Taking a look at the facts regarding Tech Talk and vBulletin

[Parts Express]

Parts Express has made a substantial investment in both money and time to maintain the Tech Talk message board as a free benefit to the speaker building community. We have been committed to keeping the site secure, reliable, and performing well because we are passionate about speaker building and enjoy sharing that passion with others. Our goal with this post is to provide you with behind-the-scenes information as well as answer some questions posed on various threads.

Why the upgrade in March of 2016?
Several major exploits to the vBulletin software prior to version 5 began circulating around the internet. These exploits allowed vBulletin to be used for spamming as well as the altering of links inside of posts to redirect users to other sites. The only way to resolve these exploits was to upgrade to version 5+ of vBulletin which, as you know, was a major overhaul of their software.

Any features that were causing performance or security issues were removed by vBulletin. Parts Express worked to configure the new system to provide the best experience possible; however our hands were tied on certain aspects of the software. Some features may never return and there are no third party enhancements to change that. We all have to live with that reality as changing to a different forum platform would cause significant loss to certain data such as photos and private messages. I am confident no one wants that.

Site Performance
We spent time on Jan 9^th going through and tweaking vBulletin and the underlying database for the best performance possible. You should note that the board is much faster now. This is as good as it gets with vBulletin. There are no hardware or bandwidth constraints on our end causing any degradation in performance. vBulletin is running on a modern enterprise level dedicated server.

Moving Forward
vBulletin has been making small improvements, although at a slow pace, as of lately. As these improvements come forward, we will get them implemented on Tech Talk. If anyone has suggestions for third party add-ons or certain features they see on other vBulletin forums please let us know. Just remember that we cannot go back to features or add-ons from older versions of vBulletin.

Did you know?
If you are using a mobile device to view Tech Talk you may want to check out the tapatalk application that is available for both Android and iOS. Tapatalk gives you an enhanced way to view the forum in a format for small display devices. It also is supported by many other boards so you can combine your favorite messages forums in this single application.

Here are some changes to the topic view page that are very helpful to know:


In Summary…
Parts Express is dedicated to supporting the DIY community and maintains Tech Talk as a Tool for the collaboration of ideas, troubleshooting, and general information on the topic of audio components. We will do what we reasonably can do to make this a good experience, but this does mean we have to work within the constraints of the vBulletin ecosystem.

[Chris Roemer]

Thank you.

[6thplanet]

No doubt, thanks for a fine place to chat with like minded people.

[Kevin K.]

Thank you Parts Express for posting your response and taking the time to explain.

There were several changes to the basic features due to the update and more of the "Did you know" replies would be great! A simple "Quick Start Guide on Features" made into a sticky would be very helpful for existing and new members.

I believe most here on the forum understand there is an inherent cost associated with PE maintaining this Forum. And although I can't speak for everyone, I'm thankful. A couple of my threads may have contributed to your response. Just want to point out that my threads were only meant as constructive criticism, a simple plea for action if it was within your means, nothing more.

It has been frustrating watching the forum fall off due to the changes but it's understandable due to the security risk of the older software. For those of us willing to adapt, those of us that want to make this work and thrive again, it would be nice to have a voice, a place to express issues or make suggestions. Is this thread the appropriate place?

[KEtheredge87]

Thanks Parts Express! I appreciate the explanation as well. I have recently abandoned the Tapatalk app because it never seemed to work for me. Clearly that's not within your control, so I don't expect you guys to do anything there. Please keep up the good work!

[donradick]

Thanks for the update, PE.
Our modern Internet requires constant vigilance of information security.

[civit]

Thanks for the update and thank you for providing this forum. This forum has been, in my experience, the best resource for someone learning to build loudspeakers. It has contributed immensely to my understanding of the hobby, and I am a loyal PE customer as a result.

[Parts Express]

Thank you Parts Express for posting your response and taking the time to explain.

There were several changes to the basic features due to the update and more of the "Did you know" replies would be great! A simple "Quick Start Guide on Features" made into a sticky would be very helpful for existing and new members.

I believe most here on the forum understand there is an inherent cost associated with PE maintaining this Forum. And although I can't speak for everyone, I'm thankful. A couple of my threads may have contributed to your response. Just want to point out that my threads were only meant as constructive criticism, a simple plea for action if it was within your means, nothing more.

It has been frustrating watching the forum fall off due to the changes but it's understandable due to the security risk of the older software. For those of us willing to adapt, those of us that want to make this work and thrive again, it would be nice to have a voice, a place to express issues or make suggestions. Is this thread the appropriate place?

We will add a forum location and/or thread for technical issues in order to group everything together.

[Kevin K.]

We will add a forum location and/or thread for technical issues in order to group everything together.

Awesome, thanks!

[thekorvers]

Thanks for the update PE. Being informed goes a long way towards acceptance. Keep up the good work.

[rpb]

I get a pop up almost every time I try to post that says "missing human verification information". I have to log in multiple times when I post, or change pages sometimes. I'm using Chrome, so the issue could be on my end. I would like to fix it if possible.

[dynamo]

Thank you for hosting Techtalk for us!

[Parts Express]

I get a pop up almost every time I try to post that says "missing human verification information". I have to log in multiple times when I post, or change pages sometimes. I'm using Chrome, so the issue could be on my end. I would like to fix it if possible.

From what we know, this happens if your system logs you out for some reason. Does this happen on every post (even quick ones) or posts where it might take a little time. (We all know we have had those posts where either the dog needed to go out, we were spending a lot of time crafting our response, etc., only to find out it logged us out.)

Please let us know so we can see try to assist in trouble shooting.

[neildavis]

Site Performance
We spent time on Jan 9^th going through and tweaking vBulletin and the underlying database for the best performance possible. You should note that the board is much faster now. This is as good as it gets with vBulletin. There are no hardware or bandwidth constraints on our end causing any degradation in performance. vBulletin is running on a modern enterprise level dedicated server.

The board feels a *lot* faster when posting and much quicker while browsing. Good job.

The Search feature is far more responsive, also. So far the tweaking looks very promising--thanks for the time investment.

[Dewmiester]

Thanks for hosting Techtalk.
This one of my favorite sites.