Prestashop is now censoring posts

[Ulisses Ramos]

I had written this post a while ago

 

http://www.prestashop.com/forums/topic/196979-prestashop-forge-issue/

 

The Title was something like this: "What went wrong with prestashop?"

 

I created this because it´s impossible to get help on Forge. Almost every CSV IMPORT problem is being ignored. Evey shitty problem is solved or at least assigned to someone.. but if you search forge for "CSV IMPORT" you will see that there are dozens of issues open and none care about this.

 

Now i noticed that the Title of my post was changed and the topic was blocked.

 

Nice going... blocking and censuring opinions is the right way to fix all the disaster that 1.5x is.

Edited December 13, 2012 by Ulisses Ramos (see edit history)

[Ehinarr]

Not exactly the same, but I have had a post modified and blocked. I'm, here since 2008, for me it was very very bad. But I still believe on PS... But I do not know how long I still will do it...

[innocuous]

So you don't recommend PS 1.5.2 for running a live shop?

Can you point out some flaws? I plan to launch a live store in next 15 days and am currently modding PS 1.5.2 for my needs.

Thanks

[oldlock]

So you don't recommend PS 1.5.2 for running a live shop?

Can you point out some flaws? I plan to launch a live store in next 15 days and am currently modding PS 1.5.2 for my needs.

Thanks

 

Seriously ?? you must be joking - 1.5.2 is a disaster, a few minutes spent reading this forum should make that clear.

[MassiveRC]

If you've never used PS before and you don't have any technical background, I would not use 1.5.2. I've lost a couple years off my lifespan from the stress caused by being a new user to eCommerce and getting 1.5.2 up and running. The issues are not minor and affect every aspect of getting a business up and running from shipping, to billing, to website performance. Now part of this is due to my crappy Host, iPage that doesn't have the horsepower to run a SQL-based eCommerce, but the majority of problems were with default configurations and\or broken modules. Use an older version or wait for Guinea pigs to test out the upcoming 1.5.3.

[Muad'Dib]

If you've never used PS before and you don't have any technical background, I would not use 1.5.2. I've lost a couple years off my lifespan from the stress caused by being a new user to eCommerce and getting 1.5.2 up and running. The issues are not minor and affect every aspect of getting a business up and running from shipping, to billing, to website performance. Now part of this is due to my crappy Host, iPage that doesn't have the horsepower to run a SQL-based eCommerce, but the majority of problems were with default configurations and\or broken modules. Use an older version or wait for Guinea pigs to test out the upcoming 1.5.3.

 

I totally agree with what was said here.

 

The main problem nowadays is that by making everything easier like the installation process and everything, people with no technical skills are confident enough to try doing that kind of things all by themselves when they do not even know how to backup their website properly or how to run a few MySQL queries by themselves.

I mean no disrespect to anyone, but yes dealing with an e-shop installation, partner modules and such require advanced technical skills and background!

Few years back none without those technical knowledge would have risked himself setting up a e-shop or 'tuning' some modules for their needs. Now many try and fail.

Keep in mind setting up something as complex as an eCommerce can be (billions of lines of code) even if it looks easy on paper, may not be that easy in the end. When someone does not even understand a technical documentation fully, should that person go on and try it anyway? I seriously doubt it, this is my view. Even if simplified a lot, those tools remains from technical people to other technical people.

There are dozens of people around who can do it for you cheap and fast, trying to do it by yourself at best will make you loose time and worse case scenario, time & money. Always keep in mind Time is Money so sometimes investing a little might prove cheaper on the long run

 

Sorry for the look-like rant, I just had to say it

 

Back on topic, with or without technical background, yes you need to know jumping on the last version might cause you a lot more headaches (guinea pigs rocks! ) than improvements compared to an older stable release. However updates are also needed at some point. It is not an easy equation to solve yet it is the equation.

 

Everyone needs are different.

For myself what was the most important was my previous catalog on PS1.2.5 would still work on PS1.5.2. It does and people can still buy my items. Before moving I had to make sure the essential modules I was using would still be working on the new version before hand. For many reasons I had to move forward and update the earlier version of my shop, but mirrors were made in case anything would have gone really wrong preventing my customers from buying my items for example.

So yes there are a few things to fix, but for the moment I can work my way around them either by making the changes directly on the DB myself or by being very patient, but in the end of the day it was worth it!

 

This is the way prestashop works, a new release is made anytime a numerous bug fixes/improvements have been made, it will always be a Work in Progress. Just so you can compare, Windows XP was released about 12 years ago, and still get updates weekly

 

 

Hope this helps.

[innocuous]

I've been modding PS 1.5.2 (and earlier 1.5.1) to suit my purposes and fix bugs as and when they cropped up. I have technical know how and can fix things by 'googling' around or trial and error.

 

@MassiveRC which are the major issues you have come across? My PS 1.5.2 seems stable so far and everything seems to be working. Fixed non working or flawed modules, deleted ones I don't need etc.

 

I have stress tested the site too for 50 concurrent users and it held up.

 

New releases will always have bugs but thats with almost all software...see windows for eg..regular updates are required. PS 1.5 did add nice features compared to older stable versions.

 

Won't other open source like OpenCart etc suffer from similar issues for SQL backed ecommerce sites?

[MassiveRC]

Let's see, free shipping because the USPS module (PayPal USPS works just fine). When your profit margin can be blown away by having to give away free shipping because PS implementation doesn't work right, that's a business killer right there. I deleted the module and created my own shipping rates.

 

PS partners CloudCache. CC killed Cyber Monday for us. When THEY implemented it (giving them admin access to my Back Office), it caused SSL errors that took them until AFTER Cyber Monday to fix. Guess what kind of confidence your customers get when they go to checkout and get "There is a security issue withe the website you're trying to access"? Once again this is a module pimped by PrestaShop......it's their recommended partner for image caching.

 

PayPal module errors along with Google Checkout non-functionality. Can't make any money if you can't get it from your customers.

 

I believe (someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't remember) that all the canned Analytics modules are installed by default. Now I'm a MSSQL back end [spam-filter]. I've consulted, set-up, and troubleshot back-end MSSQL server setups for healthcare, but have no experience with MySQL and frankly don't care for writing queries (although I've done it before, my fiance is better at it). I'm no security expert, which is why I went with a hosted solution vs building my own server that would scoff at any load any eCommerce software could throw at it. PrestaShop needs to move all the Analytics settings to under the Performance Section as any kind of data mining will create a major load on the servers. As I've never used OpenCart, I don't know how efficient their queries are. Prestashop should at least have configurability as to WHEN analytics queries are run. They shouldn't be running real-time and each Analytics module should have some sort of description as to how resource intensive they are. Yeah I can go take a MySQL class and do some traces but this goes completely against the marketing advertising:

 

"PrestaShop is powerful, fast and easy to use, and you can get an online store up and running in just 15 minutes! Follow this installation guide to start building your online store today! Watch the instructional video below..."

 

Innocous, when Googling about eCommerce software, PS came up high in rankings. Those Google results were obviously based on the previous versions and didn't account for all the numerous serious bugs in 1.5.2.

 

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate what PS has created and obviously their previous versions were a hit. My BIGGEST beef is that 1.5.2 was labeled as stable. Just read the threads here, it is NOT stable, we're not talking minor bugs. The RESPONSIBLE thing is to re-label it as experimental and label the last 'truly' stable version as 'Latest stable version'.

[innocuous]

MassiveRC, yeah I noticed that some modules simply do not work right. Luckily for me, I am not using any of the modules/features you have mentioned. Even the 'Referral' module doesn't work right.

 

But then again, its primarily due to modules. Basic core files seem ok. Yes, a lot of customisation, tweakin is required and bugs are present. Hopefully they will fix it.

 

But cost wise, if you were to get a software company to develop a customised ecommerce solution OR buy a stable 'general' ecommerce solution, it will cost atleast USD 2000-3000. Most small store owners do not want to shell out that kind of money right away.

 

If you don't know coding and can spend a fraction of that amount on fixes, isn't it worth it in the end?

 

If you do know coding, then it gets better.

 

Most of the open source software out there have some bugs or the other, right from ERP to ecommerce systems. I agree that the folks behind PS should take more care with atleast bundled modules before releasing it as a stable release.