MyBB Community Forums

Hi! My question is too complicated for search terms apparently so apologies if this has been answered before.

I have an Invision Community board database, that is not hosted anywhere currently as I cancelled my account a few months ago. I am wanting to convert it to MyBB to host on my own website (there are several years of creative writing archives I don't want to lose).
The merge documentation says you need the Database host, username, and password of the source database to run it. But I don't have this because it's not hosted, it's literally just a full database backup file. How would I go about using this to merge to my new MyBB install?

You’d need to just create a database and import the backup file not it, then proceed with the merge as normal.

You mean upload it to my own server? Sorry, I'm not well versed at this stuff.

Yes, in phpMyAdmin or the same place you created the database for the MyBB board, you should be able to create another database, and you can import the Invision backup there.

To confirm, you need to have a MyBB installation set up already to be able to perform the merge, so you can create another database to import the backup too, and then use those details during the merge for the data source.

There should also be a copy of the attachments (upload) directory they supplied with the database. You'll want to extract this to the server where you'll be doing the myBB merge, so it can import attachments.

I do have a MyBB install set up, and I uploaded the merge files. I'm lost on how to use the backup file. I don't see the database I created in my FTP, so if I made another one for the Invision how would I know where to upload that?

You won't see it in FTP, it's not a file you access. Does your server use cPanel or another control panel? You will have phpMyAdmin or something similar where you can import a backup file.

I have cPanel with my host.

Okay, you will be able to create another database in cPanel, and import the database backup with phpMyAdmin. Your host should be able to assist with this if you're unsure on how.

Thank you for your replies thus far, and I apologize but I'm now lost on this whole database thing. Is there documentation somewhere on how to do this, or could someone possibly help me further?