version 5.1.2 Run! Forrest Run!

[bwalton64]

I'm pretty happy with WHMCS usually and since there is no other integrated billing system that comes close on features, we're kind of stuck with it. But (and even though it's not my policy to complain) I have nothing good to say about the latest version 5.1.2

 

Let me qualify my further statements by saying I can't look into the inner workings of the code nor do I understand what is going on behind the scenes at WHMCS. I only wish to share our challenges with the new version and will continue to use WHMCS and be thankful for whatever support we can get. Additionally the problems we had with the version 5.1.2 we do not have with the 5.0 version for which we were forced to downgrade back to in order to do our jobs. Understand too that results may vary from environment to environment, so what I experienced may not be what other users experienced.

 

Automation: must have been completely reworked. Support emails were no longer being picked up from the POP server nor did all responses go out. Connection to the mail server was sporadic at best. The overage calculations were wildly false billing customers $1000s even though overage billing was not active for the particular product. The same happened to affiliate calculations.

 

Provisioning: Automated provisioning stopped working for all modules that we use on a daily basis (ResellerClub, cPanel, CentovaCast) and each new order had to be processed by hand by either making small tweaks to the order itself or simply manually pressing "Create".

 

Templates: Many of the template features did not work after the upgrade and required heavy development work in order to get them to work again.

 

Synopsis: It seems too much emphasis was put into adding "new cool features" and not enough on stabilizing the upgrade path or system stability. I personally find no excuse for the wildly inaccurate bandwidth and affiliate calculations. It's just simple math.

 

I read also that the WHMCS team was overwhelmed with the 5.1.2 release and in my mind that's just bad planning. Inexcusable is having support tickets stay unanswered for more than 72 hours.

 

I mean no disrespect to the WHMCS team and I apologize if my statements seem unfair, but my area of expertise is in selling our products and not debugging the core billing system. Thus far the WHMCS development team has done a bang up job with their releases. They just shot the pooch on 5.1.2

 

My advice to other hosters is to stay with 5.0 and wait for a working upgrade from the WHMCS team.