CMS Made Simple Forums

A high percentage of the 3rd party modules in the Forge have checksums that don't match, which makes it impossible to install/upgrade them via the ModuleManager. I'm talking about modules released in the last two weeks.

I have my own work around for this, that works most of the time, but for new folks this is an area of weakness we need to improve somehow.

The Forge needs quality control, but not in the form of a person to inspect or rate modules.

It needs some error checking built in to the submission process to make sure the checksums really do match when the module is submitted.
- Checksum matches
- zip or tgz is included as backup
- Files included with new projects

What kind of person, skills and assets are required to fix this?

From my experience, the reason for the mis-matched checksum is when a module developer releases an XML file with the same version number as the previous release... It seems that the forge only captures the checksum of the first release.

Good post kendo451!

I think the module repository is a source of giving CMSMS a bad reputation among some users (not that it has but see the comments at http://php.opensourcecms.com/ ). Newcomers do not know that the majority of modules projects are stale / alpha / beta / not version compatible etc, and get frustrated when they do not work and mess things up.

An "certified for version XXX" would really help.

An alternative to centralized quality control may be ratings from users! That could pretty fast filter out the good & bad modules.

Maybe a rating system included in the ModuleManager could upload our rating / comment, as most of us would otherwise be too lazy to go back and post ratings after installing and testing. It would also allow voting regardless of download method, and could ensure a maximum one vote per installation, and would allow some basic statistics of number of votes / installs.

Bad checksums; a feedback from the ModuleManager: "Click here to report bad checksum" which the module developer would need to do something about, to reset the counter to zero.

I figure the community is not helped with all kinds of good intended feature ideas for the Forge. This has been discussed numerous times in this forum and if you look for them there are plenty good ideas.

This community is only helped with a volunteer who is willing to do the job. Ted already sent out an invitation some time ago...

Jos wrote:I figure the community is not helped with all kinds of good intended feature ideas for the Forge. This has been discussed numerous times in this forum and if you look for them there are plenty good ideas.

This community is only helped with a volunteer who is willing to do the job. Ted already sent out an invitation some time ago...

Huge +1

It's been chewed numerous times and it is also not like DEV team wouldn't listen, as Jos mentioned Ted has already "called for action", who has idea, knows how to do it or knows someone who can do it, then do something and propose it.

Ok. The Forge is not part of CMSMS. So if you want someone to modify it, where can we obtain a copy of the code to play with? What software is the Forge running on?

Ted's post: http://forum.cmsmadesimple.org/viewtopi ... 11#p239711

"Good idea, it has been discussed many times before but we are short of people, do you want to join in?"

Volunteer based projects are always short of people, the successful ones are inviting, inclusive to newcomers. I do not think kendo451's post was in any way meant to criticize the developers. Certainly I was not, CMSMS is a great project! But I am not a coder, so I would probably do more damage that good there on anything to do with the repository.

I read Ted's post and it was very good. Things like that need to repeated over and over again; try to open more doors.

I am sure there are other things that programming needed in the project; that the core development team could be relieved of, thing like forum moderation, documentation, "marketing", fundraising, organizing whatever, I really do not know what is needed, what we newcomers can do.

My contribution right now is to provide feedback, submit some ideas and suggestions. Who knows, when I know the system better in depth, i can do some more. I could certainly provide feedback on 3:rd party modules if there was such a system.

kendo451 wrote:Ok. The Forge is not part of CMSMS. So if you want someone to modify it, where can we obtain a copy of the code to play with? What software is the Forge running on?

http://github.com/cmsmadesimple/cmsforge
http://dev.cmsmadesimple.org/project/code/316

It's written in Ruby.

Currently the forge is in the process of getting an overhaul...

But, before I say more to that topic, I need to warn you that the loooong reply you see down here contains a confronting message for a lot of people on this forum in general. I didn't write this because I particularly sense criticism here in this particular thread (the thread that brought me to this thread: http://forum.cmsmadesimple.org/viewtopi ... 22#p266322 however did make my hair stand up), but I really feel it's time that I open up my big mouth for a change. And I chose to do it right here. Why? Because the optimization of the forge has recently become one of my numerous tasks on my very long to-do list. I took it upon me to volunteer and to actually WORK on it, since no one else did. And - being responsible for our marketing and therefor also caring a lot about visual presentation - I too think it is important that the forge is updated, both in functionalities but also in visual aspects and usability.

The forge improvement project is done in close cooperation with Ted, and someone who didn't simply quack quack quack about how we - volunteers who spend numerous unpaid hours - SHOULD and SHOULDN'T do things, but simply asked me: "Hey, is there something I can do for you in regard to optimizing the forge? I have this and this skill and I have so and so many hours to spend on it." This was one of the most refreshing and inspiring mails I received in a loooong time.

FEATURE REQUESTS
And yeah, I did read numerous posts on the forum with suggestions about the forge. Do this, do that... Actually, the behavior of some people on the forum in general makes me want to log out and never come back. But anyway... Like with all technical requests:

Feature requests can be made here: http://dev.cmsmadesimple.org/feature_re ... osed=false

DEMOTIVATING DEMANDS DON'T HELP
When I need or want something from a developer, whether he is a fellow dev team member or not, and I think it's urgent, I simply ask for a quote and pay for it. Always have. If the job is so large that I can't pay for it all by myself, I get together with a couple of others of whom I know they would want that feature too, and we just put our funds together and pay the developer. Period.

We all need to make a living. It simply means that unpaid projects tend to land at the bottom of our to-do lists as soon as paid projects come in, so we can pay our rent.

So yes, overhaul of the forge is not happening "yesterday". It is a slow process.

It's like janaf says:

I am sure there are other things that programming needed in the project; that the core development team could be relieved of, thing like forum moderation, documentation, "marketing", fundraising, organizing whatever, I really do not know what is needed, what we newcomers can do.

HOW TO AND HOW NOT TO...
Some people on the forums are what we call in (and freely transtralated from) Dutch "captains on the dock". They all seem to know best how to steer the boat called CMS Made Simple, without actually being ON that boat, lacking any insight of the processes. I don't blame anyone for not knowing the internal processes. You have to be part of the dev team to have that overview, it's actually a huge endeavor. But none of these great captains ever care to simply ask: "Hey, I have this and this skill and I would like to contribute, what can I do for CMS Made Simple?"

No, instead of that I either see them posting messages all over the place about what needs to be improved (if I put it nicely) or when I do get a PM or mail message from someone, it's usually - again - TELLING me what WE SHOULD DO better. Never do they ask WHY things are in the sometimes not so progressive state that they are. They just whack ideas and suggestions in our lap and call us idiots for not implementing them yesterday.

MAYBE I'M AN ALIEN...
I wonder if it ever occurs to such people that they're not being helpful. I am all for feature requests and improvement suggestions, but I sometimes start to wonder if I am an alien.

Why? Because - even before I was a member of the dev team - understood that the programmers in the team must be working under a lot of pressure. Because all the work is done ON TOP of the workload of their regular jobs. Because I could imagine that they get literally dozens and dozens of E-mails every single day. Maybe I am an alien because I would actually send a friendly e-mail to a developer asking him what he wanted me to do, or what he needed from me, to process a feature request or a bug report I posted a long time ago... And if I still didn't get a reply, I would see if I could find the developer on IRC and would ask him if he would have a moment to talk to me or that maybe another time would be more suitable...

Neah, I really don't think I am an alien. Just a person with common sense. And actually, my approach worked. And still does.

WANT TO SPEED UP THE PROCESS? YOU CAN!
If people would actually raise funds for the overhaul of the Forge, we can put it on TOP of our to-do list. It would enable us to work on the Forge full time.... instead of having to take on external projects that have our minds, but not our hearts and passion.

If anyone in our community feels up to organize a crowd fundraising project for a speedy development of a better forge, he/she's invited to send me an E-mail at anne@cmsmadesimple.org.

IVORY TOWER? NO...
I don't live in an ivory tower, and I happen to have a phone and a Skype account. And I actually call people if they want me to, whether they are in Europe like me, or on the other side of the big pond. I gave up on time zone frustrations a long time ago.

I look forward to hear from the one who "steps up and does it"! Just as I always look forward to hear from people who want to know how they can help in the CMS Made Simple project...

AND "THANK YOU!"
And in this spot I also want to say a big thank you to all volunteers in this project who actually DO constructively support CMS Made Simple and donate their time, skills and efforts. You are highly appreciated!!! And I look forward to meet many of you in person again at the 2012 GeekMoot in Northampton: http://www.geekmoot.com

Anne-Mieke

A high percentage of the 3rd party modules in the Forge have checksums that don't match, which makes it impossible to install/upgrade them via the ModuleManager. I'm talking about modules released in the last two weeks.

Examples? which ones specifically? (hopefully none of mine. I have not had a problem with the XML stuff unless I do something dumb and upload a .tar.gz file as an xml or upload the wrong file or something.) I know some people have problems generating XML files, but have never been able to chase it down. Another person mentioned that some XML files were giving the error, but then the next day the issue cleared up... so maybe there is also an issue with the amazon service, or some library someplace.

I am more than willing to look into specific issues, if I can reproduce them... and to do that I need specific information. I will rarely ask for it.

Calguy, these are just the ones I've tested that failed checksums and had to install manually today (in alphabetical order):

AdvancedContent 0.9.1
GBFilePicker 1.3
MleCMS 1.10.5
MleDomains 1.1.1
MultiDomains 1.5.3
TemplateExternalizer 2.03

There are more, but I don't have time to re-test them all tonight and give you a comprehensive list.

I have tested them all on both LAMP and XAMPP, so I'm pretty sure it isn't me.

Someone noted earlier in this thread that the forge only takes the first checksum for a given version number. So if someone makes a minor change and uploads it a second time, the checksum doesn't get updated. But I am not in a position to verify that.

The reason I raised the issue here was because I am interested in finding out what it would take to fix it. Some people have time and skill, others have money, others can recruit the other two.

As it turns out, the Forge is written in Ruby and I don't have a Ruby developer on my staff. But I think we can pull together the resources as a community to solve this problem, and I'll do my part.

I realize that the dev team is not in the business of building forges or code repositories. They build this awesome content management system that has gradually grown from a volunteer spare-time project into a world-class CMS.

The transition is undoubtedly very taxing on the dev team who are not getting paid a nice fat salary to work on this thing. The product is free, and everyone who downloads it feels entitled to ask for more features without thinking about where code that works comes from.

So there is a need for funds and/or volunteer ruby developer to at a minimum fix the checksum bug in the forge - if it is a bug in the forge - and better yet, add some more comprehensive error checking for new uploads.

Anne-Mieke, I understand you've found someone with the brains, the brawn and the winning personality it takes to bring the Forge of our dreams.

What's it going to take to hire this Bellerophon?

Okay... there is a problem (I reproduced it with AdvancedContent).. but could not reproduce the issue with MleCms or TemplateExternalizer. They both installed fine.

Here's how it works.
- The forge outputs an XML file at a given URL that lists all of the files in the forge.
- Once hourly the ModuleRepository reads that XML file and finds out which files are new, and which files were deleted. It then deletes the deleted files from its database... and adds new ones.
- when adding new files it grabs the file from amazon and calculates the checksum and stores the help, and about and other information extracted from the XML file into the database. So that when a ModuleManager request comes in it can do a speedy response.
- When a download request comes in ModuleManager receives the md5sum from the database, along with the xml file (downloaded directly from amazon so that download counts can be reasonably accurate).

So... If a developer uploads a module XML file and then some time later (say an hour later or more) deletes it and re-uploads a file with the same name... ModuleRepository will give the old md5sum, compare it with the md5sum of the downloaded XML file... and generate an error.

This is fixable... not exactly sure how yet... but I'll have something by tomorrow.

Not sure what is happening with the other modules you are having problems with.... as I said 2 of them worked fine for me.

I just repeated it upgrading from ModuleManager with TemplateExternalizer 2.03 on CMS Made Simple 1.10.1 running on Linux Apache PHP MySQL and received this result:

Checksum error. This probably indicates a corrupt file, either when it was uploaded to the repository, or a problem in transit down to your machine. (expected 6c62330eb88911386fc2b91497d61598 and got db94af4b21c5330ccadf5d7e3e4871f5) (Troubleshooting)

Is it possible that PHP version could have anything to do with this?

PHP 5.2.14
MySQL 5.x but that has nothing to do with it