Converting 2.X to 3.3.13

[Houndog750]

I hope I've posted this in the correct forum.

Recently my hosting provider informed me they were making Cent OS EOL and migrating to Alma which required updating Wordpress and phpBB to the latest versions to support the newer version of mySQL (8.0).

Wordpress needed PHP 7.X to update. However I asked them to hold off on updating PHP to 7.X for Wordpress updates while I backed up the forums and performed the conversion on the old outdated forums but this request was obviously lost in translation. In the midst of backing up the SQL database they switched PHP versions and the board quickly fell apart and died screaming in agony the whole way.

I was able to get a vanilla 3.3.13 installed but am running into an odd problem with the conversion. The install/converter sees the old forums but no matter what I enter for Board Path for the old board I get "Could not find path to your former board" regardless of what I enter.

Old board
/ggboard

New install
/newforum

Same domain and web root.

If I'm understanding correctly the relative path to the old forums should be ../ggboard (assuming the root of the new forum is "newforum") but for some reason the conversion doesn't like this. (I also tried trailing slash as well and nope).

I'm beginning to fear the PHP switcharoo mid stream may have trashed the database but I can't say for certain yet as their phpMyAdmin SQL upload is limited to 50MB so I can't re-create the database until they lift this limitation. The SQL dump completed successfully so I know I have a good backup of the database.

Am I understanding incorrectly or am I missing something (knowing me something painfully obvious)?

[Madalin10]

Could you provide the links to the boards in cause?
Also if you have a bigger board, I highly recommend you to convert it first to phpbb 3.0 and from there you can upgrade it to the latest.

[Houndog750]

The new forum is locked. The old forum is nothing more than an error generator right now. I have a temporary index in the old forums as a result.

The hosting company is restoring the database (their phpMyAdmin has a 50MB limit SMFH). Currently the database is empty.

Old forums
http://www.matsumoku.org/ggboard/

New forums
http://www.matsumoku.org/newforum/

I'll remove the newer board tomorrow and start with 3.0.14.

[Houndog750]

Attempting to install 3.0.X failed at the start. I tried 3.2.X and it is incompatible with the PHP version the hosting company is now running (8.2.22).

"Please upgrade to PHP equal to or greater than 5.4.7 but less than 7.3-dev" is what I get when attempting to install 3.2.X.

The old database was restored. I notice something odd when attempting to convert. The convertor sees V2.0.X. Bear in mind this forum had been around since 2009. I am guessing the convertor version is 1.0.3?

What exactly is the convertor looking at when attempting to convert?

[KevC]

I suspect it's not finding the 2x board because you have a redirection showing another html page for that instead of the board index.

[Houndog750]

I attempted the upgrade while the original index.php was in place. The replacement is there only as a placeholder in between attempts.

I am pretty sure I figured out what the issue is. The convertor is seeing V2.0.X but it turns out it is 3.0.13. Something didn't seem right about V2.0.X but I couldn't put my finger on it until I got the board back up and running and checked the version. This is probably a remnant left behind during one of the many many updates over the last 15 years. This iteration of the forums was first installed in 2009 (according to backups). I guess I have to figure out why the convertor is seeing V2.0.X instead of the installed version, and would explain why it fails.

I set up a subdomain, moved the forums there and downgraded PHP from 8.2 to 7.2 for that subdomain. This will have to do for now.

[Houndog750]

I managed to get the forums updated to 3.3.13. Regardless of the version I attempted to convert from (3.1, 3.2 and 3.3) the convertor always saw the forums as V2.0.X and therefore failed.

Updated to 3.1 then to 3.3. I had to do a dance with PHP versions which was more fun than a weeping abscess.

I was incorrect on the date the forums were first installed. It was 2002.

[rockedge]

I am in the middle of a conversion from a phpBB 2.0.21 with the Categories Hierarchie To phpBB3 Convertor to reach eventually 3.3.14. This board has over a million (105000+) posts and 27743 users.

I have done it before but wanted to revisit the conversion to use the knowledge gained since first accomplishing such a conversion.

Takes some XAMPP versions juggling side-by-side. Using a Puppy Linux Noblepup64 to do this project.

[rockedge]

problem is PHP code compatibility of the convertor.

The conversions are completing but the post contents are missing. Due to errors thrown by preg_replace /e is no longer supported!

So phpBB-3.0.7.pl1 doesn't seem to run on PHP5+ which the convertor needs PHP5.5 to work. Suggested is replacing preg_replace /e
with preg_replace_callback