Product Duplicates - stable?

[party_pete]

Currently I don't really use product duplicates and choose to suffix the product references when using the same product in different areas of the site, such as #123A, #123B, #123c, etc.

Now the site is getting bigger, I really need to start using product duplicates as maintenance is horrendous.

I've been reading through the many posts on v8 and product duplicates. I wanted to clarify before I start, that if i'm using V8.5.1 HFUA, then their use is stable.

Any thoughts?

[TraceyHand]

ermm..well

If you're introducing new duplicates from existing products, I would say, for the most part, yes.

I use them quite extensively in my site and have few, longterm problems with them. The only main problem I get now and again is when I attempt to reset duplicates with custom variables, I'm finding Actinic crashes if the focus isn't on the pane where the variable being updated is located (as I found to my frustration last night!)

Many of the problems with duplicates, IIRC, were upgrade problems, rather than trouble with introducing new ones.
The only thing to be wary of is that your original product references aren't longer than 17 characters because Actinic will prefix them and, if they're too long to begin with, this takes the references over 20 characters and Actinic throws a hissy fit.

All in all though, I use dupes a LOT on site (I think most ppl know that LOL) and I say a tentative "go for it"

JMO

EDITTED TO ADD Take a read of THIS THREAD and, particularly post 16 for a summary of some of the problems that may or may not affect you.

I'm not saying there are no problems, but I am affected by few and none that affect my store operation

[pinbrook]

as long as you have 8.5.1 I'd agree with Tracey

we also use them extensively, I beleive there are few issues if you are setting up from scrtatch now, there have been bad conversion/upgrade problems.

and keep prod ref less the 17 chars

[RuralWeb]

There was only a couple of versions of V8 where they were a problem but bugs have been mostly sorted now