What just happen to WHMCS

[yggdrasil]

I just upgraded to the latest release and I'm not happy at all. First of all, all the products under my customers account show a red icon that no SSL is active. What? This makes no sense, all my customers have SSL on their own servers and some products are not even hosting, why would WHMCS assume now that my products need or require a SSL certificate? Example, a product that is not even hosting shows the SSL status next to it...Clicking on it goes to the shopping cart default product, so makes even less sense...

Then I on the admin side when I go to manage my products I see ads on my admin section about SpamExperts, SiteLock. ARE YOU KIDDING ME ???? WHMCS is now advertising products to my staff on the admin side? I'm not happy about this at all, this is still my server, my data and my customers, and yes, my staff, there is no legal right here to promote competitors on my administration section. I want this gone. This is overstepping now, those companies are my competitors in some areas and now my they brand inside my company and management? This is completely unacceptable. I'm sure WHMCS will not accept us putting ads here in their community about competitors either. This is not a free product. I paid a license for commercial use, and I pay my upgrades every year. Is WHMCS really this desperate to make a few bucks? This is very concerning.

I want to disable the marketconnect now. Why is this enabled by default is beyond me. Options from third party companies should be opt-in by default and not opt-out.

👿👿👿👿

[brian!]

28 minutes ago, yggdrasil said:

I just upgraded to the latest release and I'm not happy at all.

i'm glad you've caught up! 🙂

28 minutes ago, yggdrasil said:

First of all, all the products under my customers account show a red icon that no SSL is active. What? This makes no sense, all my customers have SSL on their own servers and some products are not even hosting, why would WHMCS assume now that my products need or require a SSL certificate? Example, a product that is not even hosting shows the SSL status next to it...Clicking on it goes to the shopping cart default product, so makes even less sense...

• https://whmcs.community/topic/292868-ssl-check-under-clientareaphpactionservices/
• https://whmcs.community/topic/293113-ssl-monitoring-does-not-work
• https://whmcs.community/topic/293615-ssl-check-admin-side/
• https://help.whmcs.com/m/85428/l/1035090-troubleshooting-red-ssl-monitoring-padlock-icons

I could go on...

28 minutes ago, yggdrasil said:

Then I on the admin side when I go to manage my products I see ads on my admin section about SpamExperts, SiteLock. ARE YOU KIDDING ME ???? WHMCS is now advertising products to my staff on the admin side?

28 minutes ago, yggdrasil said:

I'm not happy about this at all, this is still my server, my data and my customers, and yes, my staff, there is no legal right here to promote competitors on my administration section. I want this gone. This is overstepping now, those companies are my competitors in some areas and now my they brand inside my company and management? This is completely unacceptable. I'm sure WHMCS will not accept us putting ads here in their community about competitors either. This is not a free product. I paid a license for commercial use, and I pay my upgrades every year. Is WHMCS really this desperate to make a few bucks? This is very concerning.

I never published it, but I ended up writing a simple admin hook (using css) to hide those banner adverts on the products pages... short of enabling every MC option, it was the easiest way to get rid of the damn things (you can temporarily dismiss them, but they always seem to come back)... i'll attach it to this post in case you want to use it.

28 minutes ago, yggdrasil said:

I want to disable the marketconnect now. Why is this enabled by default is beyond me. Options from third party companies should be opt-in by default and not opt-out.

it's integrated into the core product now... only chance to kill the idea was at it's introduction - it's only going to get worse in future releases.

admin_hide_mc_promos.php

[bear]

1 hour ago, brian! said:

only chance to kill the idea was at it's introduction

Pretty sure we were told, not asked, about this being added into WHMCS. Like the SSl autocheck, it's just something they wanted, even if we don't. 

[brian!]

Just now, bear said:

Pretty sure we were told, not asked, about this being added into WHMCS. Like the SSl autocheck, it's just something they wanted, even if we don't.

correct, we weren't asked... I just meant that if all hell had broken loose from the users at the start, then this (i'm thinking specifically of MarketConnect) *might* have been nipped in the bud at birth... it can't be killed now, we're stuck with it.

and as for WHMCS introducing unwanted, unasked for (unless you have a quiet word with the right person at a trade show, not via a feature request - yes the suggestions in admin whois lookups still annoy me!) features, it's their internal mindset of thinking they know what's best for us (or perhaps for them, and the users are now secondary?).... why does it feel like we're doing them a favour by using their software and we should be ever so grateful (despite the bugs, slow updates etc) for whatever morsels they deem to throw our way?

the entire company (or at least the people at the top) needs a proverbial kick up the backside, but it's probably too late now.

[yggdrasil]

They basically added the SSL check for all products in order to promote their own SSL affiliate program or was that just a big coincidence? I wish I had never upgraded now 🤦‍♀️

I was aware MarketConnect was coming, but I also imagined it was OPTIONAL. 

Stupid me. I should have realized that once I saw the languages files are getting bigger and bigger, and there are more and more files on my theme related to WHMCS resold services. More and more stuff they keep adding that I will never use but still have to delete or host on my server. The software starts to feel more and more like a WHMCS service instead of something I use to run my business and customers. Maybe that is their goal, move us all into reselling their services and get our customers for free.

Edited April 19, 2019 by yggdrasil

[Jafar Muhammed]

6 minutes ago, yggdrasil said:

They basically added the SSL check for all products in order to promote their own SSL affiliate program or was that just a big coincidence?

Absolutely, to promote their affiliates and earn some bucks. Also give a (s)hit to us, the paying customers.

[brian!]

2 minutes ago, yggdrasil said:

They basically added the SSL check for all products in order to promote their own SSL affiliate program or was that just a big coincidence?

technically, I think the fact it is being applied to all products is a bug they became aware of after launch... of course, why they continue not to find obvious bugs until after every major release is launched is another topic for another day.

4 minutes ago, yggdrasil said:

I was aware MarketConnect was coming, but I also imagined it was OPTIONAL. 

it still is - it's just promoted within the admin area and client areas (if enabled).

6 minutes ago, yggdrasil said:

Stupid me. I should have realized that once I saw the languages files are getting bigger and bigger, and there are more and more files on my theme related to WHMCS resold services. More and more stuff they keep adding that I will never use but still have to delete or host on my server.

it's nearly 10,500 files now and 140MB... it won't be getting smaller in future releases!

[yggdrasil]

1 minute ago, Jafar Muhammed said:

Absolutely, to promote their affiliates and earn some bucks. Also give a (s)hit to us, the paying customers.

When SW Soft started to put Virtuozzo banners on the login page for every Plesk server in the world, people switched in mass to cPanel. When cPanel started to put affiliate icons into cPanel, people moved out of cPanel but cPanel reverted this back to only develop local solution vs just trying to bundle everything with a remote service.

WHMCS is going the same path now. Trying to earn money from our hard work the easy way. Wait until they start to push banners for services into the customer area remotely.

[Jafar Muhammed]

I have disabled MarketConnect, and I am not a fan of paid SSL.

But still, I used to get at least 5 support tickets per week from my customers asking why they didn't get the SSL Certificates yet.

Luckily there are other ways to make them understand that the SSL is installed correctly, and we have a beautiful name called bug to blame. 

[Jafar Muhammed]

2 minutes ago, yggdrasil said:

Wait until they start to push banners for services into the customer area remotely.

Naah, don't say that. It is too scary 🤯

[yggdrasil]

6 minutes ago, brian! said:

technically, I think the fact it is being applied to all products is a bug they became aware of after launch... of course, why they continue not to find obvious bugs until after every major release is launched is another topic for another day.

it still is - it's just promoted within the admin area and client areas (if enabled).

it's nearly 10,500 files now and 140MB... it won't be getting smaller in future releases!

You call that optional? Optional would be a switch that once enabled downloads all the files and then shows all the proper Marketconnect options. Downloading all this garbage to my servers when I never going to activate it is not optional. Having to force my staff and myself to see brands from other companies that are my competitors is not optional either. I never gave WHMCS (the company) permission to open an affiliate program on my servers and company.

Edited April 19, 2019 by yggdrasil

[brian!]

Just now, yggdrasil said:

You call that optional?

it's no different from Ford selling you a car with a radio - it's optional to turn the radio on, but whether you do or not, it's still adding to the weight you're driving around.

i'm not saying that Market Connect is a good thing - i've disliked it from day 1 and have never enabled it any commercial installation of mine - and never will.

[yggdrasil]

15 minutes ago, Jafar Muhammed said:

Naah, don't say that. It is too scary 🤯

Of course they will. They are just using the software as a platform to start delivering services on their own. Its like a Trojan horse. Its not the first time I see this as well. Eventually their goal is probably SaaS hosted on their own servers. I see this coming miles ahead and I usually never miss. I said the same thing about many other softwares, examples are Kayako, I had the unlimited license !!! They then stopped developing all together and turned everything into a service. WHMCS is going the same route. This year at least 2 or 3 software I use did something similar. Stopping developing and then offering you some new great deal into their upcoming new startup. This is the end of WHMCS. I see it coming, just look all the things they have developed in the last year. Almost everything is related to remote services, building their brand as a service company and partnering with external companies to sell and push products. Their whole focus is not on developing the software for hosted customers anymore but for their own services. They are turning into a service company instead of a software company. This is also the reason they are locking more and more stuff behind encoded code. Its about control, vendor lock and slowly pushing users like us out and gaining more people that will be happy to resell products for then so they can make a cut from each sale.

The writing is on the wall for a year now.

Edited April 19, 2019 by yggdrasil

[yggdrasil]

29 minutes ago, brian! said:

technically, I think the fact it is being applied to all products is a bug they became aware of after launch... of course, why they continue not to find obvious bugs until after every major release is launched is another topic for another day.

it still is - it's just promoted within the admin area and client areas (if enabled).

it's nearly 10,500 files now and 140MB... it won't be getting smaller in future releases!

How big was version 5 or 6? And did more or less the same thing as WHMCS today !!! The bloatware is becoming real. Putting ads on the admin section means that is their priority. Adding your own product? A small button. Adding WHMCS products? 3 huge boxes right on the top consuming a big chunk of the pixels in your interface. Never going away, always there...did I forgot to mention this is an administration section. We paid for this and they are advertising their products. I'm going to bill WHMCS for this. Its still my company, my users and my servers. Its fair that I should bill them for this free advertising.

Edited April 19, 2019 by yggdrasil

[brian!]

30 minutes ago, yggdrasil said:

How big was version 5 or 6? And did more or less the same thing as WHMCS today !!!

I posted a graph here once showing that increase... can't find the thread, perhaps deleted by TPTB. 🙄

• v5.3.6 -> 2,000 files -> 24MB installed.
• v6.0  -> 3,500 files -> 69MB installed.
• v6.3.1 -> 4,700 files -> 77MB installed.
• v7.0 -> 5,600 -> 89MB installed.
• v7.3.1 -> 7,400 -> 117MB installed.
• v7.5 -> 7,600 files -> 138MB installed.
• v7.7.1 -> 10,300 files -> 140MB installed.

[bear]

1 hour ago, yggdrasil said:

examples are Kayako, I had the unlimited license !!! They then stopped developing all together and turned everything into a service.

I own three of those. 😞 Only one in use, and not for much longer. 

2 hours ago, brian! said:

the entire company (or at least the people at the top) needs a proverbial kick up the backside

Maybe we need to start a feature request for that. :P

[lkitching]

1 hour ago, bear said:

Maybe we need to start a feature request for that. :P

I'd vote for it :-) 

[Evolve Web Hosting]

I totally agree this stuff is unwanted. However, there are ways to hide it all with a little bit of work.

For Market Connect, go to the user group permissions and un check 'Manage MarketConnect' and 'View MarketConnect Balance'. On the products page, I just clicked the X to get rid of the slider at the top promoting the offerings. I haven't seen it come back yet.

For the SSL check, we edited the frontend template to hide all of that and just left it on the admin side for now.

Little bit of a headache but it's out of sight now.

[yggdrasil]

3 hours ago, EvolveWebHosting said:

I totally agree this stuff is unwanted. However, there are ways to hide it all with a little bit of work.

For Market Connect, go to the user group permissions and un check 'Manage MarketConnect' and 'View MarketConnect Balance'. On the products page, I just clicked the X to get rid of the slider at the top promoting the offerings. I haven't seen it come back yet.

For the SSL check, we edited the frontend template to hide all of that and just left it on the admin side for now.

Little bit of a headache but it's out of sight now.

You should not be doing any work to remove unwanted stuff in any software at all. Lets see why someone buys a software, to solve a problem, its a tool. We pay WHMCS because its saves us time instead of developing something in house. The whole idea of a software which purpose is to manage customers, billing and automation is being more productive and saving money. If you need to start hacking around here and there to remove stuff then something is wrong with the product. Its now costing you more time = money on each upgrade.

Also, if anyone has learned something from newsletters, the Internet in general or even the European GDPR laws is that unwanted choices to customers should always be opt-in and not forced opt-out. Market Connect should be a choice, opt-in, not be bundled or activated by default and then we need to remove it manually. Its a completely different market and users than what WHMCS was selling so far.

[yggdrasil]

9 hours ago, brian! said:

it's no different from Ford selling you a car with a radio - it's optional to turn the radio on, but whether you do or not, it's still adding to the weight you're driving around.

i'm not saying that Market Connect is a good thing - i've disliked it from day 1 and have never enabled it any commercial installation of mine - and never will.

That is not even close to the same. A radio in a car is something most people want and expect. When I buy an accounting software as an accountant I don't expect that software to offer me accounting services from external companies right in my face. When I buy a TV from Samsung, I don't expect to see ads to buy another TV every time I turn it on.

WHMCS is selling a software targeted at people selling something to others, ISP, hosting companies, IT, cloud, telcos, technology companies, software resellers, or just people selling services in general. So the WHMCS customer is already someone that is selling towards others. This is why they buy WHMCS, its a billing and hosting manager. You expect people to have customers and bill and manage them using WHMCS.

What WHMCS is now doing is trying to sell us customers, services from other companies that we then again resell to others. This is incredible inmoral because some of the things they started to marketing and brand inside our installations may be competitors. Let me make an example. SpamExperts last time I used them was also using WHMCS (the software) to bill and manage their customers. So SpamExperts is a WHMCS customer, they purchased and licensed the software.

How do you think SpamExperts would feel if they then see a brand from another Spam filter company right in their admin section and they realize the company to which they trusted their money is now partnering with their major competitor. Do you think they would be happy to keep giving WHMCS money so they can keep pushing their competitor against them and everyone else? I'm sure tons of WHMCS customers are offering some sort of certificates, web builders or spam filters that in most cases have nothing to do with those companies either.

This is like buying cash register machines for your grocery store, and the company selling those machines, then advertises other grocery stores in the digital screen towards your staff, right inside your store!!! This is like buying a bus as a transport company and the manufacturer giving you a bus with huge branding inside each seat from your competitors that you now have to remove before putting into service.

This is like Airbus selling planes with build in products and services from specific airlines. That is not how industries that sell to others work. WHMCS is a B2B company, they sell towards other companies, not end consumers. Even if someone is just starting his own business, that is still B2B because that person is trying to build a new venture online. If anything, companies like Airbus or Boeing even customize each plane to your needs. WHMCS is trying sell a boxed product towards an industry that is extremely flexible in terms of options and customization. This model will absolutely fail and they will destroy their company in the process. Nobody is going to be successful by having the same WHMCS products on front stores. Someone buying WHMCS already has a website and while I understand tons of people buying WHMCS are really green when it comes to building sites and a business online, in general its not WHMCS job here to teach them how to sell online, or how to design their websites, or how to code.

Its like buying a computer from Dell and expecting them to teach you how to use Windows. Most people buying WHMCS are probably at least somehow computer savvy, and most know how to run a software online. They expect to buy a core, like a framework, not buy the finished product. They expect to use the software to sell their own stuff and services towards a market that might be completely different to the next WHMCS customer even in the same city. Its all about options, options and options. I'm surprised WHMCS does not understand this yet. When releasing a feature, just put a switch Yes or No. And problem solved. Sure, the software is going to evolve into something very complex, but that is exactly what WHMCS is being paid for here. If I'm going to invest many resources to remove unwanted stuff and customize the product to my needs, I might just skip the whole process and go full in-house with my software.

Assuming most people here sell something related to cloud or web services I will try to make a better example. Its like offering WHM reseller accounts and then trying to brand inside your Resellers control panel your own hosting services or emailing their users directly. I don't need WHMCS to sell me Weebly, or SpamExperts or Certificates. I can sign up directly with those companies (if we want). And I surely don't want to rely on WHMCS for those products either. I want WHMCS to focus on giving me support and investing their company resources towards their software, not supporting external products unrelated to them as a company. I'm sure you will get better support about a problem with Weebly directly from their support team rather than WHMCS.

Same goes towards anything else. Its like WHMCS is having an identity crisis and does not know what they are anymore. They should look back some years to the past and see how they started initially and how they became to be what they are today. Go back to the roots, what made them successful and gain customers. Sure, we all are in the service and marketing business, but focused towards services related to our products and marketing our stuff. In that regard, WHMCS should focus their services resources towards supporting and building services around their WHMCS services, and marketing around their main product. Yet they are doing the opposite. They are focusing their services to promote and sell other companies and brands that might just give them the middle finger in the future. Its a completely waste of resources for their developers, marketing person, everyone. Companies change, merge, close, all the time. WHMCS does not have the resources to keep up with those changes, just like some API might free today, tomorrow its gone and now you need to completely rewrite your software.

This already happen and MarketConnect was not even ready, Symantec was sold to Digicerts, SpamExpert was also sold and knowing Solar Winds they might increase the pricing and completely drop their API and WHMCS partnership in the future. Solar Winds destroys anything they touch, Pingdom already removed their free accounts and SpamExperts is next on the line. Then WHMCS will have to remove them or find another choice. This is why you build something like this completely external to your main core product, or better, let others do it for you. WHMCS is trying to bundle this market connect stuff right into the software and its not going to last. cPanel and many other companies learned this already the hard way. Both Plesk and cPanel tried something like this before and both now reverted to their cores, they let other people build or develop for their software but they focus their own resources only on features they have developed, their code that runs on their software and will be stable for years to come.

[brian!]

8 hours ago, yggdrasil said:

That is not even close to the same.

the curse of using a simple analogy in a f-o-rum - i'll never learn.

16 hours ago, bear said:

Maybe we need to start a feature request for that.

they'd archive it and block comments within 24 hours! 🙂

[yggdrasil]

3 hours ago, brian! said:

the curse of using a simple analogy in a f-o-rum - i'll never learn.

they'd archive it and block comments within 24 hours! 🙂

I have no hope. I think they have read more than once some of the valid complaints here in the community. In the end, you cannot tell someone how they should run their business. So far WHMCS has done a great job, as they seem to have no real competition. I guess they are just testing new waters with new stuff but personally I don't like what is coming. I have this gut feeling that tells me something is not right and they are moving the software into a future I don't like or want.

[brian!]

Just now, yggdrasil said:

In the end, you cannot tell someone how they should run their business.

you can - it's just up to them whether they decide to take your advice or not.

at this point, I literally have no idea if anyone of any importance in the company is even listening to us... i'm long past caring.

[Evolve Web Hosting]

13 hours ago, yggdrasil said:

You should not be doing any work to remove unwanted stuff in any software at all. Lets see why someone buys a software, to solve a problem, its a tool. We pay WHMCS because its saves us time instead of developing something in house. The whole idea of a software which purpose is to manage customers, billing and automation is being more productive and saving money. If you need to start hacking around here and there to remove stuff then something is wrong with the product. Its now costing you more time = money on each upgrade.

Also, if anyone has learned something from newsletters, the Internet in general or even the European GDPR laws is that unwanted choices to customers should always be opt-in and not forced opt-out. Market Connect should be a choice, opt-in, not be bundled or activated by default and then we need to remove it manually. Its a completely different market and users than what WHMCS was selling so far.

Yes and no. You can look at other software like iOS and I never wanted the social media logins or the U2 music forced download that we got a few years ago but I dealt with it. You can say this is free software (the iOS) but the phone itself isn't. Yes, we use WHMCS because it solves a lot of issues that their competitors don't have solved at the moment. Honestly, this small 'fix' that I did took me less than a half hour so it wasn't that big of a deal and it's a better trade off to using another system where I had to manually manage domain add ons, transfers and more.

MarketConnect to my knowledge is not activated by default. Bundled, yes. No software is perfect that I've come across. Some have less annoyances than others.

[ministoreonline]

Heyy

I am facing issue in installing a SSL. i am buying ssl to another sites and my domain and hosting provider is other site. i am facing regarding Private key error..how can i solve it

Regards

ministoreonline