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Is there no hope for VCFED PM?

What kind of hardware is the server currently running on?

Is it also time to try to upgrade the hardware? SSD Raid arrays are a lot faster....

This is not a hardware problem. We don't know what kind of queries they're using, and this board does have a lot of messages, but whatever is slowing them down, it's not the hardware. It's something else in the system.

And they've already said they're not comfortable navigating the raw MySQL DB, so it also becomes a matter of tool support.
 
This is not a hardware problem. We don't know what kind of queries they're using, and this board does have a lot of messages, but whatever is slowing them down, it's not the hardware. It's something else in the system.

And they've already said they're not comfortable navigating the raw MySQL DB, so it also becomes a matter of tool support.

Sounds like someone with a good database background is needed. Prune out some of the deadwood from those tables.
 
The forum is hosted on AWS, so it’s definitely not a hardware issue. If anyone has lots of experience with the vBulletin database, we’d love to hear from them.

Thanks!
- Alex
 
Try running this against the database. It's a read only query. If you get any result, you may have some custom usergroup permission against Private Messages (or inherited permission - hierarchy is Home->Special->PrivateMessage) that is preventing the PMs from displaying.

The permissions table is a beast to deal with, you need to cross reference it against the bitfields defined in core/includes/xml.

Code:
SELECT permission.nodeid,
node.title,
permission.groupid,
usergroup.title,
permission.forumpermissions
FROM permission
left join node on node.nodeid = permission.nodeid
left join usergroup on usergroup.usergroupid = permission.groupid
WHERE permission.forumpermissions & 524288 <> 524288
AND node.title in ('Private Messages','Special','Home')
 
It baffles me what the secrecy is for.

For practically anyone on any forum a small amount of detective work, even by even an inept investigator, can find out who they are, what they do and even where they live. So their email address is hardly a a secret.

So for personal contacts it would be better if we just have our email addresses on the profile, then we can contact each other anytime a direct communication is needed.

There is so much spam anyway from other sources these days, it doesn't matter if the email addresses are on the forum, because they are on multiple other locations that get hacked 24/7 anyway, if that were not the case your spam box wouldn't be full of rubbish.
 
So for personal contacts it would be better if we just have our email addresses on the profile, then we can contact each other anytime a direct communication is needed.
You can always put your email address into your signature if you are not concerned of it getting abused for spam...
 
yeah, with spam coming in from every angle.. phone calls,, now Text messages... no thanks.

Using an email address I created in 1996 Id like to limit my spam intake...
 
So do I but I use them for Online shopping or bill paying. And even though they get some spam I try to limit that too. I dont want to create new accounts and have to remember them.. Thats annoying.
 
It baffles me what the secrecy is for.

That's an aspect of it, yes, but fundamentally it's a "simple" feature that the system should be able to provide with far less drama than it has.

People have been creating "email" systems for 50 years, and there's no reason this one should be so finicky (obviously there is a reason as to why it's failing, but there's no excuse for it).

While it may only take a little bit of research to hunt down someones contact information, bots turn out to do that very poorly.

I just marvel at my phone answering machine. Some machine somewhere is out there blindly calling soulless, empty, stupid other machines.

"Have your bot call my bot and they'll have lunch."

It's a complete waste of everything. Power, time, life, everything. But, they're fishing. 1 out of 10,000 they might catch someone. So, we all suffer.

So, it's not so much trying to prevent folks from knocking on our doors, it's about just lowering the din of waste going on that's systemic in modern communication.
 
My vcfblackhole account is temporary--when VCF ever gets private messaging working reliably, I'll delete it.
I like using Vanilla's "whisper" feature to send the occasional private message. Only the target of the whisper gets to see it, yet it's handled as a normal forum post otherwise.

My take on PM isn't for long posts--more in the nature of "what do you know about..." or "do you have..." type of questions.
 
We're still working on it. There are several things going on, in the background.

- Alex

Alex,

There are other issue beside the PM thing. It's a crapshoot whether or not I can even log into the site. Sometimes there is a 30+ second wait and other time I just have to try later on. Also, when attempting to read new threads, maybe I can open 2 to 4 and then the site seems to go dead. Same happens more often than not when I choose to to do a quote. After finishing my entry, the thread takes an abnormally long time to update. Sometime it just spins its wheels and I just have to close out. Something's up either with the server or vBulletin.

Tom

P..S. Not complaining, just a FYI to add to the list.
 
Alex,

There are other issue beside the PM thing. It's a crapshoot whether or not I can even log into the site. Sometimes there is a 30+ second wait and other time I just have to try later on. Also, when attempting to read new threads, maybe I can open 2 to 4 and then the site seems to go dead. Same happens more often than not when I choose to to do a quote. After finishing my entry, the thread takes an abnormally long time to update. Sometime it just spins its wheels and I just have to close out. Something's up either with the server or vBulletin.

Tom

P..S. Not complaining, just a FYI to add to the list.

We are actually aware of these performance issues, our best bet is that it is a database issue. But it also one of the plethora of reasons we are piloting new platforms. But we do appreciate you letting us know about this from your end.
 
I don't get any of those issues. The only issue I've had fairly recently is if I use the list of new posts and want to go to the next page of them, it has on occasions just frozen there for several minutes. However there's been no slowdowns anywhere else in this forum.
 
Yea, performance has been fine for me. I'm on mostly in the mornings Pacific time, but I pop by a couple times a day, and it's been fine for me. Occasionally, yea, there are some lags. Posting might take a bit longer sometimes more than others. But nothing really impactful to how I use the site.
 
I get the extended wait from time to time. Nothing I do clears it. So I just leave the site and come back later. Just seems to totally hang for extended periods.
 
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