to cut to the chase and make an overly long story short. I was a mod for a large growing prop/costuming community that the admins and owners no longer wanted to have any part of. I took ownership of the domain name, but all of the hosted information was done through a private individual, not a hosting company.
The community was running on pre-3.0 phpBB before it went belly up and after taking ownership of the domain, I was provided with a copy of the the SQL information from the forums, but nothing else.
I would like to try and import this data into my new installation of MyBB so that my userbase maintains it's information. As this is my first forum conversion, I am unsure of what all to do, and have not found a lot of guidance as to how to go about this. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
-o.r
To add on:
If you have any trouble or questions about the merge system, ask... I never was successful with the merge system in my start with MyBB. If I had asked a few more questions, I would have a much better forum now (about 50+ more threads and 100-200 more posts and more active members).
We are more than happy to assist however we can!
Update to the latest phpBB3, then wait about a week. I have a coding day scheduled for Wednesday that will hopefully kill off a few more issues with the merge system. Thanks.
@Dylan - The problem is, that I don't have any of the original board info other than the SQL file. The site was previously run by two admins; one who owned the domain, and another who privately hosted the boards. The SQL data was passed to me by the admin who transitioned the domain over, and to my understanding, the boards were then taken offline at the the private host once the SQL file was generated.
Would it be beneficial for me to install a standalone, up to date version of phpBB3 and then use the merge system, or would should I just use the merge system as it is right now (or wait) and use what I currently have. I'd like to get the new version of the boards online as soon as possible, but know that the community would not have a problem waiting for the quality product I plan on getting back up.
(2012-03-12, 11:23 PM)one.relic Wrote: [ -> ]@Dylan - The problem is, that I don't have any of the original board info other than the SQL file. The site was previously run by two admins; one who owned the domain, and another who privately hosted the boards. The SQL data was passed to me by the admin who transitioned the domain over, and to my understanding, the boards were then taken offline at the the private host once the SQL file was generated.
Would it be beneficial for me to install a standalone, up to date version of phpBB3 and then use the merge system, or would should I just use the merge system as it is right now (or wait) and use what I currently have. I'd like to get the new version of the boards online as soon as possible, but know that the community would not have a problem waiting for the quality product I plan on getting back up.
Install a new phpBB, but make it use the old/full database.
GamerVoid is correct. You just need to download the phpBB3 files, install it, and then replace the database with the old one. You'll need to do some manual tweaks, and run the phpBB3 upgrade scripts if there are any (I'm not familiar enough with phpBB3) and then you should be able to merge it.
Thanks for all the help guys. I ended up trying that and had a MASSIVE headache with not only the database import, but their upgrade/conversion script as well. When I went to the phpBB forums, I didn't get much of any help.
I ended up giving my community the option to wait through the downtime of getting everything upgraded/converted properly or starting fresh with the new myBB version. Since the original iteration of the site has been offline for almost 6 months now, they ended up choosing to start fresh (makes my job SO much easier).
Eventually I'll get the old database back online as an archive section for members who want to peruse it, but I'm not worried about it like I was.
(2012-03-20, 04:53 AM)one.relic Wrote: [ -> ]Thanks for all the help guys. I ended up trying that and had a MASSIVE headache with not only the database import, but their upgrade/conversion script as well. When I went to the phpBB forums, I didn't get much of any help.
I ended up giving my community the option to wait through the downtime of getting everything upgraded/converted properly or starting fresh with the new myBB version. Since the original iteration of the site has been offline for almost 6 months now, they ended up choosing to start fresh (makes my job SO much easier).
Eventually I'll get the old database back online as an archive section for members who want to peruse it, but I'm not worried about it like I was.
The nice thing is that with the merge system you can still bring those over at a later date, whenever you get the phpBB side of things working.
It isn't a converter, its a merger. So existing data on MyBB isn't harmed.
(2012-03-20, 04:53 AM)one.relic Wrote: [ -> ]Thanks for all the help guys. I ended up trying that and had a MASSIVE headache with not only the database import, but their upgrade/conversion script as well. When I went to the phpBB forums, I didn't get much of any help.
I ended up giving my community the option to wait through the downtime of getting everything upgraded/converted properly or starting fresh with the new myBB version. Since the original iteration of the site has been offline for almost 6 months now, they ended up choosing to start fresh (makes my job SO much easier).
Eventually I'll get the old database back online as an archive section for members who want to peruse it, but I'm not worried about it like I was.
Dude phpbb is SUPER EASY.. Install phpBB afresh and then drop all tables in the db and upload the old database using usng big dump.. Everything will take barely 5 mins..
IF you dont know old password you can recover using PHPBB STK which is available for free on their site..