Eric Posted October 18, 2006 Share Posted October 18, 2006 Matt, Last night I was one of those who had problems because your server was not available. I couldn't understand why because I did upload the locale license file that I was emailed last week. I had read somewhere that it should be put in the root directory of the WHMCS installation so that's what I did. This morning I read on WHT's forums that it should be in the "include" directory. I moved it but now I have no way to test it. This was a very bad time for me since a friend had just told me he was gonna shut down his VPS and send his clients over to me. If one had tried to create an account last night I would have looked pretty bad. I need to make sure that this doesn't happen again so I have a few suggestions for you that I hope you will consider seriously. 1: Add a small chapter about licensing in your documentation. There is nothing that explains it. When I got my keys for the first time last week that was the first I ever heard of it and I didn't know exactly what to do with it. 2: Change the email that sends the new keys to add instructions on what to do with it. Your email says "Please unarchive and upload this file to your installation.". Change that to specify WHERE to upload it. 3: There is no way for me to know if my local key is working. I will only find out on the next time my server can't reach yours. There's 2 possibilities I see here. Change the admin panel to verify that a valid key exists and display a red warning on top of the page if it doesnt or, simply add an option to the tools to validate the local key. These 3 can be implemented very easily at a minimal cost to you both in time and money. In the meantime, please give me a way to make sure my local license will work the next time your server goes down, I can't risk looking bad like that again. Thanks. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harrison Posted October 18, 2006 Share Posted October 18, 2006 It would be great if Matt could add a status page or announcements for the license servers so we can see if and why they are down. It would definatly help locate problems. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WHMCS CEO Matt Posted October 18, 2006 WHMCS CEO Share Posted October 18, 2006 Hi Eric, Thanks for your feedback! It appears the server was down briefly last night. I'm not sure exactly how long it was down for but it was apparently some issue with the network out of our control. The local key if valid and up to date does work - most will not have noticed any interruptions in their WHMCS Service. I have seen the WHT thread and as MACscr rightly posted, with the next release - V2.5.8 - due out in around 10 days, there has been advances to the licensing system where the local key is automatically updated. This should help ensure you are always up to date and remove the need for you to upload any keys manually. Regards, Matt 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Posted October 18, 2006 Share Posted October 18, 2006 It was down for a long time Matt. I havent received the email containing my local key either as of the 16th October either, nor could i obviously download it so i couldn't use WHMCS at all! Thats real intelligent. If you cant guarantee uptime on your server well at least look for some other form of redundancy like a mirror server hosted elsewhere for the keys. You shouldn't rely upon customers updating their local key all the time, that is when you get it!. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam Posted October 19, 2006 Share Posted October 19, 2006 Hey, Ya, I noticed the same thing as well. I think it was down for at least 4 hours. What I noticed was that, at times the site would load fast like if the server was up, then out of the blue we would have to wait at least 15 seconds for a page to load, then it will be back up, and once again wait. Ya I'm hoping the local lic. key will improve. I'm not sure how it works, but other systems like Kayako, have it so that they encoded the one major part of the system so that if it got deleted you wouldn't be able to rebuild it and what not. Now somewhere in that code it would check the current path of where it was installed (HTTP_HOST, or DOCUMENT_ROOT). In the lic. key (which is also encoded) it will have to match and if it matched well the the rest of the system would load, if not then it will print out an error message. Again, I'm not sure how the current local lic. key works but this will be way of setting up lic. With this method you won't even need to send requests over to any server as long as that key file is in the right location you should be rocking and rolling! From, Adam 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WHMCS CEO Matt Posted October 19, 2006 WHMCS CEO Share Posted October 19, 2006 Well obviously, the current system provided by PHPAudit is not really adaquate as has been illustrated by the latest downtime. Over the past few days I've been considering the various options and you'll be pleased to know that V2.5.8 due for release in around 10 days will no longer rely on the WHMCS Server. License checks will be made once every five days and encorporate a 24 hour grace period system for if our server is down at the time a check is due. I believe this will solve all the issues with the current method. Matt 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric Posted October 19, 2006 Author Share Posted October 19, 2006 Matt, That is really good news. I think WHMCS has the best price/quality ratio and I'm very satisfied so far, that was the only major annoyance. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MACscr Posted October 19, 2006 Share Posted October 19, 2006 Great news! I havent checked on this yet, but you might want to announce this on the big WHT thread about WHMCS. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Posted October 20, 2006 Share Posted October 20, 2006 Now this IS great news. Good work Matt. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bear Posted October 20, 2006 Share Posted October 20, 2006 Good compromise, Matt. You're still protected, and license shouldn't fall down right away if things go pear shaped. My trial is about to expire, and this was pretty much the only thing holding me back from buying. I'll watch for the announcement and likely buy just after. Thanks for fixing this. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexpappa Posted October 22, 2006 Share Posted October 22, 2006 Also could you change the wording when the key expires. "License key validation failed. Please contact support." to something like "temporarily unavailable, Please contact support" When my clients see this message they think I suspended them. also it makes it look like we didnt pay our bills, even when the problem is not in our control. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MACscr Posted October 22, 2006 Share Posted October 22, 2006 Also could you change the wording when the key expires. "License key validation failed. Please contact support." to something like "temporarily unavailable, Please contact support" When my clients see this message they think I suspended them. also it makes it look like we didnt pay our bills, even when the problem is not in our control. I swear I heard that this was going to be done before. I think this text should be customizable as well. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quickpot Posted October 22, 2006 Share Posted October 22, 2006 I am having licensing issues still, no wonder I didn't receive any orders for the last few days. Why didn't I get notified via e-mail about this? It's been down for what, 4 days now? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MACscr Posted October 22, 2006 Share Posted October 22, 2006 What exactly is your issue? The WHMCS licensing server hasnt been down that whole time. Its either an issue with you not paying your bill, it not being recorded correctly about paying your bill (which it would have sent an email to you about either way), or your firewall is blocking access to the whmcs server. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam Posted October 22, 2006 Share Posted October 22, 2006 I am having licensing issues still, no wonder I didn't receive any orders for the last few days. Why didn't I get notified via e-mail about this? It's been down for what, 4 days now? Hey, FYI: Make sure you can get emails from whmcs.com and they are not in any spam folder you might have setup. This is not the place to ask for support, open a support ticket ASAP, http://support.whmcs.com/submitticket.php From, Adam 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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