mybb / docs.mybb.com

The MyBB documentation.

MyBB

MyBB is a free and open source forum software written in PHP with support for MySQL/MariaDB/PostgreSQL/SQLite, licensed under GNU LGPL v3.

Learn more at MyBB.com →

Download

Go to mybb.com/download to download the latest stable, production-ready version of the MyBB forum software.

Documentation

Go to docs.mybb.com to view articles on usage, administration, and troubleshooting of MyBB.

Extend

Open Extend MyBB to download plugins, themes, translations and other resources to customize your MyBB board.

Support & Discussion

Visit the MyBB Community Forums and join the MyBB Discord server to get support and discuss MyBB. To learn more about support resources, go to mybb.com/support.

Security

View SECURITY.md for information on secure usage, incident recovery, and vulnerability reporting. To learn more about security research at MyBB, go to mybb.com/security.

Get Involved

View CONTRIBUTING.md for information on running MyBB locally, submitting changes, workflow, and best practices for working with the code repository. To learn more about contributing to the MyBB Project, go to mybb.com/get-involved.

Credits

Contributors

Some icons by Yusuke Kamiyamane.

Backers

Sponsors

docs.mybb.com's Issues

Anchors

The TOC/anchors don't behave as they should. For example this link: https://mybb.github.io/1.8/moderation/forums-posts/#toc_2 could end up broken and pointing to the wrong section if the order page content is modifyed or a new anchor is added above.
The 1.6 docs has anchors like #Adding.2FEditing_an_Announcement, however, in this new docs site we should use #adding-editing-an-announcement not #toc_2.

Incorrect images + hotlinking

Google buttons are incorrect: http://docs.mybb.com/1.8/administration/security/2fa/ Also, none of the buttons (and possibly other images in docs) should be hotlinked.

MyBB 1.6 Documentation links bug

So when you access to http://docs.mybb.com/1.6/ and click to common problems or faq, you got a list of sublinks for help. But clicking them, they lead you to error page.

Like here:
Common problems: http://docs.mybb.com/1.6/Common-Problems/
Click on any link lead to error page

Update versions/1.8.0.md (Has ancient information)

1.8.0.md is ANCIENT information-wise. It still talks about the release in the future tense.

Instead, it should use the release blog post to detail information about what came in that release - new features, etc. Almost everything that's currently in there (laid out the way it is right now) is probably going to get thrown away.

how to use HTTPS with mybb

it would be nice to have something in the documentation on how to use HTTPS with mybb.

I imagine we'd need to discuss these things:

• how to obtain a cert (let's encrypt seems the easiest)
• switching board URL from http to https
• proxying non-https resources using @devilshakerz dvz secure content plugin https://community.mybb.com/mods.php?action=view&pid=450

Add a new page for database connection refused

https://gyazo.com/0a96164ea30ad8513a7553a98ad036ac

We should add a page on how to fix that error, I see a lot of support topics relating to it.

Wrong SFS API registration link

Wrong SFS API registration link

Fix: #140

update links & remove dead links to mybbsecurity.net

some links need to be updated as well as removing the 5 or so dead links that point to mybbsecurity.net

http://docs.mybb.com/1.8/administration/security/recovery/

Theme development tips

Explain the development process of themes and some useful tips.

Some examples from internal discussion: template output comments, inspect element/ firebug, attachable base colors.

List of docs pages to be converted

Developers

• http://docs.mybb.com/Authoring_Templates_and_Themes.html

Usage

• http://docs.mybb.com/Index_Page.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Portal.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Forum_Display.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Thread_Display.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Posting.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Searching.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/User_CP.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Member_Profile.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Private_Messages.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Calendar.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Member_List.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Help_Docs.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Who_Is_Online.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Lite_Archive_Mode.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Forum_Team.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Statistics.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/RSS_Syndication.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Miscellaneous_Frontend.html

Moderation

• http://docs.mybb.com/Moderating_Options.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Warning_System.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Mod_CP.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Mod_CP_Forums_Posts.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Mod_CP_Users.html

Administration

Home

• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Home.html

Config

• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Config.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Config_Settings.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Config_Banning.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Config_Profile_Fields.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Config_Smilies.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Config_Word_Filters.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Config_MyCode.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Config_Languages.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Config_Post_Icons.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Config_Help_Docs.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Config_Plugins.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Config_Attachments.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Config_Mod_Tools.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Config_Spiders.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Config_Calendars.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Config_Warning_System.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Config_Thread_Prefixes.html

Forums & Posts

• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Forums_Posts.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Forum_Management.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Forum_Announcements.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Moderation_Queue.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Forum_Attachments.html

Users & Groups

• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Users_Groups.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Users.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Groups.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_User_Titles.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_User_Banning.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Admin_Perms.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Mass_Mail.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Group_Promotions.html

Templates & Style

• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Templates_Style.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Themes.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Templates.html

Tools & Maintenance

• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Tools.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_System_Health.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Tools.html#Cache_Manager
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Task_Manager.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Tools.html#Recount_and_Rebuild
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Tools.html#PHP_Info
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Backups.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Tools.html#Optimize_Database
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Admin_Logs.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_Mod_Logs.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_User_Email_Logs.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_System_Mail_Logs.html
• http://docs.mybb.com/Admin_CP_User_Warning_Logs.html

Pick up a task and cross it off when done.

Mail FAQ Uptodate?

Is the bottom of this FAQ still correct? I looked for mail($to... in functions.php and could not find it.

https://github.com/mybb/docs.mybb.com/blob/gh-pages/1.8/faq/mail.md

Expand 1.8/administration/security/2fa.md with setup guide, possible pitfalls

• Setup help/instructions, other than just a table with obnoxiously-large links to apps.
• Explain the 30-second precision and how timezone differences between server and client matter

I don't know what else, but a screenshot here or there in setup would also be nice, instead of endless text.

Detailed functions help docs

Been speaking with a good friend of mine and we both agreed that having extended documents covering the MyBB functions would be very useful.

Would and dev such as @euantorano or @devilshakerz etc be able to whip up a short list and we can all add to it as we go on?

Thanks!

Improve merge documentation

As I'm working on it atm I've found a few things we should change/add:

• The latest publicly released version of the MyBB Merge System only imports to MyBB 1.6.x. The version for importing to MyBB 1.2 is no longer supported. Nope - 1.2, 1.4 AND 1.6 aren't supported anymore :P
• Sometimes it may happen that you get a "Website not reachable" error while the merge (I got it with phpBB3, post module). This is due the Stack size, adding the following code to httpd.conf and restarting Apache fixes it.

<IfModule mpm_winnt_module>
   ThreadStackSize 8*1024*1024
</IfModule>

Edit: not always, see mybb/merge-system#112

• Update list of supported modules
• Add "use r&r" mybb/merge-system#31
• How To fix attachment permissions (especially those cause by .htaccess)

Note that @JovanJ and me will extend this list while working on the merge system.

PHP syntax highlighting

PHP syntax highlighting only works if the code snippet starts with <?php.

e.g. https://mybb.github.io/18/developers/plugins/how-to/

Attachments unavailable in translation docs.

As the title, attachments on translation page are unavailable.
To fix :

• https://docs.mybb.com/1.8/development/translations/#translating-other-items -> .psd groupimages_eng.psd (Size: 221.55 KB / Downloads: 565)
• https://docs.mybb.com/1.8/development/translations/#finishing-steps -> .html readme.html (Size: 11 KB / Downloads: 1414)

Also, have to update all links on that page to new community site from old mod site.

Move documentation files that relate to both MyBB 1.6 and 1.8 but are exclusively available under the 1.6 section

There are a lot of documentation files that relate to both MyBB 1.6 and 1.8 but are exclusively available under the 1.6 section 1.6 Documentation It would make sense to move them to the 1.8 section since 1.6 is end of life.

Mail error 554

posted wrong place

Suggest at least one Windows Phone app for 2FA

http://docs.mybb.com/1.8/administration/security/2fa/ could suggest at least one WIndows Phone app, for example: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/apps/authenticator/9wzdncrfj3rj

Port the old Database Restore documentation to 1.8

The old 1.6 documentation has a guide on restoring a MyBB database. This should be updated for 1.6 and should be fleshed out a little (with screenshots of the restore process within phpMyAdmin for example).

Also, the restore process should be described for other database management systems such as PostgreSQL.

Rename “AJAX” to “Using AJAX”

Consistency with the theme of titles starting with progressive verbs.

Secure URLs where possible

Edit - most taken care of in dbd0a06

Others that should be taken care of:

dev.mybb.com URLs can potentially be found on https://web.archive.org/web/20131029144443/http://dev.mybb.com

There are some other software URLs (you can find them by a simple "http://" search in a text editor, and they may be upgradable.

Most other URLs are example domains and don't necessarily need to be updated.

Update plugin hooks page for 1.8.6

I added two new hooks for the calendar while fixing a bug. As per mybb/mybb#2006 (comment) the plugin hooks page should be regenerated.

1.6 Database table links don't work

Here http://docs.mybb.com/1.6/Database-Tables/
Links don't work.

When I access to it, I got message "Unfortunately, the page you tried to access could not be found. If you were brought to this page from our website, please contact us with a description of how you came to this page. You can also search for what you were looking for below."

Merge 1.8.1 phpbb3

Converted my phpbb3 forum to mybb, however it left the emoticons in their phpbb3 HTML format. It also kept not migrating some users (not sure about the specific users, but on first try I lost about 250 from 2600, later this got reduced to 45 missing, checked by SELECT COUNT(*)... on the tables

Version overview links to wrong pages

The versions overview links to pages without ".", eg 1615 but the pages are named with ".", eg 1.6.15

BTW: the 1.8 page needs to be updated.

Remove classic links on versions/index.md from before the GH Pages move

A bunch of the 1.6 (and earlier) download links are to locations that no longer exist.

Self-assigning as I already have the line numbers for this and can fix it up today.

More outdated info

There's definitely more outdated info for 1.8, it just has to be checked.

Examples found just now:

• http://docs.mybb.com/1.8/translations/translations/#finding-translations links to old translations (the doc could be improved with the new 1.8.1 ACP translation features, too)
• http://docs.mybb.com/1.8/development/standards/#php-code-demarcation - we don't use closing tags anymore
• http://docs.mybb.com/1.8/development/cookies/#the-cookie-list misses many cookies (and acploginattempts is incorrectly duplicated, the 2nd should be adminsid)
• http://docs.mybb.com/1.8/development/contribute/#working-with-github-39-s-issue-tracker - Approved label is now Fixed (and there are more labels not described in the doc)
• http://docs.mybb.com/1.8/faq/logout/ - Cannot login and Cookies links are outdated
• http://docs.mybb.com/1.8/administration/security/recovery/#new-security-measures has outdated PIN info too (and the whole section is a duplicate which can be replaced with a simple link: http://docs.mybb.com/1.8/administration/security/recovery/#new-security-measures)
• http://docs.mybb.com/1.8/administration/security/recovery/#get-in-control - Spybot is not really the most recommended tool right now, it could be replaced with KVRT, Hitman Pro or anything similar

1.8.4 page needed

Page for 1.8.4 needed, as referenced in the release blog post.

I'll get this done, unless anyone else has already prepared it.

Move "Creating a new page" under its own subcategory

It doesn't have much to do with templates IMO, I wouldn't look for it there: http://docs.mybb.com/1.8/development/plugins/templates/#creating-a-new-page-action

Upgrade guide isn't working

I have just followed the guide in order to upgrade from version 1.8.12 to 1.8.14. Since this is a full upgrade I downloaded all the files and copied the files over (overwrite) the old ones. Afterwards MyBB isn't working and I am getting the following very unhelpful message:

MyBB Internal: One or more warnings occurred. Please contact your administrator for assistance.

And:

MyBB has experienced an internal error and cannot continue.

Please contact the MyBB Group for technical support.

So following the guide to the letter isn't working, but I don't know what the problem is in order to debug.

Plugins -> Templates Documentation (2 changes)

Change title of Templates to Creating and Modifying Templates

Move the "separate page" stuff (including misc) to a new page, such as Creating New Pages or similar.

Attachable Base Colors

New page on Attachable Base Colors. How to use effectively, what they are, etc.

Move/rename Extend site docs pages

(All of the below are within the Mods Site category already)

Project Contributors - Mods Site -to- Contributing to Projects
Project Owners - Mods Site -to- Creating and Managing Projects
Downloaders - Mods Site -to- Browsing and Downloading from the Extend Site
Mods Site -to- Extend Site Overview or Introduction

Progressive verbs tend to be the standard with online documentation, and is more in alignment with how people will skim for things.

Consistently style 404.html file

On the main website the 404 file seems to display correctly, but not on the documentation.
http://www.mybb.com/foo
http://docs.mybb.com/foo

Hide the Security Hall of Fame placeholder

Currently http://www.mybb.com/get-involved/security/hall-of-fame/ is not being used (will be in MyBB 2.x) - links from http://www.mybb.com/get-involved/security/ should be removed or the HoF page itself should contain an appropriate notice.

Bad heading "Error Message: Error" at 1.8/faq/errors.md

Should read something like "The installer is currently locked" instead, since that's at least relevant.
"Error Message: Error" is just pointless.

Antispam documentation

1.8 brought some nice features into the core. The Documentation does an awful job of highlighting them.

Here are some ideas:

• Purge Spammer
• StopForumSpam integration
• Captcha options
• AYAH
• reCaptcha
• "noCaptcha" reCaptcha
• Question/Answer
  • How to choose effective questions
• GD image (or maybe this shouldn't be documented anymore...)
• Allow website field for certain groups only
• Screenshots for various things

Tasks/cron job

mybb/mybb#2087

upgrade page improvements

1- add a small tutorial on how to restrict all access to the forum via .htaccess
2- provide the path in the admin cp to deactivate/disable all plugins prior to the upgrade

http://docs.mybb.com/1.8/install/upgrade/

Setting up a CDN with 1.8

Guide for how to configure CDN use within 1.8. It can be a really helpful feature for reducing request load on a server, so it's something that should be documented.

TOC fading effect

The TOC's fading effect is tacky and unnecessary. We should remove it.

Thoughts?

Location for cookie settings incorrect

http://docs.mybb.com/1.8/faq/login/

Currently:
Your cookie settings can be found in: Admin CP > Configuration > Settings >
General Configuration.

Should be:
Your cookie settings can be found in: Admin CP > Configuration > Settings >
Site Details.

Add stuff from dev posts 3 and 4 to versions/2.0.0.md

Post 3
Post 4

Unit Testing via CircleCI, use of gulp and Sass in development, the Conversations system, new User CP, profile field enhancements, selective quote, Markdown in addition to MyCode.

Self-assigning since this is simple enough.

your -> you're

Can't commit it now so I'll create an issue so that it won't be forgotten - http://community.mybb.com/thread-168939-post-1149879.html#pid1149879 (EDIT)

SSH Quick Install: incorrect or header missing

When reviewing the 'SSH Quick Install' instructions here: http://docs.mybb.com/1.8/install/ I ran across an issue running wget and curl I believe it may be due to a missing header on the server.

z@zap:~ % wget --content-disposition https://www.mybb.com/download/latest -O mybb.zip
--2016-07-06 22:16:16--  https://www.mybb.com/download/latest
Resolving www.mybb.com (www.mybb.com)... 104.24.8.55, 104.24.9.55, 2400:cb00:2048:1::6818:937, ...
Connecting to www.mybb.com (www.mybb.com)|104.24.8.55|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 301 Moved Permanently
Location: http://www.mybb.com/download/latest/ [following]
--2016-07-06 22:16:16--  http://www.mybb.com/download/latest/
Connecting to www.mybb.com (www.mybb.com)|104.24.8.55|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: unspecified [text/html]
Saving to: ‘mybb.zip’

    [ <=>                                                                         ] 503         --.-K/s   in 0s      

2016-07-06 22:16:16 (158 MB/s) - ‘mybb.zip’ saved [503]
z@zap:~ % unzip mybb.zip
Archive:  mybb.zip
  End-of-central-directory signature not found.  Either this file is not
  a zipfile, or it constitutes one disk of a multi-part archive.  In the
  latter case the central directory and zipfile comment will be found on
  the last disk(s) of this archive.
unzip:  cannot find zipfile directory in one of mybb.zip or
        mybb.zip.zip, and cannot find mybb.zip.ZIP, period.

Outputting the contents of the file, I see HTML:

z@zap:~ % cat mybb.zip
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
    <head>
        <meta content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" http-equiv="content-type" />
        <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; url=https://resources.mybb.com/downloads/mybb_1807.zip">
        <link rel="canonical" href="https://resources.mybb.com/downloads/mybb_1807.zip" />
        <title>Redirecting</title>
    </head>
    <body>
    </body>
</html>%

Referencing the wget man page for the flag:

--content-disposition
           If this is set to on, experimental (not fully-functional) support for "Content-Disposition" headers is enabled. This can currently result in extra round-trips to the server for a "HEAD" request, and is known to suffer from a few bugs, which is why it is not currently enabled by
 default.

           This option is useful for some file-downloading CGI programs that use "Content-Disposition" headers to describe what the name of a downloaded file should be.

Cross reference the response headers:

z@zap:~ % curl -I https://www.mybb.com/download/latest |grep -i "content-disposition"
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
  0     0    0     0    0     0      0      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--     0

Content-Disposition does not appear to be present, which could be the cause of downloading HTML using wget or curl.

cookie generator website

It might be a good idea to have an official mybb cookie generator website so its availability can be maintained alongside the mybb project.

Missing information in MyBB Documentation (Recovering a Hacked Forum)

Hi there,

I followed this instruction https://docs.mybb.com/1.8/administration/security/recovery/#change-the-default-table-prefix-mysql

But after I did this I almost got an heart attack because I now got the error message "SQL Error: 1146 - Table 'xx_yy.prefix_datacache' doesn't exist" 😁

Thanks to Destroy666 I found the solution in an old 1.6 post here (https://community.mybb.com/thread-150318.html).

You should urgently update this tutorial with the missing part of updating the config.php with the new database prefix.

Thanks

1.8 docs have misleading 1.6 info

As I mentioned long time ago here: http://community.mybb.com/thread-157558.html, at least several 1.8 docs have still misleading 1.6 info. For example http://docs.mybb.com/1.8/administration/security/protection/#fine-tuning-the-admin-cp mentions a tutorial for adding PIN to ACP..

Backup/Export Data Needs Clarification

Step #1 needs a bit of clarification in exactly where to go to disable Plugins.

This is the correct "drill-down" to find the Disable All Plugins setting.

AdminCP >> Configuration >> Board Settings >> General Configuration

"disable all plugins by navigating to Configuration"

Should be changed to...

"disable all plugins by navigating to Configuration, Board Settings, General Configuration"