Are WHMCS killing addons and the marketplace?

[Si]

The Background:

Over the years, I've been using WHMCS (about 10 years now) I've added third party modules and add-ons (mostly through discussions on these forums) and people working together to come up with solutions and 'features' missing from the core product. It's been great.

 

This then spawned the marketplace.whmcs.com as WHMCS recognised the WHMCS equivalent of the App Store in iOS etc. Not only does that place solve issues but it has also given me new ideas and new ways of doing things which have ultimately improved my business and the experience of my clients.

 

I've seen all of this take place under the background of WHMCS and Matt (founder) move to cPanel - and the promise of greater services and more fluid upgrades. automation of the upgrade process has been great, and I've seen some stability in upgrades - until the last few months.

 

More recently upgrades are buggy, more often than not break things that were working perfectly, have introduced things I nor anyone I've had contact with wanted, and finally, (the point of this post), the upgrades are breaking third party add-ons spectacularly.

 

Crons don't run as they used to. (I'm spending half my days disabling addons to find the problem)

Hooks don't work as they used to.

Template changes are required (and not small ones)

Errors are appearing in kb article pages and .htaccess files that used to work with rewrite codes are now invalid.

 

I'm quickly reaching a point where I'm beginning to think I'm better off forgetting about add-ons ad third party modules. Jeez, if I can get the core WHMCS product to work correctly, right now I'd be happy.

 

It never used to be like this WHMCS, but upgrades scare me - and the simpler I can make it, that's where I'm heading. So why are you killing the add-on module marketplace?

[brian!]

More recently upgrades are buggy, more often than not break things that were working perfectly, have introduced things I nor anyone I've had contact with wanted, and finally, (the point of this post), the upgrades are breaking third party add-ons spectacularly.

I wouldn't argue with that, but the reality is that you simply must test your setup before upgrading (e.g using a development license etc)... especially with major releases and, more importantly, when you have 3rd party addons in the mix too.

 

I'm quickly reaching a point where I'm beginning to think I'm better off forgetting about add-ons ad third party modules. Jeez, if I can get the core WHMCS product to work correctly, right now I'd be happy.

well I think it's safe to say the v7.2 release has been a disaster... it was seemingly launched unfinished and so bugged it's needed two maintenance releases and half a dozen hotfixes... and I doubt that's the end of it.

it wouldn't surprise me to see the same thing occur when we get to the autumn and the v7.3 launch.

 

the safest upgrade route is to simply wait until everything you use (addons & hooks wise) has been upgraded by their developers - and bear in mind that they (third party developers) get no forewarning of when a new release is coming, or what changes have been made - there may or may not be a passing reference in a changelog, or maybe a line in the release notes, but they'd need to spend time testing their code to verify it still works as intended... throw into that the fact that with each new release, a random API or hook might not work as intended/documented (or as it previously did).

 

so what i'm really saying is that you need to give the 3PD some time to check their addons before upgrading your installation - unless it's a security update, very rarely is there any real reason to rush into updating... and as you have found, more reasons to be wary.

 

it's sad to say, but in many ways, the biggest problem isn't the third-party addons, it's the core WHMCS product and the quality of the testing, the documentation, the support, the bizarre unwanted features they add and the fundamental underlying problems that go unaddressed.... improve that, and it would make life so much easier for 3PD and its users... keep on going down the road they're on and there can only ever be one outcome.