease of management, features and choice of themes, it was just maddening and to me goes against the whole principle of open source software that WordPress embraces not to give even basic or non prioritised support unless you pay, with my initial free membership of their support forum being blocked unless I paid a $29 fee for 2 months support and then to find that a rough update messed everything up, (which is what the problem was), and no support for this was available unless I paid, which had the odour of blackmail to me.

It was sorted out the following day though by a new update with a fix to the problem.

I’d understand it if I was managing the website that it affected for profit, if I was making an income from designing and managing websites I would not mind paying a reasonable amount either for the initial software or for support if I knew that is was going to be that way at the beginning, but the site is one that I administer for a disability group, with many of the members relying on the forum for both moral and practical support and due to being disabled not having the money to contribute to it’s income ??

Another thing, it appears that now you can now only get the basic forum platform free, with you having to pay for a support account before you can download any of the forum plugins that give it most of it’s brilliant functionality, (although these plugins will update through the WordPress depository), so the way it seems, unless you pay for the support, you are stuck with a basic forum with a lot of functionality missing.

Apart from the above, I don’t know of any converters that will convert your forum back to another platform if you do have problems that you can’t resolve, so you’ve had it, lost everything that has been posted on your new Simple Press forum if you decide to move on to another platform for any reason.

Regards,

Holmey

[michael walker]

Thoroughly agree, Holmey – and I suspect Simple Press will live to regret this approach. Can’t see many people bothering with their software when there are so many free alternatives about…with support, too. Pity. I feel they’ve been poorly advised.

[noteasypeasy]

Hey Guys, I’ve been looking for a forum script that integrates with wordpress (common sign in) for a while, and was also a fully featured forum, as I have used phpbb and like it .

Simplepress would seem to be the one that fits the bill, but I too have been put off by the payment for the support; although I fully understand how anyone needs to make ends meet and everything isn’t free in this world ….

to be honest, I would be more comfortable paying for the script, and having a free support forum I think…
But, I suppose if the quality of service is there in the support, then $99
per year is bearable….
But, it is difficult to assess the quality of the solutions and support without being able to see the answers ..

bit of a catch 22 really

The other forum script I was looking at was Mingle

Ideally I want something to run a social network type thing, with a decent forum, on a multisite install – my current tinkering is with buddypress and simplepress, but I may also try Mingle Forums with Mingle Plugin

anyone any thoughts on this?

[kylemarvin]

I’ve had Mingle for almost a year now and it is simple enough, but that’s exactly it’s downfall. Now that my community is hundreds of people, people want more feature-rich settings, and also, for SEO, simplepress has way more than mingle. I have 800 pages in my mingle forums that arent’ indexed in search engines even though I submitted the sitemap. The sitemap is in php not xml.

I’ve been looking at migrating my mingle community to simplepress. What I don’t get is how to find the vague info it asks for in the importer.

Do you have any hints on where I could find them holmey?

Mingle Database Name
Mingle Database User Name
Mingle Database Password
Mingle Database Host
Mingle Table Prefix
Wordpress User Table Prefix

Mingleforum is a plugin, I didn’t manually set up databases, so I don’t even know where to look for that stuff. Any guidance is appreciated.

Oh, and as far as the support fee, yeah, I understand they want to be paid for their work in some way, I mean, I don’t work for free, and I don’t think anyone should expect I do. But I think if they made it like $20 for unlimited lifetime access, they’d have about 500% more members. Or if they simply charged for a premium version of the plugin. It’s risky… Do I pay the support fee then later find out I can’t accomplish what I want to with the plugin? then it’s freaking worthless.

[Holmey1]

Hi Kyle,

Mingle uses the same database as your WordPress installation and you will find the details of this, (to complete the fields in the importer script), in your WP-config file, (in the root of your WP installation).

Hope that helps.

I’m currently managing 2 Simple Press installations, (https://socialwarriors.co.uk/forum/ & https://dwpexamination.org/ and have to say that I still find it one of the best forum plugins available for WordPress, (better than many stand alone forum platforms in fact), but like others have said, I just can’t get my teeth round now having to pay for support when, when I first started using the platform, it was free, I feel I was conned, especially when my original account on their support forum was deleted when they started charging.

Highest regards,

Holmey

[noteasypeasy]

Ok, so it sounds like SimplePress is still regarded as a good solution. Maybe I’ll need to bite the $99 bullet ….

[Barmy Blue Man]

If you haven’t switched, then you don’t have it so bad. I donated money to Simple-Press, only to find out a week or two later that the support forum AND the documentation was no longer available to me. I need the documentation for some things, but I work on this in my spare time, and on a shoestring budget. I don’t know that I’d get my issues worked out before the 2 months expired, and I already spent $30 with them for nothing.

[Mike Warren]

I’m in the same boat. Shortly after paying a small donation they implemented this new policy. I realize they can do what they like, but I wouldn’t have bothered considering how low traffic my forum has. Now I’m in the situation of needing to spend dozens of hours migrating to something else, paying (again), or putting up without any of the newer plugins.

I feel they could have been more up-front about planning to do this before they did to give people like me a choice to use something else.

[RussellOCS]

Hi folks.

I’m wondering if anyone here has a good knowledge of simple press.

I just moved over to a wordpress website at work, during these times, just seemed the more economic option.

I have installed this forum (simple press) and i am going through the options. I am wondering is there a way that I can set up accounts for users, then just e-mail them thier usernames and passwords?

Any/all help ngreatly apprciated.

Regards,

Russell.

[michael walker]

I’m not sure you can do this directly from within the forum admin. When people register (or you register them) as users on your WP site, they will/should automatically become registered as forum users too. Don’t know if that helps? If you’re using a paid-for version of SF, there is also a forum on their website which might provide some further help.

[RussellOCS]

Hi Michael,

Thanks very much for the response. It does help confirm what I feared :).

Ah well, will have to sort something out.

Thanks again.

[matemp]

I didn’t like the way simple press yanked the support from underneath us in which we now have to pay for support and plug-ins. However, I need a simple plug-in but I don’t like paying $39. Does anybody want to share in the membership cost? I just need at least 1 other person but preferably 2 or 3. If so contact me at my member name at juno.com.

[lulupont]

i feal this is a scam. simple press just really fucked us all ??

[matemp]

I agree, the developers are very greedy. But I still need a plug-in, anybody wants to share in the membership cost?