Hi community of the Festinger Vault,
TLDR: please scroll down to see the current status of the progress. 
In the past couple of days, we have received loads of feedback and error reports related to various cases. First, we are incredibly sorry about this experience; we received all your reports, which will be handled personally.
The issues reported are:
- Download issues with some of the most popular themes and plugins.
- Connection issues related to the Festinger Vault plugin.
- Time-out or slow loading times using the Festinger Vault plugin.
- Slow user experience using our main website.
When we developed the core code of our backend in 2018, we never expected the Festinger Vault services to become so popular. We started the brand with a tiny team of four people and offered the services only to a handful of customers. In the first years of our platform, we listed around 300 themes and 200 plugins. Our system was based on Easy Digital Downloads and offered downloads through this system.
Transfer to our new eco-system in 2021
In 2021, we started promoting our business to a larger public and restructured our backend from Easy Digital Downloads to jReviews as a directory/listing component. This backend system allowed us to create custom fields (such as version number, developer information, and download information), which worked fine as it was optimized to handle thousands of database entries. This system served the downloads till late 2023. Please note that we use our ‘engine’ as the backend, and all data will be processed through this engine. So, we manage the downloads from our main WordPress website and push all data to the engine to offer you the download features as advertised.
The designed system 2021 processed loads of data (meaning thousands of database entries as each theme includes a lot of data). A small overview of this data is:
- Product information such as names, images, descriptions, developer information, etc.
- Download information such as zip files, images, additional info, etc.
- Customer data.
- License data.
The switch from classic themes to full site editing
We built the system based on the classic theme Vikinger. Classic means that all this data is loaded from template files. After we completed all features as announced at the beginning of 2023, we received feedback that the website speed was dramatic. Some pages took over 10-12 seconds to load, and our system wasn’t optimized as the classic themes of WordPress are very limited in handling large requests.
We had no choice but to switch to a full-site editing theme. It uses global styles and block patterns - so the loading speed was reduced to 1-2 seconds. We have been testing the system internally for almost one year, and all tests have succeeded. As announced, we migrated our outdated WordPress classic platform to the new full-site editor platform and optimized the main website.
We also switched from jReviews to Advanced Custom Fields to handle all products and download data on our main website. As ACF works directly with WordPress’s core, we do not foresee any future limitations when using this optimized framework.
Upgrade our engine and switch to React.js
Meanwhile, we also optimized our engine, which was built with Laravel. We built the initial interface and algorithm back in 2021. Unfortunately, many functions (like bulk downloading, reselling, and API connections) were not optimized for WordPress 6.0, the version of WordPress used by almost 80%+ of our customers. In January 2024, the entire engine infrastructure and interface were updated to React.js and custom endpoints.
All backend systems and algorithms are ready to be connected with the new features announced in 2023.
But hey, we have so many open issues…
Yes, I feel you. We are working with a team of 8 people at Festinger Vault. Our team is working full-time to resolve all reported issues, as listed at the start of this topic. Meanwhile, our backend has received a DDOS attack for over 48 hours, and some downloads/functions don’t work as intended.
Final Note:
We are aware that the changes listed above and current problems impact your business and experience using our services. We are sorry for this inconvenience and understand that some of you might be frustrated or have other (negative) feelings. This thread will list all processes related to the outstanding issues and the upcoming changes.
Current Progress:
We will be listing all current progress here.
29 March 2024: Please use this topic to view the latest process of the reported issues. Our team will list all updates here. We have fixed most of the download issues related to the DDOS attack. The Festinger Vault plugin is still having some significant problems. Unfortunately, as our engine has been updated to a new algorithm, we will release a new version of the Festinger Vault plugin very soon.
The entire core code of the Festinger Vault plugin will be reworked (as we have already finished a lot of the code). The new plugin will be 100% white-label (including core code and code functions). It will include an excellent download experience for you and your clients and no more issues with automatic updates, as we also use WordPress’s core update mechanism to handle these features.
Edit: We received over 150 support tickets in the last couple of days related to the broken download of Elementor Pro, so we decided to upload the latest version directly to our forums. This file can be downloaded from here.
31 March 2024: The download issue on our main website has been resolved. Please clear your browser cache to ensure you’re loading the latest react files. Please report any issues. Thanks!
More info soon; please stay tuned.
