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Fear of accepting a new upgrade.

Gravity Support Forums » Plugin Support » Gravity Forms

  1. thegoodfox
    Member

    Like many of your customers, my online business is totally dependent upon the proper functioning of Gravity Forms.

    Ever since I installed Gravity Forms, and put myself at the mercy of your software, I have been noticing the large number of complaints from customers whose businesses have been severely disrupted each time you come out with a buggy new upgrade.

    It’s also disturbing to see the huge number of “fixes” that are included with each new upgrade, to correct problems with the previous version that you released.

    Thanks to these observations, I have been reluctant to risk putting myself out of business by accepting any of your upgrades. This brings up two questions:

    (1) What will eventually happen if I continue to refuse to take a chance on your problematic upgrades?

    (2) If I do install an upgrade, and it proves to be a disaster, EXACTLY how do I go about rolling back to a previous version (a version which may be from the fairly distant past)?

    Posted 12 years ago on Thursday June 14, 2012 | Permalink

  2. mark jones
    Member

    Hi

    I share your concerns on this, maybe not your views on "buggy" and "huge number of fixes", the two upgrades that i have gone through have all been very good, the only fixes have been on new functions, not past ability, and have been fixed in a matter of hours. I have also not fully launched yet, so not so much of a worry for me as maybe you. Also like you thought, my business plan falls apart if Gravity Forms don't work and thats the same with several key plugins.

    My solutions is that I have already set up a duplicate website, any upgrades on Gravity Forms, Wordpress, PHP upgardes, or any plugin will be tested on this first before i switch it on my main site. I have 37 points to test on, when all are ticked then i can upgrade the main site.

    Hope that helps

    Mark

    Posted 12 years ago on Thursday June 14, 2012 | Permalink

  3. Carl Hancock
    Administrator

    @thegoodfox Have you ever looked at the WordPress trac to see what bugs are corrected in WordPress with each major and minor release? The updates and corrections in Gravity Forms pale in comparison to the large number of bug fixes you'll find in each WordPress update. Does that mean you shouldn't update WordPress too? Of course not!

    Where are these large number of complaints that you speak of? I'm not sure what complaints and issues you are referring to as far as customers having major issues with updates. However you are coming to this conclusion, it's entirely off base and not grounded in reality.

    Bugs and fixes are a natural part of software development. There is no such thing as bug free software. The more complex the software is, the greater the chance that bugs will be encountered. Anyone who says otherwise shows a complete lack of understanding of how software development.

    The vast majority of bugs that are fixed in each release are minor bugs that only a minority of users ever encounter. They are typically issues that arise in very specific use cases that are simply impossible to test for due to the nature of this type of software... every form is unique and every user uses it in vastly different ways.

    The truth is most "major" issues users run into with upgrades is related to poorly developed themes and plugins that have implemented jQuery incorrectly on their site resulting in problems with forms displaying due to javascript errors that occur as a result of these poorly developed themes and plugins.

    The majority of support issues we encounter are not issues with Gravity Forms itself, they are issues with poorly developed themes and plugins causing code and javascript conflicts along with server configuration related issues (PHP memory, etc.).

    We have no control over what your theme or other plugins do and we can't guard against these jQuery issues due to the nature of how WordPress, themes and plugins work. We also have no control over your web server so we can't prevent issues related to file permissions or PHP memory from occurring.

    If there were not so many poorly developed themes and plugins being used, we would eliminate the bulk of our support requests because they are the cause of most upgrade issues users run into.

    I'm not sure what you are basing your assumptions on, but with over 360,000 active sites running Gravity Forms and having supported the product for going on 3 years now I think i'm qualified to speak on the subject and tell you that your assumptions and fears are incorrect, misguided and frankly dangerous. Dangerous because you're making incorrect assumptions that may prevent others from updating...

    YOU SHOULD ALWAYS UPDATE WHEN UPDATES ARE AVAILABLE.

    Not updating WordPress and WordPress Plugins when updates are available leaves your site open to security vulnerabilities and malware.

    What will eventually happen if you refuse to update? Gravity Forms could quit working. WordPress updates can cause Gravity Forms not to work. Compatibility updates to maintain compatibility with WordPress is one of the major reasons to ALWAYS update when updates are available. Compatibility is just one of the reasons why you should always update. Security patches and bug fixes are just as important.

    You should ALWAYS update when updates are available. This goes for not only Gravity Forms, but WordPress and all other plugins you run.

    We provide a great product with world class support. If users run into issues, we help them with those issues and we are proactive with fixing bugs. That is what you are paying for.

    Based on your post I would have expected that you had run into all kinds of serious issues and problems with Gravity Forms, but considering you've only posted on the support forum 3 times... that clearly is not the case.

    If you are too afraid to update a plugin then you shouldn't be running that plugin. That includes Gravity Forms.

    Posted 12 years ago on Thursday June 14, 2012 | Permalink

  4. thegoodfox
    Member

    In your effort to overwhelm me with excuses why your software upgrades shouldn't worry me, you totally ignored one of the two questions that I asked: Namely, if I do install an upgrade, and it proves to be a disaster, EXACTLY how do I go about rolling back to a previous version (a version which may be from the fairly distant past)?

    I would feel more like my money has been wisely invested in your product if you would answer this question, rather than telling me that if I have concerns about your software I should go elsewhere. I may not be the only reader who finds that directive a bit unsettling when asking a question that's of considerable importance and concern to him.

    By the way, your points were all well taken and I do feel greatly reassured by your reply. However, what I initially said in my post was my honest remembrance of what others had said in their complaints about upgrade problems. Once again, my memory may be at fault, but I did not get the impression that their complaints were resolved "in a matter of hours."

    Be that as it may, I would appreciate an equally thorough reply to the question that you skipped.

    Posted 12 years ago on Thursday June 14, 2012 | Permalink

  5. Carl Hancock
    Administrator

    I'm not trying to overwhelm you with anything. I'm trying to provide you a detailed explanation on the situation and I don't appreciate your snide reply. If you'd rather I just blow you off rather than take the time to actually write you a detailed explanation, I can do that too.

    How do you rollback? You simply deactivate and delete the existing version of the plugin and then upload and activate a previous version. It's that simple.

    If this is a concern for you then I suggest you download the latest version of the plugin from the support site and archive it. This way you have the plugin zip file for the next time you update in case you want to rollback. You can also request a previous release from our support team and we'll be glad to supply you with it.

    We do not provide older versions of Gravity Forms for download on the support site. Only the latest release is available. With over 360,000 sites and 3 years of being in business, not providing prior releases for download has never been an issue simply because rollback hasn't been a need. Despite your concerns, I think that says a lot regarding the stability of updates.

    Posted 12 years ago on Thursday June 14, 2012 | Permalink

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