Importing from IPB1.3 to phpBB3

(BB)DinkW · Post by **(BB)DinkW** » Sat Jun 25, 2016 1:17 pm

I am looking to move my old forum board over to my new phpBB3 board and have been reading the instructions where in it says "To begin the conversion, visit the install/ folder of your phpBB3 installation (the same as you have done for installing). Now you will see a new tab Convert. Click this tab".

I have look through the files on my hosting side and I do not have an install folder, the phpBB3 was installed automatically by the host.

Anyone got any ideas how I should proceed?

Thanks in advance

Lumpy Burgertushie · Post by **Lumpy Burgertushie** » Sat Jun 25, 2016 1:27 pm

is the convertor you have specifically for phpbb 3.1 or is it for 3.0?

if it is for 3.0 then you have to convert to it first and then upgrade to 3.1

also, you would be better off getting rid of the host install files and replace them with files from here. they are not the same.

don't lose your config.php file or any attachments or avatars if you remove the host files.

once you have uploaded the new phpbb files from here you will have the install folder you need to do the conversion.

robert

JimA · Post by **JimA** » Sat Jun 25, 2016 1:39 pm

Do you have an available convertor that will directly convert your board from IPB to phpBB 3.1?
If not, I would recommend you go about this slightly differently.

Firstly, you can't "import" posts and users from IPB and merge them into your phpBB3 forum. It's a conversion process that will turn the IPB board into a phpBB board, so all old posts that are currently on your IPB board will then be on a new phpBB board, but anything currently on your phpBB board before conversion will be gone.

Secondly, because you are using a very old version of IPB, you can't convert directly to phpBB 3.1.x as far as I'm aware, you will need one step in between. There is a convertor available that converts from IPB 1.3 to phpBB 2.0. For that, you'd first have to install a fresh phpBB 2.0.23 install, available here. Then, using the convertor I linked you to above, convert your IPB Board to phpBB2. After you've done that, it's a relatively simple process to convert from phpBB2 to phpBB3.1, instructions for that are here.

Lastly I would like to point out that it's better in the future to manually do these kinds of installations. Using the software that web hosts provide to install phpBB usually breaks more than it wins in convenience and it is recommended to just do the install yourselves.

I realize this is quite a lot of information to take in, so if you have any follow-up questions or are having trouble with following any of these steps, feel free to ask us anything.

(BB)DinkW · Post by **(BB)DinkW** » Sun Jul 10, 2016 1:03 pm

Hi

I have now received a data file for my old forums but the instructions I received along with it say this :-

Be sure you have a freshly installed IPB (v1.3.x) with the default mysql table prefix (ibf_).
Next empty the following tables on the fresh install (again make sure the install is using the prefix ibf_):
ibf_badwords
ibf_posts
ibf_calendar_events
ibf_categories
ibf_contacts
ibf_emoticons
ibf_forums
ibf_groups
ibf_members
ibf_messages
ibf_moderators
ibf_polls
ibf_stats
ibf_titles
ibf_topics
ibf_tracker
ibf_voters
ibf_cache_store
ibf_forum_perms
ibf_topic_mmod
ibf_validating;

I am unable to find a download for the IPB 1.3 it no longer exists so not really sure what I should do now?
I have tried to build the database manually but not sure how I go about it and the downloaded data file seems to be missing the table data.

Any ideas?

Thanks

Post by **stevemaury** » Sun Jul 10, 2016 1:18 pm

Don't you already have an IPB3.1 installation?

(BB)DinkW · Post by **(BB)DinkW** » Sun Jul 10, 2016 1:29 pm

My old forum is hosted on Invision's servers so the answer is no I don't have IPB1.3 installation

Lumpy Burgertushie · Post by **Lumpy Burgertushie** » Sun Jul 10, 2016 2:58 pm

you don't need the ipb files or installation to do the conversion from ipb to phpbb2.

download the convertor mentioned above. unzip it to your computer. read the instructions in the readme first files.

once you have converted to phpbb2 then you can convert your phpbb2 board to phpbb3

robert

(BB)DinkW · Post by **(BB)DinkW** » Sun Jul 10, 2016 3:20 pm

Hi Robert

Unless I am missing something here I do need the IPB 1.3

Here is what it says in the instructions :

1/ Do a backup of your Invision Board tables via PhpMyAdmin for example

2/ Install EasyPHP on your pc so that you will have a local Web server with Apache, PHP, MySQL and phpMyAdmin.

3/ In PhpMyAdmin, import your Invision Board tables ; the one you have just saved.

4/ Install phpBB on your local Web server

5/ Copy the ib2phpBB folder at your phpBB root folder.

Ex : If your phpBB forum is at C:\Program Files\EasyPHP\www\phpBB2, then ib2phpBB must be copied there : C:\Program Files\EasyPHP\www\phpBB2\ib2phpBB

6/Open ib2phpBB\conf.php with a text editor (Wordpad, Notepad, etc) in order to set the prefix used with your Invision Board tables. The default value is : ibf_ . Save and quit this file.

7/ From your Browser, run http://localhost/phpBB2/ib2phpBB/index.php and follow the different steps.

8/ Once the forum is converted, open PhpMyAdmin, and update the phpbb_config table as follows :
- the field server_name : replace the value localhost by the one you will use on your webspace like yoursite.com or subdomain.mysite.com if you use a sub-domain.
- the field script_path if needed : replace phpBB2 by the path you use : ex use forums if your forum is at http://www.monsite.com/forums/.

9/ Export your phpBB tables with phpMyAdmin and import them to your website's databse.

10/ Edit phpBB2\config.php and replace the different values by the one you will use on your webiste.

11/ Upload all the files from /phpBB2/ to your Webspace.

12/ That's all Folks. Enjoy your new forum !!

*****************************

Item 3 lists importing the Invision Board tables and that is the problem I do not have the table structure in the data file that has been sent to me and I cant back them up via PhpMyAdmin because Invision do not allow it.

This what they have provided as the back up :

http://z13.invisionfree.com/bk/1467733927.sql

What should I do with it?

Many thanks for your time.

Lumpy Burgertushie · Post by **Lumpy Burgertushie** » Sun Jul 10, 2016 3:42 pm

that sql file is your IPB database backup.
you create a new blank database on your computer using easyphp or xampp etc. then you use the phpmyadmin that is part of easyphp etc. and import that sql file into that blank database.

then follow the rest of the instructions.

nowhere in those instructions does it say anything about needing the IPB files/folders etc.

robert

(BB)DinkW · Post by **(BB)DinkW** » Sun Jul 10, 2016 7:29 pm

Hi Robert

I have tried what you suggested and I am still getting the same "table does not exist" error when I try and import into the blank database and it fails. I have read that this is caused by the table data being missing from the file?

Post by **bonelifer** » Sun Jul 10, 2016 8:39 pm

Maybe you could ask them to do it again, this time with both "data & structure" when doing the export. As you've found out they only exported the "data" portion. Hopefully by accident and not to try and be sneaky and keep you from leaving them.

(BB)DinkW · Post by **(BB)DinkW** » Sun Sep 04, 2016 10:54 am

Hi All

I am still having a nightmare with this and now the Invision team are basically saying they cant help

This is the last communication I had from them :

"I just got a response. We're still working on issues from the server moves and I don't have a definitive date for when our developer could get a table structure for you. We can't provide a copy of the software for licensing reasons unfortunately. I'm going to refund your payment now. I'll keep the table structure request open so that when its available I can let you know. At that point you can decide if you'd like to get a fresh export, which I would only charge 50% of the original charge due to the trouble converting so far.

Let me know if that works for you and I'll get the refund processed."

Not very helpful

I have managed so far to fudge my way around it and got a conversion sort of working but when I go to the topics in each of the forum titles it says this :

There are no posts in this forum.
Click on the Post New Topic link on this page to post one.

The main page lists that there are indeed posts in the forum, although the post dates are screwed up, and if I search by member I can see all of the post they have entered.
Anyone one seen this before and have any idea how to fix it ......before I loose my mind completely

Lumpy Burgertushie · Post by **Lumpy Burgertushie** » Sun Sep 04, 2016 1:01 pm

this is a table structure sql file for you:
viewtopic.php?p=8370015#p8370015

robert

(BB)DinkW · Post by **(BB)DinkW** » Sun Sep 04, 2016 7:03 pm

Hi Robert

Firstly thank you so much for the link I managed to run the import process this time with no errors.
The problem I have now is as follows :

The new PHP forum shows that it has all of the posts and in fact if I search posts by user name they are all there but in the main index page there are no topics, even though these have also been imported.
I started thinking this may be a permissions problem so I thought I would try and change the permissions but then got this error :

Code: Select all

Could not obtain user info for moderator list

DEBUG MODE

SELECT user_id, username FROM phpbb_users WHERE user_id = 2

All of the forum members have ported across along with topics,messages,forums and posts but I am unable to view any of it directly from the main index page.

Do you have any ideas?

Thanks again

(BB)DinkW · Post by **(BB)DinkW** » Wed Sep 07, 2016 8:40 pm

Had several more goes at this but still cant get the import/conversion to work, although it runs without a problem.

Number of posts: 390 Posts per day: 390
Number of topics: 81 Topics per day: 81
Number of users: 31 Users per day: 31
Board started: 07 Sep 2016 07:59 pm Avatar directory size: 179 Bytes
Database size: 282.36 KB Gzip compression: OFF

This is what it says has been applied to the forum and I can view each of the posts if I search by member name but none of the forum titles or topics appear and none of the posts appear on the main forum page.

Can anyone help please?