How to update vBulletin Forum via Datatable

[AffGuardDog]

Hello,

I have a need to update the database for forums in order to display content in a specific manner. However, if I do so... the caching seems to keep the forum at it's previous look.

If I go into the admin and save anything (any part of the forum section), then it updates the cache completely and everything is fine.

How can I do this without going into the administrator? There must be a way, but I can't find it!

[Jake Bunce]

When manually editing the forum records you need to rebuild the cache. This needs to be done in the Admin CP. There is no simple query or way to manually rebuild the cache.

[AffGuardDog]

Oh That totally sucks. I need a dynamic site and that makes it quite static.

[Floris]

vBulletin IS dynamic .. it is written in PHP and MySQL.

What's the problem you're having? Or rather, what are you trying to do?

[AffGuardDog]

vBulletin IS dynamic .. it is written in PHP and MySQL.

What's the problem you're having? Or rather, what are you trying to do?

Yes, I know it is.. just having difficulties making a specific portion more dynamic

It is easier if I show the forum: http://www.affiliateguarddog.com/forums/

Look in the section titled: Casino Affiliate Programs. This is about midway down the page. Their are icons associated with each forum. The icons are manually placed in the database (it is using vBSponsor's addon columns to the forum datatable).

If I update that information in the database, it doesn't update the forum (because it seems to be cached). However - if I go into the admincp and save anything, anywhere in the forums area... it updates.

So - there must be some trigger which rebuilds the forum upon clicking that save button and I just need to know where it is so that I can auto-update my icons.

I hope that makes more sense! Thanks!

[Floris]

We can not provide support for customized things like that.
Plus, custom forum status icons is a default feature in the latest builds of vBulletin.

[AffGuardDog]

Can you point me to information on that, then? And if there are custom forum status icons in the latest versions, how many are available and where are they update-able from?

[Zachery]

We don't provide the images, but the icons can be set via the forum manager per forum.

[AffGuardDog]

We don't provide the images, but the icons can be set via the forum manager per forum.

Setting them via the 'forum manager' makes them non-dynamic, which is my problem I need to have icons for each forum that I can set via database update that will show accurately after the update. Going to the forum manager makes updating the icons extremely tedious and makes the whole feature useless (for me, anyway).

[Floris]

FTP the icon to the web server
edit the forum and point it to that image.

Done.

[AffGuardDog]

FTP the icon to the web server
edit the forum and point it to that image.

Done.

Maybe I am not clarifying enough Because ftping the icon to the webserver and manually editing the forum to point it to that image is a VERY manual way to do something that I want to be automatic (i.e., pulled from a database).. so, for clarification, I Hope

I have a database... The database has (as an example):

Icons_Table
forumid, blnIcon1, blnIcon2, blnIcon3, blnIcon4, blnIcon5, blnIcon6

The Icons_Table would then be joined with the forum table (vBulletin table) in order to show the proper icons (which change ALL THE TIME).

I had created a program that would set the forum icons by inserting them into the forum database (vbulletin), but that did nothing. Unless, of course, I went into the forum administrator and save stuff that didn't matter.

Why doesn't the forum properly update when information is changed in forum vBulletin table? That makes no sense to me except for the possibility that it is caching in order to serve up information faster.

Is there any way to do what I want?

Even if someone told me I have to create a plugin (and, oh by the way - here is a guidline), integrate it into the forumdisplay template, and then pull the proper images that way.... I would be fine with trying.

Right now I had to write code to email me an alert when the icons change so that I can manually go into vBulletin to set the icons properly. That's a pretty crappy way to go and not much fun for a forum admin


Thanks again.

[Floris]

Customizing and editing your database manually is something we strongly recommend not to do, nor can we provide support for this as it falls outside default vbulletin support.

[AffGuardDog]

I'm not looking for support, though... just suggestions. I would think that someone here knows this software well enough to know how to do what I am trying to do.

You may have noticed that the table I am editing is my own, not vBulletin... so I don't think there is a reason for not recommending me change my own datatable

[Floris]

If you have a question
and are looking for the answer

That is support.

The suggestion you want an answer to is: use the built in tools, if that does not what you think it should, you can not do it. If you still want to do that you need to customize vbulletin. Something we do not support here, or can discuss. Try vbulletin.org

[AffGuardDog]

ok. no problem. I will go to .org and hope to get some answers.

Strange that I should pay so much cash for ALL my versions of vBulletin out there on my websites (owned and upgraded) and get told to go elsewhere. I don't quite understand the tone of this thread.

ugh. frustrating to me.