Importing nightmare - need help

[Sasha7]

I am ready to just sell my new, used VBulletin because this has turned into such a damn horror show. ...

I have my Access database converted to MySQL courtesy of the wonderful Jerry. The database size is 26MB. What I cannot do is import that data into my MySQL database on my web host. PhpMyAdmin can't handle a file of that size and I cannot connect to the remote MySQL server with any of the MySQL tools (Migration Toolkit or Administrator). My web host is ignoring my phone calls and emails for support and I've got my forums down since the database has already been converted and any new posts would be lost.

Is there any way to get Impex to import from the SQL file, which is sitting in a directory on my web host? Or from an SQL file sitting on my local hard drive?

Sorry if this rambles, I'm frustrated and pissed off.

[Steve Machol]

Impex can only restore from the database, not a backup file.

The only reliable method of restoring a database is with shell access via telnet or ssh. Please see the instructions here:

http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/maintenance_ssh_restore

Note: Some people have reported success with these scripts:

MySQLDumper:
http://www.mysqldumper.de/en/index.php

MySQLHotxcopy:
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=134821&highlight=mysqlhotcopy

Bigdump:
http://www.ozerov.de/bigdump.php

[Sasha7]

Well, that means I am SOL. I'm hosted on a Windows server and SSH/Telnet are not available. I finally got ahold of tech support at my host and they can't fingure out why I can't connect to the MySQL database remotely either.

[Colin F]

You can also import the file from the command line on a Windows server.
Or, as Steve said, use one of the three softwares listed at the bottom of his post.

[Steve Machol]

Well, that means I am SOL. I'm hosted on a Windows server and SSH/Telnet are not available. I finally got ahold of tech support at my host and they can't fingure out why I can't connect to the MySQL database remotely either.
Reread post #2. There are several alternatives to telnet/SSH mentioned.

Also there is nothing inherent to Windows that would keep telnet/SSH from running on it. This is a host choice.

[Sasha7]

Steve, thank you for you help. I've downloaded no less than 10 programs in the past two weeks trying to get this data migration done. I downloaded MySQL Dumper but it is damn near gibberish, for example the installation instructions specify "chmod the file "config.php" to 777". Maybe you techie guys understand that but it might as well be Chinese to me. I'm tired of badly written documentation that I have to spend an hour trying to figure out only to have it not do what I need. (VBulletin documentation is refreshingly easy.)

/venting from frustration


My web host was finally able to do an import on the SQL dump file that Jerry did for me but ran into errors, so I'm back where I started and am developing a deep hatred for MySQL.
*SQL query:*

INSERT INTO `FORUM_REPLY`
VALUES (
NULL , NULL , NULL , NULL , NULL , "", "", "", NULL , "", "", NULL , NULL
);

*MySQL said: *Documentation
<http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/4.1/en/error-returns.html>

| #1048 - Column 'CAT_ID' cannot be null

[rasp187]

BigDump rocks. Helped me move my 64 meg database from one server to another since I didn't have shell access to do what vBulletin tells you to do.