"The requested topic does not exist"

colinb · Post by **colinb** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 4:45 pm

Hi folks - help required desperately!

I've just moved my 6-year-old forums, currently 3.0.5, from 1&1 Internet in Germany to Hostgator. Everything seemed to have gone fine on the faceof it, but when a user clicks to view the contents of a thread all that's displayed is "The requested topic does not exist" in place of the posts.

I'm going crazy trying to solve this problem to the point of going through the whole migration process 3 times and creating three new databases!

I've followed the advice as given here:

http://www.phpbb.com/kb/article/transfe ... or-domain/

with the exception that phpMyAdmin at 1&1 forced me to dump as "uncompressed" rather than Gzip, with a DB filesize of 113MB.

I FTP'd the SQL file to my new host server and used Bigdump according to instructions to install the SQL file into the database, amending the Bigdump.php file and also the phpBB's config.php file as well.

Everything has gone OK as expected. Except that the posts text is missing every time! Everything else is there; the board runs OK etc etc. Just no posts data up to the point at which it was dumped from the old server. Users can add new posts. Is that a clue?

Anybody experienced similar and...... what can I do to rectify this? The data was all there when I last ran the forums on 1&1 and nothing has changed in my phpBB setup. I can still access my databases via phpMyAdmin on the old server, but how many more times can I put up with the process?

Advice gratefully received (losing hair rapidly).

Colin

colinb · Post by **colinb** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 5:45 pm

Supplementary:

I've just found this thread but although I've used bigdump in exactly the manner described, I don't understand the bit in stevemaury's reply in which he talks about ignoring the "search_*" tables in any new dump.

Colin

colinb · Post by **colinb** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 8:15 pm

I've cleared all the files in /cache as well - except the index and htaccess files, of course. Still no improvement!

Is this a Permissions issue? No settings have been changed, however, and everything seems normal.

I should add that I find the whole Permissions thing really confusing in the ACP!

colinb · Post by **colinb** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 8:54 pm

Looks like I'm on my own here!

A google search on the topic title throws up thousands of instances where the error message shows up, which indicates that it's not uncommon!

I've been planning for ages to change board packages after 7 years. Maybe I will (once I've sorted this issue out, of course).

Colin

Post by **stevemaury** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 9:00 pm

You have to have a little patience. We have a 6-hour bump rule and you have broken it 3 times. If you have something to add, just edit your first post.

Now, can you post the last 25 lines of the backup file?

And there is no necessity to include the three search tables in the backup, because you can recreate the tables and the index after the transfer. That will cut the backup file size in half.

I assume all the users are there, no problem? Have you looked in the backup file to see if you can find some post text from prior to the transfer? Have you modified your config.php file to point to the new database? Does the database have the same prefix as in the config.php file?

colinb · Post by **colinb** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 9:09 pm

stevemaury wrote:Now, can you post the last 25 lines of the backup file?

I didn't realise I was breaking rules by adding thoughts and/or updates to my own post! However - apologies.

I'll dig out the file and grab the lines as you suggest.

stevemaury wrote:And there is no necessity to include the three search tables in the backup, because you can recreate the tables and the index after the transfer. That will cut the backup file size in half.

I'm not so worried by the size as I've already uploaded it to my server via FTP and it doesn't take long anyhow.

stevemaury wrote:I assume all the users are there, no problem?

Yes. The forum is all there - it's just the posts that aren't displayed when called.

stevemaury wrote:Have you looked in the backup file to see if you can find some post text from prior to the transfer?

I've tried, by phpAdmin is a no-man's-land that frightens the hell out of me. I don't really know where to look but I'll have another search.

stevemaury wrote:Have you modified your config.php file to point to the new database? Does the database have the same prefix as in the config.php file?

Certainly.

Colin

Post by **stevemaury** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 9:16 pm

Don't look in phpMyAdmin, look in the raw SQL file. If the posts text isn't there it sure won't be in phpMyAdmin.

Also, use the permissions mask to ensure that there is permission to read the forums in question.

colinb · Post by **colinb** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 9:29 pm

stevemaury wrote:Don't look in phpMyAdmin, look in the raw SQL file. If the posts text isn't there it sure won't be in phpMyAdmin.

Good thinking. It's so big I'm having problems loading it into a text editor at the moment.

stevemaury wrote:Also, use the permissions mask to ensure that there is permission to read the forums in question.

It applies to all forums - even the Moderators' Private Forum.

I'm sure Permissions are OK. I've done a sample check and seem to be ok - but that function is one of several that I get a bit confused with in the ACP. I'll test again.

Colin

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