Is there any point in renewing a xF licence?

[Al]

I have two expired xenForo licences. They expired way back in 2021. The licence page states:

"Your period of support and updates for license xxxxxxxxxx has now expired. To gain access to new versions and support, you must purchase an extension."

However, the system allowed me to download version 2.2.5; the latest version. Seeing as I doubt I'll ever need to ask for support on the official forum seeing as there are so many resources for support elsewhere, is there any point in renewing?

 

[Shortie]

I am at the moment in the process of getting the funds together to renew my license but I was unaware you could download the latest version without needing to renew the licence.

I myself do like to have access to the support forums incase I do need any support in the future just as I have done in the past but I guess if they allow you to download the newer updates and you do not need the support, it is something you could do without paying for.

 

[Cedric]

Well, from 2.2.5 to 2.2.13 there's numerous fixes and security updates. Here's a list:

Some of the changes in XF 2.2.6 include:

• Adjust file copying order of the one click upgrader to reduce issues with page breaks.
• Support youtube.com/shorts/{id} format URLs
• Change the CSS rules for inline spoilers to improve visibility
• Replace Accept header to use official v3 of GitHub API for connected account requests rather than its beta.
• Apply flood checking to thread create/reply pre-reg actions.
• If there is no editor/quick-reply element available, bail out of the quote-click JS handler early.
• Add some input placeholder styling to the stripe payment form.
• Prevent editing/display/use of some payment profiles when they are no longer active or the payment provider is no longer usable.
• When toggling comments with the profilePostCommentToggle style property enabled, ensure the editor placeholder is activated and, where possible, focus the editor.
• When getting global permission entries, process conditions correctly to only select the relevant records.
• Fix bad maxlength setting for warning definition titles and impose a maxlength for warning definition conversation titles.
• Prevent an error when trying to update reactions counts if we find a reaction content entry without a matching reaction definition.
• Implement the ability to add custom add/remove messages for the multi-quote button.
• Fix prefix function usage in alert/push_thread_reply_ban templates.
• Disable lightbox related output in RSS feeds.
• Allow member stats to be used in widgets regardless of overview_display option.
• Limit the size of each inline mod cookie to 3KB to avoid excessive header sizes.
• Add header 'Auto-Submitted: auto-generated' header by default to outgoing emails with the ability to override or unset if needed.
• Fix missing content type for contact form and protect against a PHP 8.0 issue if a content type phrase is empty.
• Fix unsupported operand error when validating a style archive if hashes.json fails to decode correctly.
• Add the ability to perform exact match email searches
• Remove duplicate itemprop attribute on a post's username link
• Validate usernames before trying to set them when creating threads as a guest
• Ensure phrases are properly returned as strings
• Wrap attachment action phrases that may not fit the thumbnail container
• Adjust description for the forum statistics widget
• Allow users to be reported regardless of their profile privacy settings
• Add a separate phrase for prefix searching on the admin panel's quick filter
• Ensure that non-ASCII characters are not in the local part of an email address.
• When analysing images, check image type against image extension map
• Allow alerts to be sent via an API super user key without a registered user.
• Validate a purchasable item exists during the callback stage of a payment.
• Ensure threads with a redirect thread type are included when batch updating threads or using a search forum
• Ensure post thread page action buttons are marked as nofollow
• Do not attempt to include a first_unread post in the API when the only unread posts in a thread are ignored.
• Ensure that phrases indirectly used in push and email templates use the correct language.
• Make the process of canceling recurring PayPal subscriptions clearer if the user does not have a PayPal account.
• Improve performance of loading icons on the add-on list.
• Use a new system for shortening strings that contain BB code so that they will not be cut off in the middle of BB code markup.
• Do not allow transparent or system colors to be used in the color BB code.
• Ensure that italics in user content are displayed as expected when using CJK languages.
• Do not attempt to link URLs or email addresses that contain censored words.
• Properly process Stripe subscription refunds in the payment system.
• Do not display the "insert" option on attachments in contexts where they cannot be inserted into an editor.
• Improve the display of message attribution rows with a large amount of content on smaller devices.

Some of the changes in XF 2.2.7 include:

• Update add-on list filter bar to use the correct prefix search phrase.
• Output XenForo version when running cmd.php --version or -V
• Change [MEDIA] BB code tag example to point to a valid video.
• Ensure the input element for token inputs inherit the expected font color.
• Disable caching for the birthdays member stat. The results could be different for each user depending on time zone so caching won't be effective.
• Workaround a browser quirk to do with sticky navigation and the staff bar when the border width is an odd number. This removes the bottom border entirely.
• Workaround an issue that could be caused by mail queue entries that fail to unserialize.
• Avoid n+1 queries when filtering profile posts from banned users in the find new system
• Patch loose string comparisons such as !$username and in_array($username, $usernames) that can result in unexpected behaviors when wierd strings are used.
• When permanently deleting threads, ensure associated records are deleted too
• When generating RSS feed entries for threads, set the guid attribute to the thread ID
• Only overwrite push notification opt-out preferences if the visitor has permission to use push notifications.
• Allow unassociated attachment deletion cutoff to be extended inline with draft save lifetime, plus refresh temporary attachments when saving a draft.
• Trim excess whitespace from the beginning of Font Awesome icon classes
• Fix compatibility issue with type checking when rendering prefixes
• Add a new registration default to control whether push notifications should be sent for new conversation messages.
• Fix an issue preventing guests from creating polls
• When updating content reactions, check if reactions actually exist in the cache
• Properly coerce URLs that may not begin with "www."
• Fix casing for the metadata logo URL phrase
• Don't allow retaining IDs when importing reaction content records
• Use correct type hint for the getTitle method in the Report entity
• When editing admin navigation items, properly save the development_only value
• Adjust the query for determining who should receive a report closure notification to only return distinct and non-zero user IDs
• If using PHP 7.1 or above, allow the image proxy to fetch and store webp images.
• Ensure control panel attachment manager date boundaries are inclusive
• Open off-canvas sub-navigation menu when tapping a heading with no link
• Do not attempt to query for uncached content permissions after the global cache has already been run
• Remove duplicated templates for node permissions management
• Support specifying multiple content types when rebuilding the search index
• Change "Edit own thread title" permission to "Edit own thread" as this permission allows multiple thread properties to be edited.
• Improve legibility of thread prompt placeholder on the title input while using a narrow display when creating a new thread.
• Do not offset the sticky submit row in overlays to account for bottom fixed notices that are behind the overlay.
• Hover variants based on saturate() won't work with greys or near greys, so let's focus on xf-intensify() instead, and raise the value somewhat to compensate for the loss of the hover saturate
• When merging users, carry over previous username change logs too.
• Remove redundant file existence check when loading templates
• Remove redundant file existence check when loading phrase groups
• When autolinking emails expand the range of word characters permitted in additional domain parts.
• Adjust Vimeo BB code media site to not match profile URLs unintentionally.
• Impose a limit on the maximum number of keywords that can be searched for (default: 1024) and allow XFES to fetch the max_clause_count configuration value where possible to avoid a shard exception.
• Steps to avoid accessing a Less mixin from one file defined in another. Move to setup.less but retain reference to the original for backwards compatibility for now.
• When unfurling URLs using unfurl.php ensure we're using the correct style for the user and passing in the default template params.
• Update timezone data
• Add Sri Lanka to the list of locales
• Handle a race condition where proxy images get pruned in the middle of a request more gracefully
• When moving the first post out of a thread with no other visible posts, correctly set the state of the new first post and original thread record
• Use the number of replies in a question thread as the number of answers instead
• Allow toggling the direction of date sort orders on user upgrade lists
• Avoid throwing an error when sending an activity summary that has a section title containing a dot.
• Resolve a number of rich text editor quirks when pasting various content.
• When fetching metadata from a URL improve checks to ensure we get a valid charset encoding where possible and prevent against an Error exception thrown if an invalid character set encoding is encountered.
• When copy/pasting content that contains quotes, tidy up the output and ensure it outputs correctly with the appropriate attributes to maintain quote author and content.
• When parsing a color string (such as for the metaThemeColor property usage) normalize the color to its hex value by default.
• When typing conversation recipients allow a min length value of 1 for single character usernames.
• Improve performance of the attachment manager when working with mind-boggling numbers of attachments
• Workaround a tooltip displaying potentially in the wrong language in the editor draft button drop down.
• Use text-shadow to give a stroke effect to usernames whilst avoiding a wrapping issue
• Remove reference to zxcvbn.min.js source mapping to avoid 404 error.
• Skip some parts of the _preSave method in Thread entity if thread does not have a forum.
• Prevent iconic labels from overflowing their container
• Introduce a code event for manipulating the current page cache ID
• When uninstalling content type data during an add-on uninstall set the attachment content_id to 0 as well as unassociated to avoid conflicts if reinstalling. The files will be cleaned up later.

Some of the changes in XF 2.2.8 include:

• Do not wrap iconic inputs when directly adjacent to other inline items
• Generate PhpStorm metadata for validator classes
• Optionally normalize a URL passed into getRoutePathFromUrl to exclude the script part of the URL if it is passed in.
• Fix further JavaScript regression in editor.js that affected older browsers.
• Fix undefined variable $option when failing to refresh an OAuth email access token.
• If the location field is required at registration, indicate so on the account details page
• Correctly mark Applebot as a robot
• Fix the type hint in AbstractDriver for the imageFromFile method
• Ensure report comments are ordered consistently
• Allow API thread filtering by prefix_id when the specific forum is unknown
• Add support for podcast episodes to the Spotify BB code media site
• Adjust the way answers are counted and represented within the JSON-LD schema for question threads
• If the forum used for reports is deleted, revert back to using the report centre
• Throw a prettier error if downloading an XF upgrade package fails
• When sending a payment receipt for user upgrades, display the price paid and not the current price of the user upgrade
• Fix an issue preventing numeric custom fields from being searched
• Remove itemprop attribute from the fnUsernameLink templater function
• Silence errors when a template doesn't exist
• Patch a regression in Froala which caused images inside clipboard data to no longer be uploaded as expected.
• Consistently nest date of birth privacy options in the admin control panel user edit page.
• Fix password strength meter background color bleed.
• coerce the lbThumbsAuto option value to a boolean to ensure it works as expected.
• Fix vertical alignment of sort order indicator inside filter bar toggles.
• Remove CSS rule that inadvertently increases the size of the text of some form row elements.
• When requesting a new attachment key and hitting a permission error, make the error more clear.
• Fix an issue with the wrong reaction sprite displaying when switching between reactions on different sprite sheets.
• Support adding data attributes to <xfptgroup> elements inside <xf:checkbox> and <xf:radio> elements.
• Remove orphaned buttons from the button manager and correctly indicate button visibility
• When using ImageMagick, correctly set its temp directory to tempDataPath
• Include 'all' filter within page navigation when batch updating threads
• Improve handling for batch updating a large number of records in one go
• Add .opus as a supported audio file extension
• Ensure advanced flag for options is both imported and exported correctly
• Restore the default tab for a node when deleting its associated navigation tab
• Disable page load scroll adjustment on browsers supporting native scroll anchoring
• Filter removed buttons from editor dropdowns
• Inhibit scroll button click event when clicking between buttons
• Avoid truncating long widget descriptions
• Make it easier to extend valid image proxy mime types
• Fix layout shift when profile posts not visible on user profiles.
• Workaround an issue that could allow certain registration moderation requirements to be bypassed.
• Prevent posts from being moved or copied to threads that a moderator cannot view
• Ensure node ID constraints are always in a numerical array when searching for posts
• Re-work session activity updates to reduce locking pressure
• When encountering an invalid cost amount error with PayPal, expand the error message with a hint to check for additional shipping and handling charges
• Display the correct image for certain emojis containing a zero width joiner
• Record image proxy file hashes, and do not overwrite files if their hashes have not changed
• When replying to a thread that has been deleted during the reply, throw a clearer error message
• When filtering for unsolved questions, encourage MySQL to use a better index
• Prevent member tabs from overlapping the avatar when member stats aren't being displayed
• Add global template data to the API templater

Some of the changes in XF 2.2.9 include:

• Fix fatal error when viewing debug page on PHP 8.1
• Revert previous change so that actioning conversation message report still relies on the 'warn' permission.
• Reset file hash when pruning proxied images
• Correctly remove duplicated relations when fetching the user entity within the Member controller
• Ensure there's a breadcrumb to return to the help pages list when modifying a help page
• When a suggested answer only contains an attachment, make sure the suggested schema text isn't blank
• Update various phrases to point to the new location of Google's Developer Console
• Fix an error that could occur when navigating search results after performing an exact match search for users but not providing a value for the username or email
• When registering with a connected provider, correctly redirect to the specified return URL
• When writing before registering but then logging in with an existing account, redirect to the newly created content
• When sending a push notification about a post being merged, avoid rendering the prefix as HTML
• Correctly mark the use_tfa field as a boolean value in the API documentation
• Patch Froala to workaround an issue which prevents "recently used" smilies from being stored as expected.
• Include $template in $params sent to email container templates
• Workaround a potential issue when upgrading from older versions due to new code in newer versions.
• Improve accessibility of inline spoilers.
• Fix Vimeo time-based links and support unlisted videos via the key portion of the URL.
• Append content link and title to report closure alerts.
• Workaround an undefined array key error that may happen during upgrade
• Do not display view count for directly viewed attachments (video and audio).
• When opening a page in an overlay that contains share buttons, override the page URL to the URL of the overlay loaded.
• Update Asia/Novosibirsk timezone to UTC+7
• Adjust job-related type hints to int|float.
• Log payment callbacks that come from an unknown source
• Document where scrolling notices are located
• Implement __isset() in the Finder class
• Make it easier to load additional relations with the search forum user cache
• Improve cross-table data consistency when threads are created
• Allow feed reader entries without a title to fallback to the description, and vice-versa
• Pass referrer through poll creation form
• Default to the first option value for read-only select inputs
• Improve PHP 8.1 compatibility when logging payment callbacks
• Fix null query parameter handling on the debug page
• Correct the IRR currency precision
• Include a content setter for report entities
• Fix attributes on the registration defaults option not referring to unique inputs
• Don't re-save avatars if the crop positioning hasn't changed
• Redirect to page 1 if a non-number value is passed to the "Go to page" form
• List the events a Stripe webhook endpoint should listen for
• Improve PHP 8.1 compatibility within the Register controller
• Work around an upstream issue in WinCache
• Always throw an exception when a file fils to copy to an abstracted file path
• Attempt to determine first proxyable favicon when fetching page metadata
• Canonicalize proxied thread cover image URLs
• Prevent search engines from attempting to index thread preview URLs
• Throw an exception when add-on requirement errors or warnings are not arrays
• Update watch notifier getDefaultWatchNotifyData method visibility to match parent class
• Fix route normalization in policy acceptance bypass check
• Improve PHP 8.1 compatibility in template trim tag/function
• Add response documentation to the POST posts/ API route
• Adjust maximum width of board title in control panel header
• Normalize root breadcrumb URL before checking if it matches the current page
• Make unfurl usage analysis more robust
• Improve PHP 8.1 compatibility within template filters
• When logging a failed email exception, include the from email in the exception message
• Add embed support for public Spotify playlists
• Make the default cookie same-site behavior configurable
• Always allow top-level categories which are not displayed in the node list to be accessed at their dedicated URL
• Fix article preview text fade not applying to articles without a cover image
• Strip AJAX query params from password confirmation redirects
• Avoid decreasing user message count twice when moving a thread in/out of a forum that does not count messages
• Improve PHP 8.1 compatibility within the API docs generator
• Fix potential stale recompilation of grouped phrases
• Include some missing entries in the hashes file
• Ensure zlib output compression is disabled to prevent interference with XF output compression
• Hide the article forum snippet length option when using the preview display style
• Correct the description for the user_content_change_init code event description
• Reword the "this_accounts_email_is_already_associated_with_another_member" phrase
• Add option to disable appending a CAPTCHA provider's privacy policy to the site's privacy policy
• Only send certain moderator action alerts when the content is or was visible to the author
• Improve PHP 8.1 compatibility within the unsharp image mask algorithm
• Improve PHP 8.1 compatibility within the route filter entity
• Remove stray XF.Element.register() in password_box.js
• Improve PHP 8.1 compatibility when resizing and cropping an image
• When converting tables to utf8mb4, only show the prompt to add fullUnicode to config.php if the value isn't set already

Some of the changes in XF 2.2.10 include:

• Require values for old/new changelog values
• Properly handle null values within the Arr::stringToArray() function
• Remove extraneous space when generating a one-time password URL
• Support rebuilding daily stats from the command line
• Add additional indexes for the active and expired user upgrade tables
• Remove superfluous code setting aria-label for tooltips
• Add lazy loading attribute to resource icons
• Pass an index hint when performing certain IP lookups

Some of the changes in XF 2.2.12 include:

• Always default to an empty array when IPv6 lookup fails
• Fix a server error when guests tried to access non-existent search results
• Include some missing entries in the hashes file
• Suppress warnings when converting invalid IP addresses on older versions of PHP
• Implement suggested password normalization for PhpBb3 authentication
• Check for "Manage add-ons" permission when viewing or triggering a file health check
• Fix not being able to follow users in an email bounced user state
• Fix custom user titles set to falsy values not being displayed
• Add missing pagination when searching for a user's reported content
• Only sign emails if DKIM setup has been verified
• Properly account for falsy values in wholeWordTrim and snippetString functions
• Fix PHP 8.1 compatibility issue when performing a search with no keywords
• Update Swiftmailer to v6.3.0 for PHP 8.1 support
• Make adjustments to Facebook media site to support new pfbid IDs
• Add support for detecting utf8mb3 and treating it the same as utf8 thus ensuring unicode mismatch detection and table conversion to utf8mb4 is working correctly.
• Add missing CSS to the comment macro in the profile_post_macros template
• When trying to unapprove a deleted thread, undelete it and put it in the approval queue
• Prevent configuration of two-factor authentication when it is disabled via the config.php switch
• Fix outdated link in the you_can_preview_icons_and_their_names_here phrase
• Fix typo in legacy Instagram embed template
• Re-implement Instagram embeds without a reliance on the oEmbed endpoints and support reel links.
• Adjust template Parser to allow for more precise parentheses placement in some previously ambiguous usages.
• If guest content is awaiting approval, show the username the content was submitted under
• Fix PHP 8.1 compatibility issue when rebuilding a thread's first post information
• Remove extraneous line breaks from the news feed option description
• If a user is also a moderator, update the URL on their admin profile page to only show forums they moderate
• Exclude nodes where a user can't view thread content from search queries
• When importing from an RSS feed and posting as a particular user, respect their auto-watch preferences
• Add support for 3GP encoded videos
• Fix $fromEmail variable not being set correctly when sending emails
• Fix accidentally exposing thread content to guests without the "View threads by others" permission when the thread starter's account has been deleted
• Ensure error logging isn't silently skipped if stacktrace arguments contain invalid utf-8.
• Adjust CSS for Spotify media embed.
• Adjust Select2 and native auto-completer to accept tab key as selecting a result.
• Support node_name / URL portion for categories (relevant if categoryOwnPage option enabled)
• Remove reference to non-existent reaction_text column
• Fix typo in mail template rendering exception message
• Fix connected account providers not appearing on the login form in some cases
• More accurate way of parsing byte values from PHP config values.
• Ensure only valid users are able to change their username.
• Better support cross platform directory separator trimming in ComposerAutoload
• Mark XF\Payment\CallbackState as allowing dynamic properties.
• Include PHP 8.2 compatibility fixes in non-vendor classes and utf8.php
• Fix Vimeo embed start timestamp behavior
• Use late static binding in utility classes to make them easier to extend
• Ensure job max run-time checks occur at end of loops
• Dynamically build link to front-end in the control panel
• Include content IDs in extra data when performing spam checks
• Include content IDs in extra data when performing spam checks
• Improve the extensibility of spam trigger log request data
• Add validation to widget display conditions
• Fix validation for negative whole number custom fields
• Adjust title attributes on bookmark links and buttons
• Adjust line height of inline mod go button to match select height
• In Text::copy return a Text element rather than Tag.
• Properly escape regex when rendering a BB code table.
• Disable PSR class path inspection in extension_hint.php
• In the ChangeLoggable behaviour add a new option to force a change to be from a specific user ID. In contexts where actions are performed from an email link, such as email stop or password resets, this allows us to ensure the password reset change log is attributed to the correct user.
• Update flow.js to the latest version, remove legacy FustyFlow for ancient IE fallback.
• Apply recommended fix for wrapping selection text in different editor functionality.
• Return a HTTP 404 error code when trying to view a tag with no viewable content
• Handle null arguments when stripping BBcode from strings

Some of the changes in XF 2.2.13 include:

• Adjust several cookie third party identifiers
• Fix simple cookie notice flash for guests
• Update thread creation latest activity items when merging threads
• Add null checks when we're inspecting the result of the getPhraseGroup method of the Phrase entity.
• Add context to node permission list with node type icons.
• Don't attempt to access getCookieThirdParties on payment providers which may no longer exist.
• Update enable push option to reflect better browser support.
• Check search permissions when displaying the 'Your content' link in the visitor menu
• Restore "notes" phrase that was inadvertently deleted in the previous release
• Avoid leaking the email address linked to an account that is using email two-step verification
• Don't show the view more link on a member's recent content page for users who have no permissions to search
• Ensure wrapper display HTML value has whitespace trimmed
• Properly set custom titles when batch updating users
• When adding/editing nodes, the description for the URL portion field now refers to nodes rather than forums
• Fix a typo in the cookie_consent.cookie_description_dbWriteForced phrase
• Replace MaxCDN with jsDelivr as the CDN for Twemojis
• Ensure emojis are properly displayed in the chosen style
• More consistently set content key across different content types
• Fix error thrown when xf_consent cookie has an invalid value
• Escape backslashes when escaping SQL like clauses
• Do not prepare member stat results prior to caching
• Fix some entity collection return type hints
• Clamp input filterer float values
• Attempt to prevent browsers from autofilling credentials in the find member widget
• Rebuild permissions in batches to limit memory usage
• Display an error when an invalid URL is used to test URL unfurling
• Display content vote scores in LTR orientation
• Make stream closing attempts more robust when working with abstract files
• Fix type hint in Oembed subcontainer
• Gracefully handle Redis mget failures
• Only display flash message once when tags are edited
• Fix max length attribute of custom warning title input
• Perform validation on email address options
• Allow restricting forum RSS results by prefix IDs
• Do not attempt to decrement alert counters when a new alert is inserted
• Fix behavior of falsy code event listener hints
• Perform validation on error reply values
• Always include search query arguments when building search links
• Retain previous selection when changing poll votes
• Improve notice controller/action criteria validation
• Include support for embedding YouTube Live URLs
• Check thread visibility before redirecting for invalid post links
• Improve user IP lookup query performance
• Make user entity timezone verification more robust
• Remove dead code from vBulletin 5 authentication handler
• currencyFormat was changed to allow figures with no decimals to show without decimal places, but to show the decimals if any were present. In doing so, we managed to kill the ability to specify the number of decimals. Oopsie. So now you can do that again, and you can also now specify -1 precision in order to prevent number_format from limiting or artificially extending the decimal places at all.
• Update the intl-tl-input JS library
• Fix CSS border radius shifting for RTL styling
• Increase entropy of temporary directory name generation to reduce the likelihood of race conditions
• Improve performance of \XF\Extension::resolveExtendedClassToRoot using an inverse lookup table
• Correctly replace urlencoded CSRF token values before returning cached pages to fix an issue with Advanced cookie management.
• Ensure that unsubscribing from emails also unsubscribes the user from activity summary emails
• Support embedding YouTube videos from youtube-nocookie.com
• Fix incorrect type hints in prefix and prompt group entities

So I would advice, it's definitely worth renewing.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I think it's certainly worth renewing when you get the chance. With all the features that have rolled out since it's crucial to have the most up to date version of any software you're using when it comes to websites. Security updates are important, you wouldn't want someone to try and hack your website after all.

 

[Al]

Ahh. 2.2.5 is not the latest version; just the last version I can download. That makes a little more sense. I assumed 2.2.5 was the latest. Standing down in full embarrassment mode!

 

[Cedric]

Ahh. 2.2.5 is not the latest version; just the last version I can download. That makes a little more sense. I assumed 2.2.5 was the latest. Standing down in full embarrassment mode!

That’s okay Al. That’s why we are here for. 😀

 

[Al]

That’s okay Al. That’s why we are here for. 😀

Who needs official support; amirite?

 

[Cedric]

Who needs official support; amirite?

I still do sometimes. 😂

 

[Tracy]

It's worth upgrading... especially if you are running some 3rd party add-ons... their updates can frequently REQUIRE a newer version of XenForo.
It's one of the reasons I renewed my license on my primary site, and then later renewed it on another "play" site and moved it from SMF 2.1.4 (no, it's not an officially supported migration and I had to edit their import script).

Personally now... If I need support, it's going to be via ticket. Your "community support" over on the XF site depends on a few individuals that are active - and the majority of those are not XF staff/developers. I'm planning on cutting back on the forum support I've given over there over the years.

Now, if you are asking about upgrading to get any "major" end user benefit... not much meat there. Most of it was bug fixes and stuff to make it easier on the admin.

 

[zoldos]

I like renewing (when I can) to acquire updates. Also, I get t a year of support in case something happens I can't fix!

 

[Tracy]

Also, I get t a year of support in case something happens I can't fix!

Problem is... ALL you are guaranteed is that they will help fix the "core offerings".... not interactions from 3rd party add-ons, styles or similar.
Just like their "upgrade service" clearly tells you

If you would rather have someone else perform your version upgrade, a XenForo representative will do it for you, provided your hosting environment meets the requirements. XenForo staff will not apply updates to unofficial add-ons or other customized elements. If your period of support and updates has expired, you must also purchase a one year extension to gain access to the latest version.

Their support is on the same basis.

 

[Cedric]

Problem is... ALL you are guaranteed is that they will help fix the "core offerings".... not interactions from 3rd party add-ons, styles or similar.
Just like their "upgrade service" clearly tells you

Their support is on the same basis.

That’s true. The moment you hit on a server error that’s from a 3rd party, they direct you to them. Which is of course normal imo.

 

[zoldos]

Problem is... ALL you are guaranteed is that they will help fix the "core offerings".... not interactions from 3rd party add-ons, styles or similar.
Just like their "upgrade service" clearly tells you

I have no issue with that.

 

[Tracy]

I have no issue with that.

Neither do I... that's why I rarely renew my license as in 11 years, I've entered exactly 13 tickets and only 3 of them were for support, 3 were for transfers of one type or another and the others were notifying them of issues that I had found that they may get asked about from others (like a 3 month Authy process I dealt with).

 

[Empire]

Same with IPB, Once you have an expired licence with IPB

1. You won't get any support via the Forum of clients
2. No updates when they release an update
3. Their IPB security system and defence system will be unavailable to you
4. Some of the add-ons third-party won't be available and if there is an IPB update most add-ons would move up with the updates and not down.

With IPB pretty much have no option, ;P

 

[zoldos]

Neither do I... that's why I rarely renew my license as in 11 years, I've entered exactly 13 tickets and only 3 of them were for support, 3 were for transfers of one type or another and the others were notifying them of issues that I had found that they may get asked about from others (like a 3 month Authy process I dealt with).

I don't think I'd wait 11 years. lol A lot of times security patches will be released, or major new versions with new features. I'd renew then!

 

[zoldos]

Same with IPB, Once you have an expired licence with IPB

1. You won't get any support via the Forum of clients
2. No updates when they release an update
3. Their IPB security system and defence system will be unavailable to you
4. Some of the add-ons third-party won't be available and if there is an IPB update most add-ons would move up with the updates and not down.

With IPB pretty much have no option, ;P

I haven't used IPB since like 2006! I went to VB since IPB was telling me I couldn't even keep my forum going without payment, if I remember correctly....

 

[Tracy]

I don't think I'd wait 11 years. lol A lot of times security patches will be released, or major new versions with new features. I'd renew then!

At first... I renewed yearly. The last 3-4 years, I ONLY renewed once because I wanted to use the latest of Bob's XenAddons offerings. If it wasn't for that... I'd still be waiting to see what XF 2.3 brings to the table.

 

[joelr]

The development cycle of Xenforo doesn't encourage regular renewals. As others have pointed out, there are years between major releases.

You also don't need to buy a new Xenforo license. You can purchase one from another.

This entire business model made sense 15 years ago when there was booming and growing market, and where there were so many new licenses, it would subsidize lapsed licenses. But I question the business model today.

I'm not saying that I like it as a consumer. But I'm going to be curious to see how the legacy majors like WBB and XF adjust their pricing plans.

 

[Tracy]

But I'm going to be curious to see how the legacy majors like WBB and XF adjust their pricing plans.

I think if XF would get on a "regular release cycle" like they have discussed, and those releases have actual end-user improvements... they will be better placed to have folks renewing.... the lackadaisical attitude they've down towards improving the script for end users and the concentration on making it "easier" for 3rd party developers is more an issue... a LOT of admins really don't care about the 3rd party environment and are more concerned with what the script itself allows them to offer their users.
With WoltLab... they have their own fanatical user base, but it just happens to be heavily German concentric from my past exposure.