Slightly off topic, but I've been running YaBB for a while. Here is our  YaBB 1 Gold - SP 1.3.1 forum back in 2004. I cant remember when we 1st set it up.

https://web.archive.org/web/20040415060535/http://www.teamnub.com/cgi-bin/yabb/Y...

Pieszyce wrote on May 20^th, 2022 at 7:46am:

I had that same strange feeling as well with phpBB, and I've been using YABB since February 2002. Nonetheless, I had phpBB installed on another domain to test it, and I duplicated all of my YaBB topics to mirror that forum.

I previously did the same with an SMF forum, which I continue to test.

Somewhat to my surprise, both SMF and phpBB ended up looking close enough to my YaBB forum that I became very comfortable with both. Also, both of those software packages continue to provide newer versions, which include mods.

Even though my intention is to continue using my YaBB forum for as long as it's practical, if or when I need to switch, I'll have the benefit of experience with both SMF, and phpBB. Given my experience so far with both, I'll likely switch to phpBB.

So ... with due respect to YaBB, I recommend that YaBB users effectively mirror their current YaBB forums with both SMF, and phpBB to get a feel for both software packages.

Hi pyragony54,

I am a user, to my chagrin I never learned programming and am now too old to learn it.

I read your post about the forum problems.

But I can't quite figure it out, I also asked a question on Dandello's forum that I don't even get an answer to.

But what is a big and what is a small forum in your opinion?

My forum https://forum.polenforum.nl/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl has
Total Members: 617
Total Topics: 17.446
Total Posts: 99,383
Average Posts per Member: 161
Total Categories: 12
Total Boards: 45

And is running without any problems except for a small bug and just in a hosting package. 

If Yabb does not continue, I have a problem, I am 78 years old and would not know how to convert to SMF because I never learned. After 18 years of Yabb is it for me all Yabb.  Still I don't want to stop because the forum keeps me sharp and up to date.

It would be a shame if Dandello stops or really doesn't have time, because there is no one else I think who is still working on Yabb. Also, I was translating the Dutch files for 2.7 but I stopped temporarily because there is little movement in Yabb, where have all the others gone?

It’s sad I never learned, how to create with Perl and to built a forum.

I've decided that if YaBB doesn't go any further, I'll just start another forum, and leave Yabb on the server as an archive. So that's not a problem, because converting doesn't seem possible after 40 hours of reading on the internet.

BUT:

Can't YaBB be saved, can't the old developers be approached and motivated again????????

Why???

Because YaBB is still the best forum program for me and for some others, in terms of stability, in defense against attacks, in working with a forum for an Admin.

Dandello, did a very good job for me many times, for which I am still very grateful, but what is the reason the rest has stopped??

With kind regards
Pieszyce

As a programmer who has spent a lot of time over the years working on YaBB:  without feedback from testers and users, programming becomes a thankless tedious job. You get a new version going and the hosts stop supporting what you need to make it work or 'security' increases in favor of a different language (which may actually be less secure that Perl but the hosting service techs know PHP and they like the newest and shiniest languages that maybe won't even be around in 5 years).

So yes, YaBB is no longer the robust creation it once was - time has moved on. It looks like there are people around here who have successfully navigated moving from YaBB to to other, better supported, programs.

And I have no objection to whatever advice and help these people can give in that regard being posted on this forum.

pyragony54 wrote on May 19^th, 2022 at 2:36pm:

Thank you pyragony54 for all of the work that you've done over the years to make Yabb better. I understand why you're angry, but to be fair to Dandello, she seems to be in a tough spot when it comes to further developing YaBB.

Even if she had a lot of time to work on YaBB's development, with due respect regarding your work, I don't think it's fair for any of us to expect her to essentially do everything on her own.

I first installed a YaBB forum for one of my sites on February 11, 2002. It was installed on a dedicated server, and I only upgraded it once to the 2.4 version, which is still in operation today. That was over 20 years ago. Until recently, it worked pretty flawlessly. Unfortunately, over the last couple of months, the counting of "Views" zeroes out on numerous topics to start over again, and a number of topics become inaccessible.

Because I regularly backup/download all of YaBB's files via WinSCP, I'm able to upload the backed up associated *.ctb files so that those files are accessible again, but it's a hassle to do that whenever that kind of error is discovered.

I suspect that those errors are happening because the hard drive on my server may be failing, but I don't know that for sure. In any case, I've been experimenting with SMF as well as the phpBB forum software, both of which are robust. My tendency for quite a while was to switch to SMF, but after testing both, including how each one is updated, phpBB has been the easiest for me to use.

Keep in mind that I don't have anywhere near the expertise that Dandello has, so for me, like so many other webmasters, I'm now favoring hosts that use cPanel with the Softaculous Apps Installer. Even updates are relatively seemless, as Softaculous does that for you. After an update is made by the software, webmasters only need to delete one folder as instructed.

For anybody who doesn't already know, it should be noted that both SMF, and phpBB have many team members, and developers. It's organizational structure is such that both are most likely to remain active in their development cycles.

A few years ago, as a test, I moved one of my domains to another host, and onto a shared server. I was impressed with that operation. I realized that I don't actually need a dedicated server to host, and operate the domains I have. Even with the amount of traffic that my most popular domain gets, a shared server will work perfectly fine. I know that now because the domain I tested on the shared server gets a lot of traffic as well given that I made it a sister site of my most popular domain.

In any case, if the YaBB forum I operate ends up failing, or the errors become too numerous, I'll likely switch to a phpBB forum. If I end up doing that, I'll likely stop using a dedicated server; at least for a while unless, or until a dedicated server is warranted.

Hello friends of YaBB,
Personally, I'm not at all surprised that the YaBB forum isn't working anymore. First of all, I have a lot of experience with servers, since I run my own dedicated server. Actually, YaBB should run on a minimally configured virtual server, which it does when not many posts have been posted. When I installed the first YaBB forum in 2008, it was on the Xonder (XTC) server. That worked quite well when the forum was still small. But one day the pages stopped reading. XTC and I didn't find a solution at first. That was around 2010. So I had the idea to try a dedicated server and what happened, the site went through again, the forum worked again. The problem with virtual servers is simple. Many customers on one server, with a simple homepage and there are no problems. With YaBB yes. I then tried some virtual servers, no problem with a small forum, but with a large forum. The pages just don't go through and it crashes because there are just too many customers on the virtual server and everyone wants their pages to open quickly. The problem could also be solved with an SQL database, but YaBB doesn't have that and isn't really needed. Flat file is safer if you move the server. I don't want to go into more detail now, that would go beyond the scope.

I have often offered YaBB and you, Dandello, to test on my server. YaBB can also store all of its pages with me, I have enough space. We would certainly have agreed on a more than low price. There would never be any problems since I make daily backups and the server runs in RAID. But somehow you wrap the cloak of silence about it.

But what pisses me off the most is the fact that YaBB 2.7 is not being further developed. Nothing has happened for two years. For weeks I translated everything into German and in Germany there are two forms of address, so everything twice. I now have two Russian interpreters, still young, but they would translate everything into Russian. Translating the forum itself wasn't a lot of work, but the help files took a lot of time. And all for nothing.
I'll save myself from writing anything further here.

Just this much: If YaBB isn't further developed soon, I'll quit and switch to SMF. I don't want to do any more work for nothing. I'm not just mad, I'm pissed off.

Still nothing. Its not looking good. 

I just sent an Email to Jon Baker. Hopefully the address is still good.