META App not working

Submitted by Shop Smart Sho… on

The android version of the app hasn't been working for the last several days for me on my older Asus tablet, and then last night it wouldn't work on my Samsung Galaxy S5.  It will open and display the front page and the board, but when I pull down to refresh, it doesn't do anything.  I've uninstalled and reinstalled multiple times on each device, and the tablet finally started working, but the phone isn't.

Also, I've noticed that you can't move between the board, diaries, and main page on the tablet while holding it in landscape.

 

Seth

February 8th, 2017 at 10:12 AM ^

Works for me on Galaxy S7. I'm looking into it for you. In the meantime, do all those things that they always tell you to do when an app's not working (restart, clear cache, sacrifice four live chickens, etc.)

NYC Fan

February 8th, 2017 at 11:04 AM ^

Why haven't you guys come out with an update around the status of this site?  If I recall correctly, you are similar to a business manager for MGoBlog so you should be in the loop.  I don't understand the privacy around preventing people willing to pay for much needed upgrades to a site they frequent.

austinnt

February 8th, 2017 at 12:57 PM ^

I approached Brain a year ago with a new site concept and let him know that I'd help him upgrade at a reduced rate. He wrote back at first saying he was interested and sent me the source code for the current Mgoblog. I never heard back from him again, but didn't continue to persuit it because I already had some other big jobs in the pipeline.

However, here are the major issues regarding the upgrade in my opinion. First, Mgoblog is built on Drupal (which in my opinion is even more of a memory hog and hard to work with than Wordpress). With the scale of this site, I believe another platform (and language, as PHP is horribly slow) would be more beneficial if an upgrade is to happen. Brian, however, is partial to Drupal and wants to upgrade it to Drupal 7/8. I have looked over the 20+ custom plugins he's using for Drupal 6, and it will be a nightmare to rewrite them all to work with newer versions of Drupal. That is one of the reasons the site is as slow as it is. You could pump more money into better servers, but the site is just incredibly inefficient. Even if Mgoblog was converted to Drupal 7/8, it would still be slow if you continued to pack on large amounts of plugins as is done now. Honestly, creating a blog built on Ruby, C# or Node.JS would make this site much faster and more stable. 

Also, I see a lot of people complain about the board not being able to properly paginate (can't click on page 2) and not being able to use the pagination in the sidebars. This is easily fixable, as I was able to fix it on the sandbox server I set up with Mgoblog. I alerted Brian on how to fix it, but never heard back. There may be a legitamite reason he hasn't done so, as it could negatively effect something I didn't see, but it's litterally a checkbox change in Drupal's settings.

Anywho, I think that an upgrade would be too cost intensive for what Brian is working with. I think that a complete redo would be way more cost effective, but I don't think that's something Brian wants or will do. 

MaryStreet

February 8th, 2017 at 1:05 PM ^

So sadly, it almost sounds like an overhaul of the site, while needed, is too expensive and complex for the team to bite off? It doesn't sound like the cost of the upgrade is going to be justifiable to the staff until another board comes along that starts eating into their revenues. 

 

Sad!

I Like Burgers

February 8th, 2017 at 1:20 PM ^

Good info, and that's kind of what I've always suspected.  That the site is just too ancient to be reasonably upgraded and that a complete overhaul is necessary.

To me, it seems like he's going to have to take the plunge one of these days.  Otherwise as the net continues to evolve, he is going to get left behind.

Seth

February 16th, 2017 at 10:30 AM ^

FWIW we've had several people approach us that I've been cc'ed on. We're in the process of a total site revamp on Drupal 8 and Brian has already thrown more money at it than he pays me, so it's definitely somewhere between MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE UNIVERSE and having a guy to manage all of the advertising and podcasts and relationships and write nerdy articles about cool plays and databases, whatever that's worth.

redwhiteandMGOBLUE

February 8th, 2017 at 10:46 AM ^

But I do agree, the landscape mode is an issue. If you rotate to portrait mode you can the open the menu, rotate back to landscape (the menu will stay open) then you can access mgoboard. This is just a workaround and has to be done every time to access the menu/change between boards.

Artie

February 8th, 2017 at 10:21 AM ^

Yeah, it's bad. About 90% of my posts don't end up posting. The little delay between opening up the board or main page and actually being able to open up a thread is quite annoying as well.

Yung Geezer

February 8th, 2017 at 11:28 AM ^

When you see that message, push your home button.  Then instead of clicking the app again, hold it down so it gives you options.  Then go straight to the message board or anything else and it will work perfectly! Try it out

Lee Everett

February 9th, 2017 at 12:08 AM ^

Anyone who wants to try this trick who deleted their app:

Go to App Store on your phone

Go to Updates in the bottom right corner

Press Purchased

Scroll up and find the search bar.  

MGoBlogHD will still be there and you can still download it.

Tell me if his trick works.

 

If you have a 6s or 7, tell me if it works after you retrieve the app

Lee Everett

February 8th, 2017 at 9:37 PM ^

Anyone who wants to try this trick who deleted their app:

Go to App Store on your phone

Go to Updates in the bottom right corner

Press Purchased

Scroll up and find the search bar.  

MGoBlogHD will still be there and you can still download it.

Tell me if his trick works.  My iPhone 6 is being repaired right now so I'm using an old iPhone 4 (lol), but I can't wait to try it out when it's ready.

Hitman

February 8th, 2017 at 10:30 AM ^

Get used to the apps not working, its a regular occurance. Funny about how all the negativity about the iOS HD App was swept under the rug with NSD. Still pissed its gone. "Official" iOS app is a joke. HD App was far superior. 

Drbogue

February 8th, 2017 at 2:08 PM ^

Totally agree. The HD app was great. I couldn't post a new topic on it, but could reply and the video/content was so much easier to load/read/etc. On an iPhone, the iOS basic app is the pretty much the lamest app on my phone. It's slow, crashes constantly, and never posts my replies. 

 

I Like Burgers

February 8th, 2017 at 11:11 AM ^

Agreed.  The end result has been I usually only visit MGoBlog during work hours and not at all on the weekend.  The official app is garbage and I refuse to use it, and trying to use the site on mobile is even worse.

So.....good job MGoStaff.  You've created less engagement.

UM Fan from Sydney

February 8th, 2017 at 10:39 AM ^

Yup. I have come across that several times on my iPhone. I post a comment and it doesn't show. It's garbage. Safari works just fine, of course.

MH20

February 8th, 2017 at 10:37 AM ^

The Android app is working as expected on my Note 4.  Haven't had any crashes or glitches in quite some time.  The interface ain't pretty and it's not overly functional but it does work.

UM Fan from Sydney

February 8th, 2017 at 10:38 AM ^

The HD app is far and away better and it is missed. I use the app simply to read and if I want to post a comment, I just use Safari.

Moleskyn

February 8th, 2017 at 10:41 AM ^

If this message appears, it means the app is working on my Galaxy S7. Personally, the only times I've had issues with the Android app are around the time when something major is taking place and there's an increased load on the servers. And by issues I mean posts don't load and the board doesn't refresh.

Yung Geezer

February 8th, 2017 at 10:58 AM ^

The not supported popup shows the first time you open it.  But if you click your home button and hold the app and go straight to the message board for example, works fine just like it always has.  You have all been hoodwinked

 

This is confirmed for iphone with pressure touch capability 

 

YW

 

 

 

mGrowOld

February 8th, 2017 at 11:08 AM ^

I can tell you my visits here have dropped a TON since that ap was blown up.  I hate, hate, HATE the "official" one and because I clear my phone's cache and memory frequently I have to re-enter the password everytime I go in through the normal portal instead of the shitty ap we're forced to use right now.  

During the day I'm normal on posting cause I'm sitting at my desk pretending to work.  But in the bathroom, in my car and after work sitting at home watching TV my visiit frequency has gone to about zero.

If anyone cares.

I Like Burgers

February 8th, 2017 at 11:18 AM ^

Same exact thing for me.  I'm still on the blog when I'm at work (like now), but at home and on the weekends it almost never happens.  I've tried using the site on mobile web, but it is so insanely tedious -- constantly having to zoom in and out and pan around, and typing a comment is awful too -- I'm pretty much done with that too.

And frankly, I don't even know if I would donate to upgrade the site or the app anymore.  Lost a lot of faith in the guys here over that.

I Like Burgers

February 8th, 2017 at 1:27 PM ^

Sure, you can use the site on a mobile browser, but its a pretty terrible experience because the site doesn't have a mobile version of itself.  So you're left with constantly having to zoom and pan.  And posting a comment is even worse since the text box doesn't size to fit with the screen.  So you have to pan to the side when whatever you're typing goes off the screen.

If you never used the MGoBlog HD app, you really don't know what you were missing out on.  It was a better version of the site itself in just about every way.