Late last year, we completed a massive transition from Ning 2.0 to Ning 3.0.
I was actually delighted with the process, given the amount of content we had to move over as ours would be one of the longer-running Ning networks still kicking around, and we've always had a lot of content that we didn't want to sacrifice.
We had considered moving to another platform, but we wanted to make the transition to a more modern experience for our users as seemless as possible and thought that moving to Version 3 would get us most of the way to where we wanted to be.
Then I discovered a major issue. The new Ning 3 site was logging users in as other members. This was restricted to a single page, but it still meant they could see direct messages and in some cases we had users sending us screen shots of admin controls including users email address. I notified Ning immediately and I would have expected a 24 hour to 48 hour turn around on an issue of this type. After a month there were some improvements, you can't see private messages as it seems to try and authenticate properly before showing it, but the fact is that loggin into a site and seeing yourself logged in as someone else is an alarming experience and has caused us massive damage in terms of user's trust. So surely, this would be a priority issue for Ning. Well, it didn't wake a week, nor a month, not two months - rather I'm still 3 months in and the last correspondence I've had was that there was no time frame for a fix. I run a software dev company and I have literally never experienced a bug that is so big it takes 3 months to fix, especially one that is security related.
I've been as patient as one can be. I've copped it from our users. I've had to hold off on all the big relaunch plans we had because I'm so embarrassed by this bug. My site is sporting related, and we made this move in the off-season when traffic was low. The season will start in a couple of weeks, and I'm looking at having all of that embarassment, as all our less-than-regular users return to the site and I literally have no indication that this issue can even be fixed. I really should pull the entire site, but it would be devastating to the community and of course, pretty much destory what has been 15 years for me in building up my brand and the site's following, which has already been harmed by the problem.
I'm desperate now. Our migration contact who at least seemed sympathetic to our plight has left the company and I cannot wait any longer for this to get fixed. I can only assume its a migration issue given that other people don't seem to be crying about it, so I would give a very big warning to any big 2.0 sites considering a move to 3.0 that this issue exists as I'd hate to see anyone else go through this.
Replies
Hello Phil!
First of all, I want to say that I am really really sorry for what is happening, I apologize on behalf of my Team, and I can barely imagine how frustrating this is for you.
I must admit, the issue with your site is very unique, it was the first time something like this happened during the migration, and we simply couldn't figure out the reason why. We have been trying to reproduce it in the sandbox and debug over and over again, unfortunately without any success.
However, we do have one idea in mind. Starting from now, we have completely disabled resolve cache for one day only in an attempt to see if the cache is the source of this issue. So could you please monitor the site closely for the next 24h and let us know if you can still reproduce the issue. If yes - please let us know right away, we have 24/7 customer support.
Looking forward to your reply!
Best regards,
The NING Team
Hello,
You had a issue on March 3rd. Has the issue been resolved? How long did it take? Thank you for your answer. I am considering migrating from Ning 2 to Ning 3 and this kind of information is very useful.
Hello!
Since the start of the migration, this is still the only network that faced such issues. Unfortunately, it took us a really long time to come up with the possible solution, but it worked - one we disabled resolve cache on this network this bug could no longer be reproduced.
And also, I just wanted to clarify one thing - the migration of the content is not a one-way road. It basically works as "copy and paste". You can return to your 2.0 network at any point (but please keep in mind that all new content that you and your users have generated on 3.0 website will remain there and will not be transferred to your 2.0 site), you can stay on 3.0 and cancel 2.0 network, or you can keep it as an archive. So if you dislike the experience on 3.0 platform you can always go back to your 2.0 site, but I would really recommend you to give it a try.
Best regards,
The NING Team