Totaly disheartened.

After a few weeks trying to solve problems, spending out on dedicated IP and CSS, uploading and setting up numerous installs, even having Newton take valuable time to play with the wierd and wonderful problems that appear on my install, I am now totally disheartened with the whole thing! Due to extreme tiredness after giving up on the last problem, (unable to access page builder, mobile builder and predefined values), prior to that it was not being able to edit anything, ie min value on input in descriptionme, not able to edit splashscreen etc (caused by the chrome fix as chrome does not work with it apparently)  I gave up on the latest version, manually installed, and went back to 7.1 installed  via softalicious... and back to the good old error processing file on leaving video comments! I give up! Terry is trying again, but then he has more patience than I do. Anyone know of a good free alternative to Dolphin???

 Don't give up Dave,

make sure your using an RMS server, remember, video comments are processed via RMS/ffmpeg

Don't give up.  I went through a lot of tribulations before getting my site settled down.  Yes, you may have to start over a few times but each is a learning experience that only makes us stronger.

As for others; I did research social networking platforms before settling on Dolphin.  There are only a few, including Dolphin that are mature enough.

 But their was no issues before 7.1, but we think we have it sussed, we have installed 2 identical installs ( 1 as main site and 1 for testing), so we can test mods etc, before adding to main site

If one is setting up a new install, I recommend you go and grab the latest SVN; that has the fixes in place; the download on the front page will not be updated until they release 7.1.1, and install from the SVN you downloaded.

 did you use the download link I sent to Dave? It's an updated version, not the "Final" but updated.

Dolphin is not defunct, it can be many factors with the server that causes most problems.

I think I have about four 7.1 sites running with no problems like you all are having.

I would suggest maybe not using an automated installer?

 that was the original issue, they tried a manual install but I don't think all the file permissions were applied.

yes used the once you gave dave and had server admins double check all permissions were set correct

If you guys are still willing to try, give me SSH access for a while..

 daves account does not have SSH access.

Now - I dont know how or what account you are using when uploading your files and using SSH, but I thought I would post this in case this is something that could possibly be the issue. The gurus can further confirm if this is the case.

I hope this helps out, as it is something that i noticed, and had a bunch of issues till i figured it out. Doing an install of dolphin using SSH, I logged into my SSH as root and did the install instructions, althoguh the installation went successfully and all permissions were set correctly - i had a lot of bad things happening.

I then used ftp and logged into my account by using the main server domain name for the host (blah.com), but the username and password of the specific account i wanted (for blah.net) - this too caused issues after a successful installation.

Then - I used ftp again, but this time set the host as the actual domain (blah.org) i wanted to access as well as used the corresponding username and password (for blah.org)- everything worked well.

What I found out during all of this is that although my file permissions were set correctly - the GROUP permissions were incorrect, as the files were uploaded while under root. So I had to manually go into each of those other 2 domains and change the group premissions - and then those all worked like they were supposed to.

we only use FTP and all my clients only have FTP access.  i never give shell access to clients.

 [edit]

 That is a VERY common problem..

Before I had my own VPS, was on shared with no SSH, I had to manually check each and every permission manually.

It took a while to do it this way, that is why so many opt for the "auto installer." 

Good luck..

 this is why i offer pre set sites with dolph as i can do install as root

I remember 4 years ago thinking " what the hell am I doing here wasting my time, money and efforts" ...

4 years later I am glad I stuck around and I am proud of my current achievements using dolphin software ...

I know it can be hard >> if you look through my past threads you will see in the past I have ruined years of work and sites development including loosing over 50,000 members !! This all hurt like hell ... was embarrassing ... made me feel like throwing things in many times!

Even to this moment I am still learning and making mistakes BUT am happy to say that these days find things more rewarding and I have realized that as hard as things can be there are community of users / webmasters here that generally like to help others and all work together to achieve common goals like bug solving and development etc ...

My point to all this is > stick around, have faith, keep learning, and don't be afraid to seek help from those more experienced

 too true.  I am daves host and am trying to help him the best i can with the help of this community.  I know what you mean by not giving up, as i had a client who i terminated for non payment and he made life hell even demanding i give him my VPS logins or he would ddos me, and he even abused and threatened me on forums in emal and caused that much trouble i have to change domains and business names and still be tried to attack me.  but i have never given up.

Dave if your still up I need your recaptcha keys for join form.

Also easyhost, you gave me special SSH access to Daves account, that is a sign of a great company! Thanks

I'm currently checking it all over; the cPanel credentials he sent no longer work or I have the wrong something..

Can you PM me please