Our installation instructions are slightly different depending on the version of vBulletin you are running. Please select:
Installing CometChat as a vBulletin plugin
Step 1
Download the zip package of CometChat Plugin for ‘vBulletin 5 Connect’ to your computer.
Step 2
Unzip the package. You should see two folders (‘cometchat’ and ‘cometchat_plugin’) and one file. (README.md)
Step 3
Upload the entire ‘cometchat’ folder and only this folder to your forum system root directory. For example, if your forum URL is http://www.mysite.com/forum, it should be placed at http://www.mysite.com/forum/cometchat/.
Step 4
Please CHMOD the following files and folders to 777:
/cometchat_plugin
/cometchat_plugin/cpnav_cometchat_panel.xml
/cometchat_plugin/product_cometchat.xml
/cometchat/writable (recursively)
Step 5
Login to Administration Control Panel, go to ‘Products & Hooks’ -> ‘Manage Products’. Click ‘Add/Import Products’ on the page bottom.
Step 6
Upload the product_cometchat.xml file. Click Import.
Step 7
CometChat is now installed on your website!
Step 8
Select the user groups for whom CometChat bar should be visible.
You can use the plugin to allow CometChat usage to specific groups. For example, if you wish to allow access to the user group,
1. Go to ‘Options’ -> ‘CometChat Settings’
2. Here set the ‘CometChat Allowed Groups’. To allow a specific user group, simply enter the user group’s ID
Note: The Users groups id can be found by going to ‘Usergroups’ -> ‘Usergroup Manager’
Step 9
To access CometChat Administration panel in your ‘vBulletin 5 Connect’ AdminCP, upload cpnav_cometchat_panel.xml (provided with the plugin) to “core/includes/xml” and refresh your vBulletin 5 Connect administration panel.
Installing CometChat as a vBulletin plugin (3.8.8+ and 4.2.2+)
Step 1
Download the zip package of CometChat Plugin for vBulletin to your computer.
Step 2
Unzip the package. You will see two folders (‘cometchat’ and ‘cometchat_plugin’) and one file (README.txt).
Step 3
Upload the entire ‘cometchat’ folder and only this folder to your forum system root directory. For example, if your forum URL is http://www.mysite.com/forum, it should be placed at http://www.mysite.com/forum/cometchat/.
Step 4
Please CHMOD the following files and folders to 777:
/cometchat_plugin
/cometchat_plugin/cpnav_cometchat_panel.xml
/cometchat_plugin/product_cometchat.xml
/cometchat/writable (recursively)
Step 5
Login to Administration Control Panel, go to ‘Plugin & Products’ -> ‘Manage Products’.
Click ‘Add/Import Products’ on the page bottom.
Step 6
Upload the product_cometchat.xml file.Click Import.
Step 7
CometChat is now installed on your website!
You can use the plugin to restrict CometChat usage to specific groups.For example, if you wish to prevent access to the user group,
Step 1
Go to ‘Options’ -> ‘CometChat Settings’
Step 2
Here set the ‘CometChat Allowed Groups’. To enable CometChat for a specific user group, simply enter the user group’s ID. To allow all keep it blank.
Note: The Users groups id can be found by going to ‘Usergroups’ -> ‘Usergroup Manager’
This plugin can add a ‘Chat With Me’ Button in the user profile in Forum Threads.This button can be used to initiate a chat with the user.
To set the text for this button,
Step 1
Go to ‘Options’ -> ‘CometChat Settings’
Step 2
Here set the ‘Chat With Me button text’ field and click save.
Note: To remove this button simply set the field empty and click save.
To access CometChat Administration panel in your vBulletin AdminCP, upload cpnav_cometchat_panel.xml (provided with the plugin) to “vbulletin3/includes/xml” and refresh your vBulletin administration panel.
Troubleshooting
If CometChat bar does not appear on your site or does not work, you may need to configure the Base URL.
To do this go to ‘vBulletin Options’ > ‘CometChat Settings’
Here add the URL of your vBulletin folder
e.g. if vBulletin is present at http://www.yoursite.com/vbulletin, then set /vbulletin as base URL.
Note: Do not add a trailing “/”
This guide will help you through the installation process and get CometChat running on your site.
Installation is very straight forward, only taking about 5 minutes from uploading the files to viewing the CometChat bar on your site.
Before you begin, you will need an FTP client, if you do not have one, some popular solutions include FileZilla (free) or CuteFTP (trial).
You do not need programming knowledge to install CometChat, but a working knowledge of FTP functions is a plus.
This guide assumes that you have successfully downloaded the latest release of CometChat and have the zip file “unzipped” and ready to go. If not, you can download the package from the Members Area.
The instructions will term the zip file you downloaded as cometchat.zip.
At this point, you should have the zip archive cometchat.zip and find a single folder- “cometchat”.
If you don’t know already, find out the folder in which vBulletin is installed.
If you access your vBulletin site via ‘http://www.domain.com’, then look for the webroot directory.
The “webroot” directory is usually ‘public_html’ or ‘www’, but this varies from server to server so if you’re unsure, contact your hosting provider.
Using your FTP client, copy the ‘/cometchat’ folder inside your vBulletin folder. e.g. http://www.domain.com/cometchat
Point your browser to http://www.cometchat.com/extra/ccpic.zip and extract this archive to your forums folder (NOT the CometChat folder)
Step 1
You should now run the installer file through your web browser by entering the URL to it into your browser address bar (if you have followed our example, type in http://www.domain.com/cometchat/install.php, naturally substituting ‘domain.com’ for your web address).
If the installation was completed successfully, then two lines of HTML code will be displayed on your screen. Please copy these two lines. Also, the page may display a list of files and folders which may require additional permissions. Please CHMOD those files/folders to 777.
Step 2
Now edit your template header.
Login to your vBulletin Admin Control Panel (usually http://www.domain.com/forums/admincp)
Under the Styles & Templates tab, select the Style Manager option.
Now select the style in which you want to add the bar, and click on the Go button.
In the header textbox, add the copied code at the beginning.
Now delete install.php file from the ‘/cometchat’ folder.
That’s all! Now log-in to your site and you will be able to see the CometChat bar. For customizing the text, icons, plugins, theme and modules, please refer to the documentation for Administration Panel.
Not finding what you need?
The CometChat team is here to help!