Contents

Chapter 2. Installation, Updates, and Support

Updates

Joomla tells you when a new version of PaddleSubs is out, and installs it from System → Update → Extensions like any other extension. You can also install the new package over the old one, exactly as in the section called “Installing”. Your products, Access Subscriptions, licenses, settings and email templates are kept, and the installer brings the database up to date. Customers keep their access while you update; webhooks that arrive meanwhile wait in Paddle's retries or in the queue. Updates come to sites activated on your license; see the section called “Updates and Your License”.

Updating from an earlier development build:

  • PaddleSubs has new permissions for what used to need only Joomla's Edit or Create: Grant access, View sales, Charge customers, Manage customers, Manage licenses and Assign user groups. Only Super Users hold them until you grant them, so staff who aren't Super Users lose the Transactions, Needs Attention and dashboard sales figures, and can no longer change Access Subscriptions or user groups, until you set them in the options; see the section called “Control Who Can Do What”. Purchases no longer add anyone to, or remove anyone from, a group of Super Users. Product categories now inherit PaddleSubs' permissions, which the installer arranges for existing categories.

  • PaddleSubs now updates through Joomla's own update system. Enter your Download Key and activate the site as described in the section called “Updates and Your License”. The new Installer - PaddleSubs plugin is enabled on a first install only, so after updating check that it is enabled.

  • The language strings were renamed to follow one convention. A translation or a language override made for an earlier build needs its keys renamed. Email templates you haven't edited are moved to the new keys by the installer; one you rewrote keeps your text.

  • A product's Licensing setting is now called Purchase Type, and is kept in the Paddle product's custom data as Purchase type. Your products keep their setting on your site; save each one once to write it to Paddle under the new name, which also removes the old Licensing and Stackable entries.

  • Earlier builds created an empty Access Subscription for every checkout that was started, paid or not. The installer removes the empty ones; only paid purchases create Access Subscriptions now.

  • Levels have an alias, used in their web addresses. The installer makes one from each level's name.

  • Levels can be put in order on the Levels page. The installer numbers existing levels in name order, the order the site showed them in.

  • Products can be put in order on the Products page, too. The installer adds their order and numbers existing products in name order, the order the site showed them in.

  • A product's prices can be put in order in its prices list. The installer numbers each product's existing prices in the order they were added, the order the administrator and the product's page listed them in.

  • Products and prices now keep Paddle's Type on your site as well, so that custom ones stay off it. The installer marks existing ones as standard. Custom products saved by an earlier build were missing from the Products page, since Paddle leaves them out of its lists: open the Products page, and each product's prices, once after updating. They show again, and PaddleSubs records each one's type as it reads it from Paddle. Until then, a custom product your site lists may still be offered on it. A purchase of a custom price your site knows is now granted instead of held; one held by an earlier build is granted when you click Try again on the Needs Attention page.

  • Purchases on hold now belong to an environment. The installer assigns those already held to the environment your site uses when you update; they are listed on the new Needs Attention page.

  • Imports now belong to an environment, so the sandbox can rehearse one without affecting production. The installer gives what earlier imports made the environment of the products and prices it was attached to, and the rest the environment your site uses when you update. See the section called “Rehearsing in the Sandbox”.

  • Every purchase is now one unit of one price. The price editor no longer has Quantity Limits, and saving a price sets its quantity in Paddle to exactly 1; the checkout always opens for one, and its data-quantity attribute is gone. Prices keep the quantity limits they have in Paddle until you save them, so open and save each price once after updating, or Paddle's checkout may still let a buyer change the quantity. See the section called “Price Settings”.

  • Licensed products have a new Sites per purchase setting, the number of seats each license gets. It starts at 1. A license bought with a quantity above 1 keeps its seats until it is renewed, when it gets the product's Sites per purchase.

  • The webhook secret key and Paddle's addresses are now entered on the new Webhooks tab of the options; see the section called “Setting Up Webhooks”.

  • Options inherited from Akeeba Subscriptions that had no effect have been removed, among them Sales off-line (put the whole site offline instead), the currency, the CRON secret key, and the terms of service and privacy policy addresses, which Paddle's checkout handles. So have five permissions that nothing checked, and the task plugins' unused Auto-scheduling switch. The task plugins are now named Task - PaddleSubs ….

Updates and Your License

Each PaddleSubs license covers one site. paddlesubs.com sends updates, and gives support, to the sites activated on your licenses. Nothing in PaddleSubs stops working on a site that isn't activated: it only doesn't get updates or support.

Procedure 2.8. Activate a site
  1. Copy your Download Key from your account on paddlesubs.com.

  2. Go to System → Update Sites, open PaddleSubs, paste the key in Download Key, and save. Every PaddleSubs page and the dashboard say To get PaddleSubs updates and support, enter the Download Key until you do; its link opens the update site.

  3. Open any PaddleSubs page. PaddleSubs asks paddlesubs.com whether this site is activated. If it isn't, the page says This site (www.example.com) isn't activated on a PaddleSubs license with the reason. Click Activate this site. Only users who may change PaddleSubs' options (Configure permission) can activate.

  4. Check it worked: the page says This site (…) is activated on your license, and the notice is gone.

A site is its domain: www.example.com and example.com share one activation. Sites on localhost, an IP address or a development name such as .test don't use your license. To move PaddleSubs to another site, release the old site on the Licenses page of your account on paddlesubs.com, then activate the new one; see the section called “Moving a License to Another Site” for how often a license can change site. The Manage your licenses link in the notice opens that page.

To switch updates off, disable or delete the PaddleSubs update site in System → Update Sites. PaddleSubs then asks paddlesubs.com nothing and shows neither notice, and the site gets no updates until you enable the update site again. Rebuild on that page brings a deleted one back.

PaddleSubs asks paddlesubs.com once a day, on the first PaddleSubs page or dashboard you open, and at once when the site's address or the Download Key changes. If paddlesubs.com can't be reached, it keeps the last answer and tries again an hour later.

Every update downloaded from paddlesubs.com tells it the site's domain, which the Installer - PaddleSubs plugin adds. In the browser that is the address you are using. An update run from the command line uses Joomla's $live_site setting, or else the address PaddleSubs last saw an administrator page on, so open a PaddleSubs page at least once on each site. A copy of a site, such as a staging site, reports the address it was copied from until you open a PaddleSubs page on it.

Why paddlesubs.com refuses an activation:

All your licenses are in use on other sites

Release a site you no longer use on your account page, or buy another license.

Your account has no active PaddleSubs license

The license has expired. Renew it on your account page; the site gets its activation back if the renewal comes within the license's grace period.

Your license has used up its site changes for now

Ask for a change on your account page.

This domain is activated on another customer's license

Contact support from your account if the site is yours.

This is a development site

The license doesn't allow activating sites on localhost, IP addresses or development names. Activate the live site instead.

paddlesubs.com has had too many requests from this site

Wait a few minutes and try again. The notice keeps the last answer meanwhile.

paddlesubs.com doesn't recognise the Download Key

Copy the key again from your account and paste it in Update Sites.

paddlesubs.com's activation endpoint and the update server's checks are being built in the PaddleSubs Bridges plugins; until they are live, activation answers "paddlesubs.com could not be reached".