Two Prestashop 8.1.1 versions (applies also to later versions)

[musicmaster]

As you may have noticed Prestashop is no longer an independent company. The last two years it has been part of a bigger company. This company increasingly pushes to get more revenue from Prestashop. The advertising on this forum is the most visual symptom of that.

Another symptom is that there are now two versions of Prestashop 8.1.1 to download. On the Prestashop website you can download the "PRESTASHOP EDITION BASIC" with a size of 114 MB. On Github you can download a version of 80 MB.

The difference is that the "Edition Basic" contains 11 modules extra. Here is an overview:

 - commercial partners (klaviyopsautomation, ps_checkout, psxmarketingwithgoogle, ps_facebook, mbeshipping)

 - gamification

 - ps_mbo: Marketplace in the Back Office: the second entry in the admin Modules menu.

 - ps_accounts: leads your login via the Prestashop website. Problematic when you need to have more than one login account ("employee"). When you find yourself unable to update other modules ("Could not perform action update for module undefined") this module may be outdated. You can circumvent this module by clicking on the small link to an "other" login method. 

 - ps_edition_basic: I am not sure what it is for. It is not important. It is a major source of problems as it requires PHP 8.1 and thus torpedoes compatibility with older PHP versions.

In PS 8.1.5 and 8.1.6 you may see just after the installation a warning that ps_edition_basic needs to be updated. In my case I chose to do that and the call failed. I suspect that it somehow requires you to have an account on the Prestashop website. Unfortunately I don't know an url where you could download this module in order to install it yourself. In the Modules page in the backoffice the module is not marked as needing an upgrade. Anyway, you can click the warning away and use th shop without upgrading the module.

 - ps_eventbus: this is some software library for sequencing tasks. It is used by other modules, including ps_facebook. For that reason removing is not recommended. It creates a ps_eventbus_incremental_sync database table that can grow very big and may need to be truncated sometimes. Search the forum for more info.

 - ps_metrics: provides some statistics and info about your shop. This is a Prestashop service. The first month is free. After that you have to pay.

 - psassistant: this module was added in 8.1.2 a few weeks after the version had been introduced (yes, Prestashop makes small changes to a release in the course of time). I suppose that it enables Prestashop to give you remote support.

The core version of Prestashop is maintained by the Prestashop project with Github https://github.com/PrestaShop. The extra modules are maintained by the Prestashop company with Github https://github.com/PrestaShopCorp

During an upgrade always the Github version is used. The Prestashop modules must be updated separately. If you want use an older version than the latest you can find it here. This page shows also the XML file that you will need for the 1-click upgrade module.

If anyone has additional information, please write here below.

If you want to install Prestashop with older PHP versions you should either take the Github version or take the Edition Basic version and allow it to fail the first time. You can then delete the ps_edition_basic module under the Modules directory and then click the link to retry the installation.

Edited Sunday at 08:01 PM by musicmaster (see edit history)

[Nickz]

thx great info.

[Zohaib-fk]

Thanks. Information is useful. I hope there might be a documentation link in PrestaShop documentation about these different versions of information.

[manu.tecinet]

Which version do you recommend to use?

[musicmaster]

On 9/27/2023 at 9:53 PM, manu.tecinet said:

Which version do you recommend to use?

My recommendation would be to make a selection. I really dislike ps_accounts. But ps_facebook is useful and for that you also need ps_eventbus.

When you install Prestashop gives you nowadays the option to select modules. So as long as you want some of the modules I would take the basic edition and use this option to take what you need.

[fredfinger]

Thank a lot for this useful info. I would have saved time if I had read it before. Having two different versions with the same name, how is it possible ? Will the "independant" version continue to be maintained  in the future ? 

[musicmaster]

47 minutes ago, fredfinger said:

Thank a lot for this useful info. I would have saved time if I had read it before. Having two different versions with the same name, how is it possible ? Will the "independant" version continue to be maintained  in the future ? 

It is an organizational issue. Prestashop is released under an opensource license and the new owner wanted for some reason a sharper distinction between the opensource activities and the rest of the company. But many of the contributions to the opensource software are still being made by Prestashop employees. So I don't expect any real split in the future.

[Nickz]

As MB Etc. looks sharply over to what happens in Shopware it could be pretty fast that we see a difference.

Shopware is planning a 700 € plus monthly so I read someplace else.
Management which lives in some clouds above everyone else head crunching numbers. 

Edited December 28, 2023 by Nickz (see edit history)

[ahmad012]

The new owner of Prestashop desired, for unclear reasons without downloading WhatsApp GB, a clearer separation between the open-source initiatives and the rest of the business. Prestashop is provided under an open-source license.

[Thedoros]

Hello, I probably accidentally installed Prestashop 8.1.3 with Basic Edition. But I have a problem. The upgrade make a problem. After upgrading via 1 Click Upgrade to 8.1.4. the Basic Edition module will stop working. It actually gets deleted. Then the administration looks like the classic version of Prestashop, with the difference that it disappears from the Dashboard menu. My start page is then orders. Is there a special upgrade module for the Basic Edition version? Thank you

[Nickz]

6 hours ago, Thedoros said:

My start page is then orders. Is there a special upgrade module for the Basic Edition version? Thank you

pretty hard to understand. How about looking for an alternative to Prestashop? Eolia, Thirtybees, Magento there are more alternatives out there.

[Thedoros]

9 minutes ago, Nickz said:

pretty hard to understand. How about looking for an alternative to Prestashop? Eolia, Thirtybees, Magento there are more alternatives out there.

Prestashop is a good system. I have mostly good experience with him for many years. however it is an upgrade issue. If the system is running well, there is no point in updating it. Every update is a lottery. in my experience. there is a lot of problem with that. i need to make money and not surf google looking for technical solutions.

[Dessert Bar]

On 9/27/2023 at 4:27 PM, musicmaster said:

As you may have noticed Prestashop is no longer an independent company. The last two years it has been part of a bigger company. This company increasingly pushes to get more revenue from Prestashop. The advertising on this forum is the most visual symptom of that.

Another symptom is that there are now two versions of Prestashop 8.1.1 to download. On the Prestashop website you can download the "PRESTASHOP EDITION BASIC" with a size of 114 MB. On Github you can download a version of 80 MB.

The difference is that the "Edition Basic" contains 11 modules extra. Here is an overview:

 - commercial partners (klaviyopsautomation, ps_checkout, psxmarketingwithgoogle, ps_facebook, mbeshipping)

 - gamification

 - ps_mbo: Marketplace in the Back Office: the second entry in the admin Modules menu.

 - ps_accounts: leads your login via the Prestashop website. Problematic when you need to have more than one login account ("employee"). When you find yourself unable to update other modules ("Could not perform action update for module undefined") this module may be outdated. You can circumvent this module by clicking on the small link to an "other" login method.

 - ps_edition_basic: I am not sure what it is for. It is not important. It is a major source of problems as it requires PHP 8.1 and thus torpedoes compatibility with older PHP versions.

 - ps_eventbus: this is some software library for sequencing tasks. It is used by other modules, including ps_facebook. For that reason removing is not recommended. It creates a ps_eventbus_incremental_sync database table that can grow very big and may need to be truncated sometimes. Search the forum for more info.

 - ps_metrics: provides some statistics and info about your shop. This is a Prestashop service. The first month is free. After that you have to pay.

 - psassistant: this module was added in 8.1.2 a few weeks after the version had been introduced (yes, Prestashop make small changes to a release in the course of time). I don't know what it does.

The core version of Prestashop is maintained by the Prestashop project with Github https://github.com/PrestaShop. The extra modules are maintained by the Prestashop company with Github https://github.com/PrestaShopCorp

If anyone has additional information, please write here below.

If you want to install Prestashop with older PHP versions you should either take the Github version or take the Edition Basic version and allow it to fail the first time. You can then delete the ps_edition_basic module under the Modules directory and then click the link to retry the installation.

So, it looks like PrestaShop's new ownership is really ramping up efforts to boost revenue, huh? One noticeable change is the extra advertising plastered around, and there's also a split in the available versions of PrestaShop 8.1.1. The basic version on the website comes with 11 extra modules compared to the one on GitHub, making it a larger download. Personally, I prefer when things are straightforward, so I'd probably go for the GitHub version to avoid any unnecessary extras. What do you all think?

Edited June 10 by Dessert Bar (see edit history)

[dodoga]

With the 8.1.6 update it gives me this error, I can't understand which module is causing problems, it practically won't let me open the theme settings error

 

this

 AdminPsxDesignParentTab

Edited June 23 by dodoga (see edit history)

[Nickz]

16 hours ago, dodoga said:

AdminPsxDesignParentTab

you have seen this, 

The solution offered you find here:

To get more help you need to find the errormessage, in var > log > apache2

Edited June 24 by Nickz (see edit history)

[Divine]

Thanks for this useful information ! 👍

[Crycry]

Does anyone know if it's possible to switch from this basic edition to the github one?

Or maybe install next update with the zipped frpom github instead? Not sure it would work?!

[Nickz]

1 hour ago, Crycry said:

Does anyone know if it's possible to switch from this basic edition to the github one?

Or maybe install next update with the zipped frpom github instead? Not sure it would work?!

Switching how would that work? Magic is not something used in IT.
Its a separate install, with a little luck you could use the Database.

Do back ups, to be prepared in any case.

[Thedoros]

Před 17 hodinami Crycry řekl:

Nevíte někdo, jestli je možné přejít z této základní edice na githubovou?

Nebo možná místo toho nainstalovat další aktualizaci pomocí zazipovaného frpom github? Nejste si jisti, že by to fungovalo?!

Don't try it. It's not possible. Even a programmer doesn't know how to deal with it.

[musicmaster]

On 11/20/2024 at 6:32 PM, Crycry said:

Does anyone know if it's possible to switch from this basic edition to the github one?

Or maybe install next update with the zipped frpom github instead? Not sure it would work?!

An update with the Github version won't have any effect. The difference between the versions is in the modules and the only effect of a Github upgrade will be that the basic modules will not be upgraded to the latest version.

You would have a chance putting your present database on top of the files of a freshly installed Github installation of the same version. It seems logical but as I have never tried it I am not sure.

The most simple solution of course is just uninstalling the extra modules. In that case you need to uninstall all of them as they are linked.

[Crycry]

Thank you all for your answers!

I found out that removing this crappy ps_accounts module is deeply related to ps_edition_basic. I had to uninstall it to be able to login in my back office! Not sure if deleting the module is enough or not but in the past when I tried to remove this ps_accounts module I had same severe problem and tried today to keep this ps_edition_basic installed and tested to login with an incognito session and no way, impossible, thanks god I let the previous BO logged session on my normal session and after uninstalling this edition basic, BO works again also in incognito so problem solved! But looks like the general BO design is back to old prestashop so this ps_edition_basic is somekind of new BO theme. I could live without it though.....

Otherwise the module gamification drives me nuts! I could uninstalled it in the past on another website copy but now today I only get "Cannot Uninstall module gamification. Property Tab->name is empty."........Looks like I'm not the only one with that error as in github another one have same problem since 2022 and no answer from the dev team....since almost 2.5 years!

[Crycry]

Ok I found out the tricks for the gamification. I use English BO but that language is disabled in language settings (for front) and as soon as I switch my user account (employee) into an enabled language (french) then I could uninstall that module. Bad coded module.. Anyway problem solved.

And looks like after uninstalling every modules, I'm back to a normal Prestashop 🙂 I thought it was more database related but not really (at least after several hours test...).

Thanks to musicmaster for the advise!

[jhonndee]

As a newbie, this sounds a bit complicated. Should I download the Prestashop version from the official website or GitHub? Which one is easier for beginners to set up and maintain?

Edited December 11 by jhonndee (see edit history)

[Crycry]

You can download the github version. It's way better as the one in the official website is full of crap frankly (and bad coded which could lead to serious problems in the BO if you accidentally disable/uninstall any of this module).