Tourex wrote: ↑Tue Aug 21, 2018 9:48 am
Thanks guys, that's exactly the sort of helpful advice I really was hoping for, and need.
One question, warmweer. How can I check what database modifications need removing? As far as I know, the only mod is one that displays a flag corresponding to the user's country of residence, but the forum is 15 years old and there may have been other mods in the past. Is there any (easy) way of checking for non-standard database fields in the core files?
Finally, what changes to files or database fields do I need to make to get the forum working on localhost. When I tried this once before, it constantly kept connecting to the live site, so I assume there are both database and/or script changes that need to be made.
Thanks for your help guys - REALLY appreciated.
Sorry about the late answer
First of all: removing the modifications is not necessary for your forum as is to work on localhost. However in order to upgrade without errors, the modifications should be reversed
About finding out which modifications where made and whether they include database modifications, I fear there's no simple solution since you didn't set up the forum yourself and have no records. It's not really a question of which database modifications have to be removed: all of them should be removed, including all new modules and corresponding new permissions. This implies that extra tables should be removed (but keep a backup in case the data could be reused with an extension), the same with extra fields, and even some extra table records (e.g. the extra modules)
What I usually did was to compare the database structure of the database of a clean phpBB installation with the database to be checked and single out the differences.
For 3.0.x there is a utility available which can clean the database (but I can't find it - it's certainly mentioned on phpbB.com but i can't even remember the name.) There is also a "modission" (or something like that) for 3.1/3.2
As for the connection to the live site - there are fields in the config table defining the host: you should be able to recognise them immediately by the fieldvalue.
If you make a new (empty) phpBB forum on localhost : compare the config_tabel from that one with the config_table from your live forum.
When in doubt on whether or on how to do something - always take a backup beforehand os that you always have a working fallback.