Update to this post 9/9/2011: Template Monster contacted me and went out of their way to make sure that the template they sold me worked properly with Drupal. You can read their response below. They have been more than fair in my book. I don't expect any company to be perfect, but to show good customer service in response to a problem, and Template Monster has certainly done that. I'm going to use them again.
Here's the original issue and again, you can see Template Monster's response in the comments below:
If you don't build your own themes (and this post may motivate you to start learning), be very careful where you get a theme for Drupal.
Last week my brother purchased a template from templatemonster.com and asked me if I could build him a Drupal site with it for his business - he really liked the look and it is a sharp theme. I had never used a theme from this company before, so I asked them what kind of files I was going to get to work with, and from what they told me all seemed legit.
My brother sent me the files and I went to work installing Drupal 7.7 and uploading the required modules, the SQL dump, and the theme itself.
Error after error ensued.
To make a long story short, they finally informed me last night that they got the theme working on my brother's site. I logged in and immediately noticed that they had installed the site using Drupal 7.4 (current version as of this post is 7.7) and the modules were all outdated. Security vulnerabilities abound. When you try to update to the latest version of Drupal the site crashes. Same with updating the modules. You're stuck in an insecure version of Drupal core and outdated modules. The theme they sold me cannot take a Drupal update.
Well, I contacted customer service via chat, and here is the log of an amazing and entertaining conversation that you just can't miss!
(note: I have bolded some of the more awesome parts, and edited the customer service agent's name to a generic "Template Monster Agent" moniker to protect the guilty).
Duration: 34 min 45 sec
[14:29:08] Fred Wright: My problem is still not solved
[14:29:14] Template Monster Agent: Hello. You have successfully connected to the Technical support operator. My name is Template Monster Agent, how can I help you today?
[14:29:52] Fred Wright: Hi Template Monster Agent, I've been trying to get this resolved for almost a week
[14:29:58] Fred Wright: It's still not fixed
[14:29:59] Template Monster Agent: Please, hold on. Let me check it...
[14:30:06] Fred Wright: is there someone I can talk to on the phone?
[14:30:25] Template Monster Agent: Please, hold on just a moment
[14:31:41] Template Monster Agent: The template is installed and working properly.
[14:33:07] Fred Wright: Template Monster Agent, they got it to work on an unsecure version of Drupal
[14:33:14] Fred Wright: version 7.4 is unsecure
[14:33:25] Fred Wright: also, they are using outdated modules
[14:33:30] Template Monster Agent: Could you, please, be more specific?
[14:33:46] Fred Wright: all the modules in the sources file are outdated
[14:34:03] Fred Wright: and when you try to update the modules or Drupal core the site crashes
[14:34:07] Template Monster Agent: what do you mean 'outdated'?
[14:34:12] Fred Wright: they are old
[14:34:19] Fred Wright: there are newer versions
[14:34:26] Template Monster Agent: Please, provide me with the template item number on our site.
[14:34:38] Fred Wright: just a sec please
[14:39:02] Fred Wright: 33548
[14:39:07] Template Monster Agent: Please, hold on. Let me check it...
[14:43:19] Template Monster Agent: Please, check the following link:http://www.templatemonster.com/drupal-themes/33548.html
[14:43:48] Template Monster Agent: it says Drupal 7.0
[14:43:56] Fred Wright: right
[14:43:57] Template Monster Agent: it can be Druapl 7.4
[14:43:58] Fred Wright: right
[14:44:08] Template Monster Agent: and the template looks like on the demo preview
[14:44:10] Fred Wright: Template Monster Agent, that's unsecure.
[14:44:23] Template Monster Agent: why do you think it is unsecure?
[14:44:26] Fred Wright: you can't build a production site on 7.4
[14:44:37] Template Monster Agent: Please, hold on just a moment
[14:44:41] Fred Wright: I don't just "think" it's unsecure
[14:44:50] Fred Wright: Drupal screams at me that it is NOT secure
[14:44:57] Fred Wright: when I log in
[14:45:04] Fred Wright: the current version of Drupal is 7.7
[14:45:17] Fred Wright: they do security updates periodically
[14:45:18] Template Monster Agent: Drupal7.4 is secure enough
[14:45:23] Fred Wright: otherwise your site can be hacked
[14:45:34] Template Monster Agent: Drupal7.4 is secure enough
[14:45:49] Fred Wright: Template Monster Agent, Drupal requires updates
[14:45:57] Fred Wright: on Drupal core and the modules
[14:46:06] Fred Wright: the template crashes when you update Drupal or the modules
[14:46:10] Template Monster Agent: Please, hold on just a moment
[14:51:39] Template Monster Agent: Our site of custom design: http://templatetuning.com/ can customize your template for additional fee.
[14:51:52] Template Monster Agent: they can update the template at additinal fee
[14:52:13] Template Monster Agent: we recommend to use the same versin as it is mentioned on the template preview
[14:52:34] Fred Wright: You guys didn't specify a version in the ad
[14:52:35] Template Monster Agent: you cannot update is by yourself as it requires recoding
[14:52:40] Fred Wright: it just says drupal 7
[14:53:21] Template Monster Agent: Drupal.7.0
[14:53:25] Fred Wright: I can't use a template for a client that only works on an unsecure platform
[14:53:47] Template Monster Agent: Drupal7.4 is secure
[14:53:53] Template Monster Agent: and stble version
[14:53:57] Template Monster Agent: stable*
[14:54:32] Fred Wright: ok
[14:54:37] Fred Wright: drupal.org says it's not
[14:54:42] Fred Wright: but aside from that
[14:54:50] Template Monster Agent: okay
[14:54:57] Fred Wright: if the template cannot take a drupal update
[14:55:01] Fred Wright: what good is it?
[14:55:08] Fred Wright: why do you sell it?
[14:55:15] Template Monster Agent: Please, hold on just a moment
[14:56:35] Template Monster Agent: Please, check the following link:http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/package-announce/2011-July/0627...
[14:59:02] Fred Wright: The fifth maintenance and security release of the Drupal 7 series. Only fixes for security vulnerabilities have been committed. New features are only being added to the forthcoming Drupal 8.0 release. This release fixes security vulnerabilities. Sites are urged to upgrade immediately after reading the security announcement:
[14:59:07] Fred Wright: that's drupal 7.5
[14:59:16] Template Monster Agent: okay
[14:59:35] Fred Wright: when I upgrade the site crashes
[14:59:41] Fred Wright: Template Monster Agent, I don't want to be a pain
[14:59:45] Fred Wright: I'm building this for a client
[14:59:54] Fred Wright: you guys do beautiful templates
[15:00:01] Template Monster Agent: as I told you you cannot update it by yourself
[15:00:04] Fred Wright: but I can't use an unsecure site
[15:00:20] Template Monster Agent: it is secure
[15:01:18] Fred Wright: is this pretty much standard with all your drupal templates?
[15:01:24] Fred Wright: they can't be updated?
[15:01:28] Fred Wright: without crashing them?
[15:01:44] Template Monster Agent: we do not provide update service for the templates
[15:02:06] Template Monster Agent: we recommend to use the exact version the template is made for
[15:02:27] Fred Wright: you know these sites get hacked right?
[15:02:32] Template Monster Agent: Our site of custom design: http://templatetuning.com/ can update the template for additional fee.
They sold a theme that requires an unsecure version of Drupal out of the box and then tell me that I can pay more to have it fixed.
Needless to say, I will not be purchasing any more Drupal themes from Template Monster. I would highly advise you not to do so either.
Comments
CLASSIC!!! Thanks for the
CLASSIC!!! Thanks for the play by play (and the warning ;-)
Thanks
Fred, I spent a few hours browsing themes for drupal 7, came across some nice layouts on templatemonster.com, then starting researching behind the company, simply trying to get details on the business, where they're located, etc (all hidden). Finally did a search on google for "template monster sucks", "template monster review", etc. and this came up. Thanks for taking the time to share your experience, will save me some stress.
templatemonster's reply
Hello Fred,
I'm James from marketing of TemplateMonster.com. I'm sorry about such a bad experience with our company.
I just talked to our production and they told me that our Drupal 7.0 themes are compatible with all 7.x versions of Drupal. And they are not just stating that they checked this particular theme http://www.templatemonster.com/drupal-themes/33548.html on Drupal 7.7. It installed perfectly. We also installed it on Drupal 7.4 and then upgraded to 7.7 with no problems. It can be some outdated module or something else which make the the site crash. So in reply to your question:
"[15:01:18] Fred Wright: is this pretty much standard with all your drupal templates?"
No, this is not our standard. Our Drupal themes 7.0 a compatible with all Drupal 7.x versions. If there're any problems with the theme - please let us know. We'll fix it and we'll surely do it for free.
Unfortunately, we don't have your ticket id so I can't investigate it further and find what was the problem with your site. Let me know the ticket id so we could check the theme on your site and find out what is the problem. If you decided not to use our theme and don't want us to fix the problem (which I totally understand as it's almost two weeks now) please pm me your order details so we could refund the order.
P. S.
I would appreciate if you could share the name of the customer service agent.
Thanks.
Second this, Don't Use or Proceed With Caution
Working with a theme from Template Monster right now.
Basic Drupal 7.8 install, no contrib modules in use and the Theme returns errors. Waiting to hear back from their support team if they have a fix (or will fix). I'll update this if they do anything to resolve the issue.
I'd say stay clear of these guys, or proceed with extreme caution. Any cost savings you might expect from using one of their pre-built themes may just be wasted on additional debugging time.
Oh, and a funny note, they hard coded a page title into the theme's "page.tpl.php" file. So unless you are savvy enough to edit theme files you would pretty much have to spend the extra dollars for them to install the theme on your site. And from frednwright's post it seems like they are not too concerned about using current secure versions of Drupal and modules.
Update on template monsters support/help
So Template Monster did correct the issues I was having with the theme.
It took a bit of back and forth with support people who didn't care or had no clue, but eventually I got some help from a support agent who was actually on the ball (Joe Navarro).
I'd still be wary of using these guys in the future as the theme and module packages they provide are not necessarily up to date (not using the most current secure module/core releases), but the fact that they resolved the issues I was having is good.
Drupal theme developers community
Do you know any URL with Drupal Themes Developers? We want to hire one to develop us a custom theme. If you know anyone, please, send me a private message. Thank you.
I just bought my second
I just bought my second Template Monster template and I am having similar issues... hopefully they can help sort it out. I really find it a bit odd that you need to dump some SQL for a theme. Why not just give some instructions on creating the custom blocks so that its easier to customise. I agree it seems like you are getting a good deal, but then you find they are not very well designed and rely on a lot of modules that are in alpha or even Dev status and you have to pick your way through it all to get it working.
Old saying
Screw me once, my fault, screw me again, I like to be screw, do it more.
*** Kisser
If the template was a failure, and you lost money and time (money) why do you say you would use Monster Template again. We used them and it cost us several hundred dollars. Since your such a bleeding heart, could you write us a check for $800? Let me know, I'll email our address.