MyBB Community Forums

I'll be making the switch to MyBB (hopefully) from phpbb in the near future. I decided to try out the merge system to transfer an old phpbb test forum database to a MyBB test forum. Unfortunately, the process never really starts. After putting in the configuration details and clicking "Database Configuration," the screen goes completely white and nothing happens.

I've tried to rerun the merge system (after reinstalling it) and changing the MySQL settings (though I knew in advance that it was MySQL and not MySQL Improved, so not sure why I bothered trying Improved). No matter what I do, I get the same results every time at the same page.

If anyone has any ideas on how to fix this issue I'm having, I'd be very appreciative. Alternatively, I'd welcome any different means of merging the two different databases together. Without a proper merge, there's no way I'll be able to make the switch from phpbb seeing as the community I run has way too much history to start from scratch. So hopefully a solution can be found since I really prefer what I see with MyBB so far

Try to view this white page source (in browser).
Sometime page may be blank white - but still, if you check page source you may find some error messages
(which was invisible when viewed as html) which may give clues on what to check.

Check the errors logs. From the sounds of it you encountered an internal server error.

I don't see anything of significance in the error log, or least nothing likely related to this problem. The only real entry is as follows:

[29-Dec-2012 02:35:56] PHP Parse error:  syntax error, unexpected T_ENCAPSED_AND_WHITESPACE, expecting T_STRING or T_VARIABLE or T_NUM_STRING in /home/castiel/public_html/testsite/inc/functions_post.php(592) : eval()'d code on line 3

And I don't think that's related to this particular issue at all (though I could be wrong as I'm not expert in this). Considering I've tried the merge multiple time, I'd imagine there would have been multiple logs of the same error.

Viewing the page source comes up blank as well.

No ideas? I notice there have been a number of posts related to this issue and no real solution has ever seemed to surface from what I gather.

Is there a different means to merge the two different databases (such as via queries via the host's admin panel)? As of now, an actual transfer from phpbb isn't looking too promising due to this issue so that's starting to concern me

That error message would probably point to an error in the postbit_signature template.

Except it shouldn't have errors if its a fresh install you're merging into.

Do you have a low memory limit (check phpinfo())? That could cause any script to stop working at any point, which could also result in a blank page.

Memory limit appears to be 64M, which I'd assume would be sufficient for this operation. I even made a completely fresh install to ensure there were no plugins or modifications interfering with the process. Still the same end result once I start to "Database Configuration."

To clarify, the MySQL Table Settings have to be set to the phpbb one, not the MyBB one that shows up by default? I do change the table prefix to phpbb_ from the default mybb_ so hopefully that's the correct thing to do. I've left Table Encoding to the default value (UTF-8 Unicode). And the Database Name I'm inputting is _phbb1, as that's the name of the test database as viewed in my host's admin panel.

You should not be using phpbb_ for mybb's tables if that is what you're asking.

The merge has to read from phpbb_* tables and write to mybb_* tables.

I understand that. I assumed the merge page was asking for the phpbb details to figure out where to write from though. I'll go ahead and post a pic of what my settings are set to. That way if something is totally wrong in my settings, the problem can be solved much easier xD

No, that should be fine.

Automatically convert to UTF8 could possibly be no, provided phpBB is already UTF-8 - there should be naught to convert then.

You might just have to add debug messages to the merger to find out where it's getting stuck on that blank page thing.