Support

No, our source code is 100% unencrypted so you can make absolutely any changes you need. Additionally, the source code is very heavily commented with notes about what is happening throughout the code.

We've gone to great lengths to make SocialEngine incredibly easy to work with and customize. The entire source code is unencrypted and very thoroughly commented with notes about what's happening throughout the PHP code. We also provide fully commented HTML templates for every single page of the social network, including global header/footer templates and an organized CSS stylesheet.

Absolutely not. Unlike other products, we do not display "SocialEngine" on your social network in any place that is visible to the public. We would never let our product interfere with your brand.

Minor updates such as 4.1 to 4.2 are provided free of charge. These updates are released often - usually about once per month. Major updates such as 4.x to 5.x can be purchased for a small upgrade fee (usually between $25 US and $50 US) and include a massive amount of new functionality and improvements. As an exception, version 4 was provided free of charge to all current clients.

For complete server requirement information, please click here.

SocialEngine comes with English only by default. However, we include all of the language used on the system in a single language pack, which makes translation very simple. In addition, you can find third party language packs on our third party plugins page.

Yes, very easily! We include all of the language used on the system in a single language pack, which makes translation very simple. For more information about how to translate SocialEngine, refer to this documentation article.

We've worked hard to make SocialEngine an optimized, lightweight platform. The performance of the platform however is primarily dependent on the capabilities of your server. As with any web-based application, you may need to upgrade your server if your social network attracts a large amount of traffic. It would also depend on the activities of your users; for example, if your users are uploading large amounts of media (photos, videos, etc.) you may need to upgrade the disk space on your server. On most shared-server plans, SocialEngine should be able to support tens of thousands of users, while a single dedicated server can usually support upwards of one hundred thousand however we make no guarantee of performance due to the many variables involved.

The purchase of SocialEngine and all plugins are one-time fees and the license is valid indefinitely. We do not charge any annual fees.

You will receive your license information very shortly after purchase, after a brief validation to prevent fraudulent orders.

Absolutely. In fact, we never see or store your billing information on our servers. Your information is processed via 2checkout's secure payment gateway.

Yes. Once you purchase SocialEngine, you'll have the option of purchasing each plugin individually at your convenience from the Client Area.

Yes! You can purchase SocialEngine now and update your registered domain name later.

Because we provide a 30 day trial which is identical to the full version, we can only provide refunds in the case that SocialEngine cannot be properly installed on your server. This means that both you and the SocialEngine staff are unable to install SocialEngine properly.

Yes. We offer substantial discounts for purchases that include more than five licenses. Please contact us and let us know how many licenses you need.

Yes, we can provide substantial discounts for multiple license purchasing. Please contact us using the contact form with information on how many licenses you're interested in purchasing and whether you are purchasing on behalf of a web development firm. We will respond promptly with a price quote.

We provide complimentary support for 30 days in the form of an online ticketing system. Our excellent team of in-house support personnel are extremely knowledgeable and dedicated to providing the highest level of customer service.

Our support team will assist with initial Software installation, general questions related to the script and technical errors encountered during the normal use of unmodified script. We cannot assist with customization of the script.

We offer 30 days of complimentary support with your purchase. You can extend the support in 1 month blocks for a nominal fee.

Response times vary based on ticket volume but we do our best to respond to all tickets within several hours during business hours, or the next business day if submitted during off hours.

Yes, once your support expires you can purchase extended support in blocks of 1 month for a nominal fee.

We do offer an upgrade installation service, however we do NOT re-apply any customizations you've made after our installation. As part of the upgrade process, we will backup your original files to allow you to reapply your customizations after the upgrade is complete.

Our support is only offered through a ticket based system at this time. We've found this method to be the most efficient means to assist customers since it allows issues to be easily tracked and relevant information to be indexed.

The purchase of a SocialEngine license is a one-time fee, and entitles you to the complete unencrypted source code for use on one domain.

Each license is valid for a single public installation of the software, regardless of domains. You are of course welcome to create a private copy for development purposes.

Yes, every installation of SocialEngine requires a license. However, you are entitled to create a second private installation for development purposes provided it's not publicly accessible.

We do not currently offer a license which entitles you to use SocialEngine an unlimited number of times. Each installation requires its own license.

SocialEngine licenses are non-transferable. Our website, SocialEngine.net, is the only legal source of SocialEngine licenses. By purchasing from third parties, you also risk missing out on the great support and software updates from the SocialEngine team. If in doubt, please don't hesitate to contact us regarding the legitimacy of a license or to report a reseller.

Yes, you're free to sell your website but not your SocialEngine license since the licenses are non-transferable. In other words, if you choose to sell your website which contains a SocialEngine license on it, the new owner would need to purchase their own license. What many clients do is simply incorporate the cost of the new license in to the sale price of the website and purchase a new license on behalf of the new owner.

If you're still running the trial version and want to upgrade to the full version, follow the instructions provided in this documentation article: http://www.socialengine.net/support/documentation/article?q=148&question=Upgrading-Your-Trial-to-a-Fully-Licensed-Installation

The trial is set to work for 30 days from the time it's requested. After 30 days an error message will be displayed on the website indicating that the license has expired, but all your data is safely stored in the database. You'll be able to continue right where you left off by installing the full version over the trial.

Nope! When you purchase the full version, all user data and settings will be retained from the trial because they're stored in the database.

You may be seeing an error like this:

Site error: the file /Users/aaaa/files/install.php requires the ionCube PHP Loader ioncube_loader_dar_5.2.so to be installed by the site administrator.

This error means that none of the IonCube loaders we've included in the trial work for your operating system or that IonCube is not properly installed. To find the loader that works for your OS, please visit this page: http://www.ioncube.com/loaders.php

Make sure that you've uploaded license.txt (which was attached to the email you received from us after requesting your trial) to the directory on your server in which you've installed the SocialEngine Trial. Try uploading in BINARY mode, and failing that, ASCII mode. If you still receive an error message, you can try setting full permissions (CHMOD 777) on license.txt or try changing it's owner to "php" or "apache" or "root".

This means that you have likely not set the proper permissions on your files, per the installation instructions. Please be sure the proper permissions are set, including 755 on license.txt.

To install SocialEngine on your server, follow the instructions provided in this Documentation article: http://www.socialengine.net/support/documentation/article?q=125&question=Installing-SocialEngine

This depends on what type of customizations you've made. If you've simply created new files and linked to them from SocialEngine, it's unlikely that you will lose any customizations you've made. If you've edited the core SocialEngine code and you overwrite it with the new files from the upgrade package, you may lose your customizations. To avoid this, you can choose to skip the overwrite process when you install your packages. If you want to ensure that you don't lose any changes you've made, you can use a file comparison program to compare your files with the newly updated ones. Regardless of the changes you've made to your source code, it's unlikely that you will lose any of your admin panel settings when you upgrade. Never-the-less, always take a full site backup before you begin.

Absolutely! You can install SocialEngine on any location on your server.

First, check to see if your new host provides a migration service. If they do not, you can move the installation yourself by exporting your MySQL database using cPanel or PHPMyAdmin, downloading all your SocialEngine files to your computer desktop, importing your MySQL database on your new server, and uploading your SocialEngine files to the new server. Remember to set the proper permissions on the new server.

If you've decided to add our professional installation service to your purchase, please login to your client area and click the button at the top of the screen prompting you to "Configure Your Installation Request". Follow the instructions in the form to submit your installation request ticket. After we receive your login credentials, your installation will generally be completed within 1 business day, however it is often completed within hours.

We are not offering customization services at this time. However, we can recommend several customization firms that specialize in SocialEngine development here. Additionally, you can post your project to our project request board for developers to bid on.

We recommend:

File Comparison: WinMerge (for TortoiseSVN or standalone), TortoiseMerge (comes with TortoiseSVN), SourceGear DiffMerge (Mac OSX)
FTP Client: Filezilla
Revision Control: Subversion (SVN), TortoiseSVN
Telnet/SSH Client: PuTTY
Text Editor: http://www.pnotepad.org/

Some other programs and resources for finding other programs:
File Comparison: Wikipedia
Image Manipulation: Adobe Photoshop, GIMP

We are thrilled that you're enjoying SocialEngine! If you would like to write a testimonial about how you've utilized SocialEngine for your project, please feel free to send it through our contact form. With your permission, we will publish your name, website URL, and testimonial on the SocialEngine website - unless you would prefer to keep any of these items private.

We do offer a Reseller Program that allows certain types of companies to resell SocialEngine to their clients. If you qualify, you will receive 20% off each purchase you make on behalf of your clients. Even if you don't qualify for the Reseller Pogram, you sign up for an affiliate account you will be entitled to a 15% commission for every customer you refer to purchase our product through our website. The affiliate account signup is available here.

Although we appreciate the offer, we are not bartering at this time.

If there is an official release date, you can find it on our blog or our newsletter. If there is no announcement in one or both of these places, a release date has not been set.