Multiple bugs in SuiteCRM 8.1.3

SuiteCRM Forum - English Language SuiteCRM General Discussion
1

I have installed SuiteCRM 8.1.3 on a hosted CentOS 7 computer running php 7.4 and MariaDB and am frankly amazed at the number of bugs that seem to exist:

  • The installation required multiple attempts, including having to manually edit one of the .htaccess files in the directory tree.
  • Linking an existing email to a user account in SuiteCRM does not work fully: (1) you cannot go back and review/edit the setting for an IMAP account that has been created; (2) creating an email signature does not work in that the signature cannot be saved.
  • Although I have told SuiteCRM to monitor not only Inbox but also Sent Items I am not able to see the latter, nor am I able to switch between folders like I could in SugarCRM. I have only been able to view the IMAP Inbox whereas in SugarCRM I could switch to the folder with the imported emails, My Emails. Cannot find it here. I cannot find My Sent Emails anywhere.
  • Sending an email from within Suite seems to work since I can check it in my regular email program but SuiteCRM gets stuck on some rotating icon.
  • When error messages pop up they contain so little information that they are useless.
  • Multiple icons etc show up as Undefined when I right-click on them.
  • Creating and editing contacts, leads etc is much clumsier than in SugarCRM 6.5 which was fairly efficient with respect to screen space. SuiteCRM wastes a lot of space, does not show the entire window etc.
  • It is much slower than SugarCRM 6.5x running on the same hosted computer.

Overall, I find this a gigantic step backwards and have to ask myself which business is prepared to fight all these problems? SuiteCRM is working /against/ the user/administrator. Do none of the developers actually use the product?

I have to ask myself if there is no quality control when a new version is released. Note that this is 8.1.3, ie an update of a minor release but it behaves more like a beta version that is not ready for general use.

2

I would still recommend using SuiteCRM v7.x for production projects.

The team working on SuiteCRM is way smaller than most people imagine. It goes slow.

3

Thank you for your valuable comment. I have one installation of 7.8.31 that is in use for another project but will move the project above also to the 7.x series.

Can you give me the advantages - and, more importantly, the disadvantages - of using a later version than 7.8.31 in the 7.x series for a production environment?

Thank you.

4

When I say 7.x, I mean the latest, so 7.12.x

That’s where all the security fixes and PHP upgrades are.

Some people stick with 7.8 to avoid the theme and email module changes, but that’s currently a dead end in terms of security. 7.12.x will have it’s problems, but it is still the most sensible option at the moment, IMHO.

If you’re going to use email, test everything carefully. But it can be made to work.

5

Got it. I will install 7.8.31 for this project as well and once that is up and running, make a backup and update to 7.12.x. to see how the latter version works. I have not dared to do that with the existing installation since it is much larger.

Thanks.