Virtual Customs has moved to a new Host

[Mr GRiM]

All good things must come to an end, Virtual Customs will be Closing Down Soon, I will no longer be paying for the server cost as I can not afford it, thanks to all of the VC community for your many contributions over the last 14 years, if you have any content on here I suggest finding an alternative site to host it, not sure how long the site will stay up for, probably a couple of weeks, I wish you all best, it was a good ride.

[ミறѳѳղղįզվદ彡]

hello friends, nothing lasts forever
14 years is a very long time, so I understand your decision
it is difficult, especially from a financial point of view
I am very glad that I could be a part of this great community
thank you Mark for everything I have been able to learn since I was 13 years old
I learned an awful lot, I don't even know how to thank you all
I do not have and will not make a backup of a single item
I only uploaded all windows themes as well as icon packs only to our website
I have an awful lot of work over 600 that I didn't have time to add
I hope that all my instructions and edited files or applications helped you
it is necessary to go further into the future and not stay in the past
I am glad that I could participate in many projects to improve your desktop
I worked with many people to make our dreams come true
I am most happy for the modified 7tsp application, I hope it will serve us for many years to come
I therefore wish you only the best and thank you all for being a part of my life for these many years
MonicaYgrasilova@gmail.com

[unreal_unity]

Saddening to learn this! I pray for the best for all of you! Jesus still loves you and has the best plans for everyone! Thanks for all the help with the content! I hope it continues elsewhere and we are notified somewhow! =).

[Neroon]

Absolutely gutted to see this site go offline for good.

I came here as a user of Windowblinds and have learned sooo much i have moved the Themes permanently, i will miss the support and great Theme advice all here have given.

Thank you so much for all you have done for me skillset

[ArdentAA]

Ah...it's so sad to hear something like this..though I was a new to this community...but I guess I've been here for almost 3 years...l learned many things and got some helpful friends...
It's so sad that I won't be able to post my almost finished theme here..I don't know I'll be able to finish it before the virtual customs get closed down..
:crying:

[Dark Knight]

Wow, so sad to see VC go. While I can completely understand the costs that come with running a site like this on your own, my only wish is that I had the funds available to keep it going.
Although my profile shows a join date of 2011 , I had been a member of VC even before that , when the site got changed over to the new format , somehow or another my info got lost and I had to re-join.
Through the years here I have met A LOT of good people and some not so much. I have had the pleasure of seeing some of the finest theme creators come through VC and design in my opinion some of the greatest themes ever created that I still enjoy, themes which I still have saved on an external drive going all the way back to Windows 7 and ports for most of those themes.

GRiM , I want to personally thank you for creating this site and most of all for creating your HUD themes, it was a good, memorable ride. Yours and all the other themes offered by others here at VC are and will remain classic, but I fear they will fade away with Windows 11 being crammed down our throats, sure we may be able to port them partially but MS has made it so Windows 11 will never be able to be customized as previous versions of Windows were and the coming of Windows 12 will more than likely be worse. This is why I and so many other are choosing to stay with Windows 10 , so we can keep enjoying these original masterpieces.

Times change, people change and eventually all good things must come to an end.
So long Virtual Customs, you will most certainly be missed :sad:

[Shemhamforash]

This is understandable, thanks for letting us know! I'll miss this community, all the best to you as well.

[Neroon]

Forgive me if this has been asked before, but can we not set up a Donation For Server Costs type of thing. I run my own forum so i am aware of approx how much the server costs (for my own site) can be.

I would certainly contribute to that cost if it can be done, so with myself and several others, surely we can keep VC Alive for another year, giving some breathing room for Mr GRiM.

EDIT Just seen the Donate button, but its disabled.

[Nimueh]

Forgive me if this has been asked before, but can we not set up a Donation For Server Costs type of thing. I run my own forum so i am aware of approx how much the server costs (for my own site) can be.

I would certainly contribute to that cost if it can be done, so with myself and several others, surely we can keep VC Alive for another year, giving some breathing room for Mr GRiM.

EDIT Just seen the Donate button, but its disabled.

That Donate button used to work fine before the sad announcement, I've used it before too. But I guess not enough users donated and I can understand that Mr Grim can't afford to keep paying for it himself :crying:

[Erin]

Thaks a ton for everything :love:

Bad news for all VC lovers, but I can understand this decision. Good luck to all, and my thanks to everyone who has made this dream possible. I'll miss you. A lot. :loving:

[Neroon]

That Donate button used to work fine before the sad announcement, I've used it before too. But I guess not enough users donated and I can understand that Mr Grim can't afford to keep paying for it himself :crying:

Has Donations ever been organized, i know the donate button is a voluntary thing, but i am sure several of us(maybe 10 members) could afford an equal donation to keep the site online for another year. It is just server costs to cover, i do not see other web services like DOS attack prevention etc..

Mr GRiM, how much would it take to keep the site online for 1 more year.

[chevy350]

If I remember correctly the donation goal was at $80/mo. so about $960/yr give or take

[Mr GRiM]

Letting everyone know the new server is online, there might be some issues, clear your browser cache and see if that fixes any of the problems before posting anything.

[Donkuz]

Hi Mr GRiMM, Thanks for keeping the site up and running Mate.I just have 1 queery for ya. When you send a message and when you go to upload a picture to send it only gives you the option to add one via a URL it used to let you select one from your PC is this permanent or just an oversite? Many Thanks again for keeping the site alive, you done a great thing man.
:peace:

[Shemhamforash]

Great, I noticed that embedded images appear smaller in threads, at least on the desktop. Overall, the site seems to have a good response time.

[Mr GRiM]

Test upload image

[Donkuz]

Test upload image
9249492495
Images uploading from pc throws an error when adding to a post and the image dont show up too

[J4M3SX019]

hi mark thanks for keeping the site going but theres problems occuring with the new servers for example when logging on it wont show the welcome area and even when logged out it will say your logged in and certain other areas please fix this

[A Guy]

After you log in and it appears to take you to the login page again, just refresh and it will show you as logged in and your new threads and the chat will appear

A Guy

[z3r010]

Mark, I struggled with MYSQL8 (I tried all the fixes at vb.com to no avail), luckily I could downgrade it back to 7, is MariaDB available on that server?

[Mr GRiM]

Mark, I struggled with MYSQL8 (I tried all the fixes at vb.com to no avail), luckily I could downgrade it back to 7, is MariaDB available on that server?

Wow long time no see, hope the forums are doing OK, not visited for some time, yeah I am having a play with some of the files, I think I may have made it a bit better now, I can at least now delete a post, I edited class_dm_user.php and removed the code to call for rank when deleting a post, should also allow me to moderate new users as well.

Line 1854 to 1872


/* { // item affecting user's rank is changing and a new rank hasn't been given to us
$userinfo = array(
'userid' => $userid, // we need an userid for is_member_of's cache routine
'posts' => $posts
);
if (($userinfo['usergroupid'] = $this->fetch_field('usergroupid')) !== null AND
($userinfo['displaygroupid'] = $this->fetch_field('displaygroupid')) !== null AND
($userinfo['membergroupids'] = $this->fetch_field('membergroupids')) !== null
)
{
require_once(DIR . '/includes/functions_ranks.php');
$userrank =& fetch_rank($userinfo);

if ($userrank != $this->existing['rank'])
{
$this->setr('rank', $userrank);
}
}
}*/

[Shemhamforash]

Here are some bugs I found.

VC Black and VC Blue show blank text box when editing the post.
9249892499

Other themes it works.
92497

Attachment window seems a bit buggy.
92500

Other than that I have to refresh the pages for them to show updates.

Features related to editing posts seem to be fixed.

[z3r010]

Hi Mark

I'll split this up as I just tried posting and it would let me and I lost it.

As you probably know rank is a reserved keyword in MySQL8 and any instances need enclosing within backticks (`)

[z3r010]

In your code above that you removed, this is how if would look.

if ($userrank != $this->existing['`rank`'])
{
$this->setr('`rank`', $userrank);
}

I gave up with the changes as there were hundreds.

[z3r010]

I've just spotted that you are also running PHP7.4.33 when vb4 is only compatible to 7.1.x

Between that and the SQL incompatibility, I honestly think the work to get the site fully functional is too much and your time would be better spent moving to a modern platform.

[Mr GRiM]

Well I don't know how but I managed to get it all working now, aside from the server caching pages until a refresh, I can live with that.

[Mr GRiM]

In your code above that you removed, this is how if would look.

if ($userrank != $this->existing['`rank`'])
{
$this->setr('`rank`', $userrank);
}

I gave up with the changes as there were hundreds.

Yeah I was going to give up as well but as far as I can tell it's working, I added back all the code and only have `rank` changed in many places, I was messing around with $rank as well before but that one can stay the same.

[Mr GRiM]

I've just spotted that you are also running PHP7.4.33 when vb4 is only compatible to 7.1.x

Between that and the SQL incompatibility, I honestly think the work to get the site fully functional is too much and your time would be better spent moving to a modern platform.

Yeah I was using 5.6 and I was having some issues, I changed it to 7.4.33 and it seemed to fix things with the images being posted not being displayed.

[z3r010]

If you have the option for 7 or 7.1 that may help things.

[Mr GRiM]

If you have the option for 7 or 7.1 that may help things.

OK changed to 7.1

[z3r010]

I'm just looing in the browser console and you have addtoany loading insecurely - I'd either dump it or update its urls to https ;)

[A Guy]

Lol, I was coming here to tell you what John said about your mysql issues, but I see he's here. Thanks John ;)

A Guy

[A Guy]

You've seen Feed Monkey has gone rogue?

https://i.imgur.com/AxxEzvr.jpg

A Guy

[Mr GRiM]

You've seen Feed Monkey has gone rogue?

https://i.imgur.com/AxxEzvr.jpg

A Guy

Thanks I will keep an eye on it, I deleted all the duplicate threads, it might have just been me messing around with stuff.

[Mr GRiM]

I'm just looing in the browser console and you have addtoany loading insecurely - I'd either dump it or update its urls to https ;)

Thanks John, I never even thought to update those, done now though :smile:

[Mr GRiM]

Here are some bugs I found.

VC Black and VC Blue show blank text box when editing the post.
9249892499

Other themes it works.
92497

Attachment window seems a bit buggy.
92500

Other than that I have to refresh the pages for them to show updates.

Features related to editing posts seem to be fixed.

I was not able to reproduce those errors, it could have been while I was messing with stuff, have a look now and see if it's still an issue, I have also improved the attachment manager, I regenerated all the thumbnails and also increased the number of attachments per page from 5 to 20.

[Mr GRiM]

OK I think I might have fixed the browser caching issue, I added some code to the .htaccess file.


<IfModule mod_headers.c>
Header set Cache-Control "no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate"
Header set Cache-Control "post-check=0, pre-check=0', FALSE"
Header set Pragma "no-cache"
Header set Expires 0
Header set Expires "Sun, 01 Jan 2014 00:00:00 GMT"
</IfModule>

There might be a bit of extra page loading times without the browser caching but I think it's the best option.

If you are still seeing cached pages then clear your browsers cache and browsing history to make sure the new header code is implemented on all pages.

[J4M3SX019]

hi mark thanks for fixing and updating the site everything seems to be working ok i have noticed you cant upload an image from my computer via pm only for making a thread/new posts and maybe updating the vcstyle for the custom backgrounds and fonts anyway thanks for fixing the site

[ミறѳѳղղįզվદ彡]

nice to see you all again and we have two new server moderators A Guy and Donkuz thats great Welcome to the VC Team
and sorry all but I could not log in for a long time after restarting the server
some bugs has been fixed by myself but i cant change my name back
i dont know why but my name has been changed automatically after server restarts
Mark thank you for updating badges and please can you check and try to fix my name back as றѳѳղղįqվદ
thank you and see you Friends

[ミறѳѳղղįզվદ彡]

fixed

[A Guy]

Welcome back ;)

A Guy