My site is being shut down.

Well I have been running a free online gay personals site for a while. But I am shutting it down. Now I'm not shuting it down becuase I can't afford it. It was very popular from the start and grew fast. Problem is the software I was used. I purchased the dating script from datetopia.com. I purchased this software about a year ago. Support was very bad, took days to respond. First off the software comes with a ton of bugs. The software itself is encrypted which makes it nearly impossible to fix the bugs or add new features. Basically you have to code around the bugs and some features are not useable.

The owner of this product says bugs will be fixed in the next release which you have to pay for. And what do you get but new bugs. It took me over six months to fix everything, get the layout just right, and add new features of my own. Then just 2 days ago my software completely locked up. Warning messages appeared all over my site saying "License expired, Please contact for a new License". I'm like WTF?? So after 3 days of waiting for this guy to get back to me while my users went without a working site, he sends me the new License.

The new License turns out to be the entire package encrypted. So in order to upgrade the License and get the site working I have to replace all the site files with old buggy encrypted software. Meaning all the bug fixes and changes I have made over the last 12 months would be lost and have to be coded back in line by line which would take me another 6 months. I just don't have the time or energy to start all over. :cry:

DO NOT buy this software. YOU WILL regret it for the rest of your life. Just wanted to share that with you guys. This product I found out goes under different names including Match Agency, Dating Agent, and Datetopia. Avoid at all costs.

most unfortunate! , especially being a "software-issue!

jim

That really bites. Thanks for warning us. Any chance you can get another script and migrate some of the data?

dzinerbear

i'm sorry to hear this - it really sucks :(

i'd definitely try and find another script, or have one written for me!

What are you going to do with the database?

Sorry to hear you're having such grief over this!

Not sure if anything listed here would be a solution:

Hotscripts - Dating/Personals

Damn, that does blow. Your other sites are gone too eh?

Thanks for givin' us a heads up about those scripts, though. Will be sure to warn people about em whenever I get the chance.

Many of the things stated by outboy are false :

1.

Quote:

---

So after 3 days of waiting for this guy to get back to me while my users went without a working site, he sends me the new License.

---

The email was sent Thursday, May 19 2005 and the new package was sent Friday May 20, the next day (not after 3 days as you stated).

2.

Quote:

---

This product I found out goes under different names including Match Agency, Dating Agent, and Datetopia.

---

The statements are false again. Datetopia is not a product we sell - Datetopia is the website name :wacko: : Datetopia Dating Scripts and Matchmaking Software .
Dating Agent and Match Agency are 2 products but very different :
Match Agency BiZ is a complex matchmaking script we sell for $499 and Dating Agent BiZ is a personals scripts we sell for $139 (from the same series with the $99 Dating Agent PRO).

The Dating Agent PRO software used by that customer was very old and had a big security problem that had to be fixed – we sent the latest Dating Agent PRO package (with fixes) for FREE and also advised him to upgrade to Dating Agent BiZ or Match Agency BiZ just for the price difference if he needs better features in the future.

All packages expire automatically after about 12 months since the last upgrade (if the website is not upgraded for about 1 year). In that situation, the latest version available for that package is delivered including the latest upgrades, for FREE. That package never expires. This is covered by our End User License Agreement that each buyer must accept before purchase. Webmastes can request the FREE upgrade anytime after 6 months and the software will never expire.

On upgrade, only the protected core scripts need to be updated, not the customization files – webmasters can keep their changed templates, settings, new added scripts, database, images.

I don’t know what customizations/bugfixes did this webmaster lose as long as only the encoded scripts had to be updated (scripts protected from editing with encoding).

All data for our scripts is stored in mysql databases and can be easily imported/exported with a mysql tool like phpmyadmin.

Frist you fuck me over and then you come here and call me a lier?? You know I was just gonna post this here but now I am goning to go to every webmster board on the internet and expose your buggy crappy software for what it is, total crap.

Ok, don't listen to this guy he is full of shit. Don't take my word for it, go and visit his very own product board here.. http://datetopia.com/productboard/index.php You will see that I'm not making anything up.

When I purchased that package you sent send me a buggy piece of crap. When I complained to you about the bugs you tried to sell me a upgrade. It took me months to fix everything that was wrong with that software package.

Quote:

---

All packages expire automatically after about 12 months since the last upgrade (if the website is not upgraded for about 1 year). In that situation, the latest version available for that package is delivered including the latest upgrades, for FREE. That package never expires. This is covered by our End User License Agreement that each buyer must accept before purchase. Webmastes can request the FREE upgrade anytime after 6 months and the software will never expire.

---

Yes but to upgrade you have to replace ALL the scripts which turns out to be the entire site. The only files that can be kept in tack is the header and footer files. Which i'm sorry, no body puts content in their header, they put it in the body of their site, which had to be compeltly overwriten.

And this new software you sent me is exactly the same as the one you sent me when I purchased it a year ago. All the bugs restored. I would not call this a update.

Dude, you can't just argue your way out of this. All your software users feel as they got ripped off. Look on your site under Live Sites Links, they are all shut down, locked up, or bugged out. Read your own forums, people are steaming pissed. You software is a total rip off.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dzinerbear

That really bites. Thanks for warning us. Any chance you can get another script and migrate some of the data?

---

i don't know what I'm going to do, I'm to angry to think at the mommet.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by andymike

What are you going to do with the database?

---

The database and site is still intact. The site however is locked up with warning messages. Like I said I don't know what I am going to do with it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BDBionic

Damn, that does blow. Your other sites are gone too eh?

---

Yes, all my sites are currently off line. I'm getting a lot of supportive letters from my community. They are upset that my site is gone. Maybe when I clam down I can rebuild it with another script, one that don't lock up stupidly for no good reason. Or i my just try to sell the domain, I really don't know at this point. :(

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by outboy

Maybe when I clam down I can rebuild it with another script, one that don't lock up stupidly for no good reason. Or i my just try to sell the domain, I really don't know at this point. :(

---

id speak to allan @ auscoding.com and see if there is anything they might be able to help you with, especially as there are so many GOOD dating scripts available, it could be something as simple as converting your existing database in to a format that cn be read by another script.

As a side note, whatever you do with your database, DO NOT sell it at any price, once its sold to a third party, for all intents and purposes, that database becomes worthless to you.

Regards,

Lee

I wouldn't give up. The problem should be solveable. Perhaps put up a kludgy temporary solution, such as buying a copy of VBulletin (under $200, i think) for your members to post messages and keep traffic coming temporarily.

Then, one approach might be to get together with a bunch of other licensees of the software and have an attorney send an immediate demand that the company send you unencrypted software or source, since their software is buggy and they are apparently incapable of fixing the bugs.

This would be an offer to accept source code, along with a permanent license to use it, in lieu of extensive damages for loss and damage to your business goodwill and reputation. I'm no lawyer, but you might also have a claim against the software producer for the implied warranty of merchantability (if you buy a toaster, it will make toast; if you buy a personals site script, it will give you a working personals site.)

The idea being to say "Look, your software is crap, but rather than sue you into oblivion for the sudden losses and damages I've sustained as a result of your inactivating my software and forcing me into older, nonworking versions, I will allow you to simply divorce yourself of supporting me and your crappy script if you'll give me the code so I can get it fixed elsewhere."

If you can get the source, then (assuming it's a reasonably self-documenting language or the code was decently written and documented), a good programmer should be able to figure out what's going on with it and maintain it for you. Particularly if the cost of the programmer is split among a bunch of licensees, the cost shouldn't be tremendous.

One more thing: If the data exists within MySQL, as the coder claimed in his post, you can at least export it and bring it in to some other script. You might also be able, if you have the original, non-encrypted script, to have a programmer figure out a way to bypass the expiration code long enough to look at the data and export everything through the application itself, if it was build to provide that...


Hope that helps!

Chip

Well the guy is based over seas somewhere, so court is out of the question, not to mention to costly. My main problem being is I run a FREE site. What littel money I did make off partnership programs went right back in to cover hosting costs and such. I mean I make more than server costs but not the ammount to justify buying a new script or paying someone to script something for me. I mean this is allways just been a hobbie for me. I still have the database thou, so if I do decide to rebuild the site I could easily fire off a email to all my users and ivite them back.

As far as selling the database goes Lee, I wouln't do that for the simple fact that the person who buys it could easly take the emails and spam everyone. It would be a abuse of trust and just wrong on so many levels. i don't know, i'm just stressed out, I worked so hard on that site. That guy never said anything in his so called End User License Agreement about having to recode the entire site every year. Updating a license should not require starting over from square one. The fact that he don't see the fundamental problem with this is just sad.

I agree with Boyfunk. Don't give up!
- You had a good thing going, It was part of who you are!

Put up something temporary, to let your users stay in touch, like a phpBB board - free and installed in minutes!

Then let them know that you're working on reestablishing the service (NOW!)
But this time, use open software, that you can tweak or redo to fit your needs...

"Encrypted scripts" - bastards!

Hi outboy,

Hit me up when you get a chance, it shouldn't be too much trouble to convert your existing database into a format recognisable by a new piece of software.

Alternatively it is possible to code a custom dating site script for you but I would suggest that it would be far simpler in the short term to utilise existing scripts that are out there and work on something customised in the long term to ensure less downtime.

If you have any questions or need an estimate my ICQ is 254248475 or alternatively email me at allan @ auscoding dot com

Thanks everyone, I'm just getting out.

1.
Outboy lied about the emails and here are the email headers to prove that: :goofy:

The email we received from you (19 May):
hey man, my software stopped working and my users are pissed. My site address is outboy.com. Can you please tell me how to fix this asap.
...

Code:

---

Return-path:
Delivery-date: Thu, 19 May 2005 00:54:47 -0400
Received: from [205.188.157.35] (port=64641 helo=imo-d03.mx.aol.com)
        by leased.dnsbox10.com with esmtp (Exim 4.50)
        id 1DYd3T-0000Dw-5D
        for ntm@datetopia.com; Thu, 19 May 2005 00:54:43 -0400
Received: from InTristin@aol.com
        by imo-d03.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v38_r1.7.) id 9.147.45a7ee67 (57293);
        Thu, 19 May 2005 00:54:44 -0400 (EDT)
From: InTristin@aol.com
Message-ID: <147.45a7ee67.2fbd7614@aol.com>
Date: Thu, 19 May 2005 00:54:44 EDT
Subject: My site locked up, need help..
To: ntm@datetopia.com

---

Then we requested an alternative email address from you, because aol has some problems receiving script attachements. Here is your reply (20 May):

Please send to webmaster@outboy.com , thanks

Quote:

---

Received: from 205.188.144.207 (EHLO imo-d21.mx.aol.com) (205.188.144.207)
by mta306.mail.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; Fri, 20 May 2005 06:17:41 -0700
Received: from InTristin@aol.com
by imo-d21.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v38_r1.7.) id h.d7.26e9bd08 (3310)
for ; Fri, 20 May 2005 09:17:37 -0400 (EDT)
From: InTristin@aol.com
Message-ID:
Date: Fri, 20 May 2005 09:17:37 EDT
Subject: Re: My site locked up, need help..
To: projectsagent@yahoo.it

---

We delivered the latest package (20 May), the next day after your original request and the thank you message followed.
thanks

Code:

---

Received: from 205.188.157.36  (EHLO imo-d04.mx.aol.com) (205.188.157.36)
  by mta149.mail.mud.yahoo.com with SMTP; Fri, 20 May 2005 08:23:56 -0700
Received: from InTristin@aol.com
        by imo-d04.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v38_r1.7.) id h.1f9.a2a9ef0 (14374)
        for ; Fri, 20 May 2005 11:23:40 -0400 (EDT)
From: InTristin@aol.com
Message-ID: <1f9.a2a9ef0.2fbf5af9@aol.com>
Date: Fri, 20 May 2005 11:23:37 EDT
Subject: Re: My site locked up, need help..
To: projectsagent@yahoo.it

---

Quote:

---

So after 3 days of waiting for this guy to get back to me while my users went without a working site, he sends me the new License.

---

3 days after 19 May is 22 May, yesterday, 2 days after this topic you posted - the package was sent the next day, on 20 May, not after 3 days.

2.

Quote:

---

This product I found out goes under different names including Match Agency, Dating Agent, and Datetopia.

---

I've already shown in my previous reply that these 3 are not the same product as you state. Datetopia is the website that provides these products ( http://www.datetopia.com ) and Dating Agent ( http://www.datingagent.biz ) & Match Agency ( http://www.matchagency.biz ) are 2 different products - can be viewed at the links provided. Another false statement.

We have hundreds of customers and we are aware that we can't please everybody. Happy customers have no issues to post on the forums.

The script codes are protected and all customers know that from the beginning. The upgrade policy is also clearly written in the EULA customers accept on purchase.

DAP had a dangerous vulnerability that permited users to run malicious code on certain server configurations - that was fixed with the upgrade and also some other reported issues.

Not all files are protected. The layout files (design & links to website content), the homepage file (content), settings files, style files and payment processing files are not encoded - webmasters can edit and keep their source code.

Ok I sent the email late Wednesday night, Thursday morning, whatever. I will admit you got back to me faster than you normally do. However it's not really the issue now is it.

The issue is your selling buggy software and then forces your users to upgrade to new software and pay more money which is nothing more than a bug fix with new bugs.

Then you force users to install new software every year to update a licence that forces them to have to rebuild the entire site from scratch. Oh wait, you can save the headers, big deal. I would rather loose the headers than be forced to start all over again fixing your bugs.

You want some advice man? Fix the bugs in ALL your software packages before you sell them. And find a better way of updating a licence. How can you expect me or anyone else to have to rebuild and debug each and every time??

People are not stupid, they can read your forums and read the reviews you got on Hot scripts and figure out your software is a worthless piece of buggy crap. They don't need me for that. You dug your hole man, live with it.
And happy coustermers don't post on your forums? What about your live site links, They are all dead, broken, or locked up? So who are these happy people?

Hey Tristin,

We've talked before, I think you were using our chat rooms from menchats.com... I'm sorry to hear about your problems. We run a 100% free personals site too, at gaymeeting.com and are having some of the exact same problems. The person who made the script promised errors would be fixed and it is still so buggy! I was able to get some relief from my credit card company and I'm still trying to find a suitable replacement... How do these other personals sites run???

I guess running a personals site with no interest in making a fortune and only bringing people together hurts us both? :(

As i am not a programmer or even close to one I do not pretend to understand everything that you have said about the issues with the software. But I do however understand what its like to work very hard on something as you have done and to have it just fade away due to things outside of your control.

I would like to send my regards and to remind you anger is only temporary but true creativity and passion are forever. Hold on keep your chin up and know this to shall pass. I know its a few common quotes but I felt a kind word or two no matter the source is most often a good thing in times like this.

Kind Regards,

Mike
Webmaster FraternityGuys.com

Webmasters looking for fresh content. Click Here!
Contact Information:
Phone 616-890-0439
Fax 320-205-1417
ICQ 169-325-144
Yahoo fratguys_mike

That sucks big time.

Can anybody recommend a good script from a reliable company to run and manage multiple dating sites?

I think the rule of thumb is you get what you pay for. This guy who use to run a datetopia site contacted me and recomended I try WeBDate. He said and I quote.....

Quote:

---

My honest suggestion would be to scrap DateTopia and migrate to WebDate by Webscribble. We took Dating Agent Pro to it's fullest potential and it failed to handle the amounts of business we do, being traffic / upgradability.

The Dating Agent source is so encrypted so that we couldn't really write new features into it and the DB constantly was erroring out and corrupting on itself so we just moved to WebDate.

WebDate is far more powerful and offers an entirely new stable database and management interface.

http://www.webscribble.com.

---

I have never used or looked at this software cause i just can't afford to spend any more money on OutBoy. But i trust the guy who sent me that email so I thought I would share. And the problems he was having was some of the same ones my site had for the most part.

Another way to go is to pay a good web designer like Bionic Pixels or one of the others list on these forums.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by outboy

Well I have been running a free online gay personals site for a while. But I am shutting it down. Now I'm not shuting it down becuase I can't afford it. It was very popular from the start and grew fast. Problem is the software I was used. I purchased the dating script from datetopia.com. I purchased this software about a year ago. Support was very bad, took days to respond. First off the software comes with a ton of bugs. The software itself is encrypted which makes it nearly impossible to fix the bugs or add new features. Basically you have to code around the bugs and some features are not useable.

The owner of this product says bugs will be fixed in the next release which you have to pay for. And what do you get but new bugs. It took me over six months to fix everything, get the layout just right, and add new features of my own. Then just 2 days ago my software completely locked up. Warning messages appeared all over my site saying "License expired, Please contact for a new License". I'm like WTF?? So after 3 days of waiting for this guy to get back to me while my users went without a working site, he sends me the new License.

The new License turns out to be the entire package encrypted. So in order to upgrade the License and get the site working I have to replace all the site files with old buggy encrypted software. Meaning all the bug fixes and changes I have made over the last 12 months would be lost and have to be coded back in line by line which would take me another 6 months. I just don't have the time or energy to start all over. :cry:

DO NOT buy this software. YOU WILL regret it for the rest of your life. Just wanted to share that with you guys. This product I found out goes under different names including Match Agency, Dating Agent, and Datetopia. Avoid at all costs.

---

While I'm not sure of the "license" you originally obtained the software with, there is an old computer law about putting "time Bombs" in software that might be worth looking into.....you could squeeze him to remove the time bomb.
But again, it's a stretch....

sorry to hear this i just joined this forum, and never had much of a chance to use it yet, let me know if you reopen it again, or something else that comes close to it, it really was good stuff on here from what i had read so far, :cry:

I know of someone using web scribble's script and is having problems too... He said the quick search has never worked correctly and that the script maker doesn't fix it... I'm not sure what other problems he's had, but he didn't recommend using it...

ah ok, well like I said I never used it. But I'm sure it's better than DateTopia. Well hell, anything is better than that crap.

And dean79, OutBoy.com is back up and running on the buggy script. It's not as good as it once one cause all the mods I made over the last year are gone. I fixed some of the bugs so it's running ok. But it's currently for sale on EBay, the action ends in like 10 hours and then the site will be out of my control. I have no idea what the winning bidder plans to do with it. A few of the bidders have contacted me and said they plan to run it as a free site like it is now and use it to exclusively promote their pay porn sites. Which it's perfect for since it creates a captive audience. I think it would be a bad idea to try and convert it to a pay site, but it's up to the winner bidder what is done with it.

I'm glad you found an use for the FREE upgrade package we sent you.

Maybe you can also sell the website here :

Dating Webmaster Forum

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Datetopia.com

I'm glad you found an use for the FREE upgrade package we sent you.

Maybe you can also sell the website here :

Dating Webmaster Forum

---

Don't you mean the FREE downgrade package you sent me? Since it destroyed the site. Just like it has destroyed every other site useing your script? Nice dating forums you have there. Funny how none of them are using your script. You must be braindead man, if you think your selling a good product. and if you think anyone on these forums are going buy your buggy script your smoken crack.

These scripts may not be perfect but they get better and better in time because of continuous development. Dating Agent PRO is a very old package. Currently we sell products that are a lot better : http://www.matchagency.biz for example.

You can't please everybody all the time. A customer for example used Dating Agent PRO for a long time, then moved to a more advanced script provided by another company. He had to move to another script later and probably in the future he will move to other scripts also if he's not happy with the current one.
When starting a website don't expert to find the dream script from the beggining.

sounds like a POS script

:angel: We have just launched Match Agency BiZ v6.4 with multiple improvements including support for a blogs plugin.

:boo: Why don't you fix the old software before you make new software dude..

Datetopia.com, stop trying to push your junk here... I'm sure nobody trusts you, I take Tristin's word and I would NEVER buy your scripts... Plus, who wants to use anything made in Zend, why hide your code...? If I buy it I want to be able to make changes to it!

Thats BAd, Bad practice I hate it when softwares dont work and costs to upgrade

I use a directory script on one of my sites that suddenly flubbed up. It has an online administration panel. I did a dump of the entire directory to the hard drive (in ascii). Then after deleting and reinstalling the script I was able to re-up the files that I had customized from the dump and return things to normal.

You should be able to do this with most scripts and if they use a database you should be able to resume with it too as long as it is named the same in the re-uploaded script.

This thread has made me nervous. Now I have to go back and read the fine print for my script's license. I thought after the year I lose support... not the script :wtf:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tristin

:boo: Why don't you fix the old software before you make new software dude..

---

Already did that - check the Dating Agent BiZ - Personals Script. I consider it a lot better than the older Dating Agent PRO - Personals Software.

Match Agency was a lot better designed as structure and modularity and that's why it can get better and better in time.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by freegaypix

Datetopia.com, stop trying to push your junk here... I'm sure nobody trusts you, I take Tristin's word and I would NEVER buy your scripts... Plus, who wants to use anything made in Zend, why hide your code...? If I buy it I want to be able to make changes to it!

---

Because this is a topic on dating scripts I've just mentioned the latest dating software package we released.

Do you plan to open a dating website ? Did I ask you to buy my scripts and trust me ? No. .. I've just posted a link where anybody (if interested in dating scripts) can go and test a matchmaking script and make his own objective opinion.

Our scripts don't require Zend. We use a custom, inhouse made protection system. This system leaves customization files (templates, settings, custom payment gateway code) and the html code in the protected script files as source code - only core php code is encoded.

Even with expert programming skills is very unlikely that you could be able to make changes to a 700 files software package without a good training from the developers that built and designed that system. Match Agency BiZ is a complex solution, not a regular 50 files personals script.

If a protected script can’t be modified to suit your needs, then unencoded version couldn’t be modified either! Encoding has nothing (or little) to do with the ability for script to be customized. If script is not made with the ability to be customized, skinned, modularized, then source code would be of little value to you. You would have to have a LOT of knowledge, programming skills and the time to write a lot of customization code.

You can read more about Protected / Encoded Source Code - righ here .

erm, I read your little source code link thingy and I'm sorry, I just don't buy it. First off open source is 100 times easier to modify then encoded source. You act like there is no difference. Second, the fact that your source is encoded is not even the issue. The issue is your encoded source is buggy. Also, you have a time bomb in your script that locks it up after a year, which in turn forces people to start all over. keeping your headers intact is worthless since it only accounts for less the one percent of the script.

I managed to fix most of your bugs by coding around them. I changed the code on every single page and some pages had to be completely decrypted from scratch to get them to work right.

And your argument that Dating Agent Biz is the fix for the bugs in Dating Agent Pro don't hold any water either. Your still selling Dating Agent Pro on your web site with the bugs intact. And you don't mention that in your user agreement either honey.

Your comparison to Microsoft all most made me fall off my chair laughing. When Microsoft releases a product they release 100% FREE bug fixes and there software don't have time bombs either. Just like every other software company if they have half a brain cell. Microsoft is still to this day releasing bug fixes and upgrades for windows 95 which came out 10 years ago. You don't do this, you just release a new package with even more bugs.

Don't think for a second that anyone here is buying your horse shit. You are wasting your time here. Go back, fix your buggy software, take out that stupid illegal time bomb, and maybe you will have some ground to stand on.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Datetopia.com

Do you plan to open a dating website ? Did I ask you to buy my scripts and trust me ? No. .. I've just posted a link where anybody (if interested in dating scripts) can go and test a matchmaking script and make his own objective opinion.

---

Actually, I already run a dating site and I'm looking for software to start another one, but I'm glad I found this post... Tristin brings up very good points which never get addressed appropriately by you, and we can all see it. Thank god for forums like this, or I may have bought yours! :5ymca: