changing hosts

[seemaxrun]

I hope this is in the right place.

I've been reading testimonials and researching hosts preparatory to changing hosts. What I do not know is, how do I take the bulletin board data, (users, previous posts, everything), with me to the new location? I am so new to MySQL and Apache and PHP and do not know how you transfer information from a MySQL database at one location to a MySQL database at a new location. Is there an import script for that? Can I just back it up and FTP it? Or is it going to be more complex?

Any help or information appreciated. It would kill me to wipe the board and start over one more time.

max (please see profile for customer and license number)

[TheComputerGuy]

just make a backup copy of the BD through VB control panel, I would be more than happy to help if you have a problem

[The Realist]

A few links for you to have a look at:

http://www.vbulletin.com/manual/movingservers.html

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2199&highlight=moving+servers

And also do a search for moving servers.

Have fun because its not easy the first time.

:p

[seemaxrun]

Thank you CompGuy and Realist. I will probably be crying here for help real soon. . .

Um, is it going to be worse if I am not just changing hosts, I am moving the board off one domain onto another domain?

I better go read those links. Sigh.

max

[seemaxrun]

Well this is not going well.

I skipped the telnet stuff. This is a newish forum and I just left behind the old forum stuff so there are minimum posts at the moment and a lot of users have not made the transition yet. So --

I got the data dump in an sql file. And created a new data base and was using phpMyAdmin running an sql query using the sql dump file from the old forum as the textfile. And I get partway through each time and get a syntax error.

Each time this happens, I cut the line with the syntax error and then have to start over with a new data base because if I do not the program gets tiffy about "already has table access" or something like and stops midway through.

The first big syntax errors showed up in the avatars stuff. Even I could see there was something big wrong there and I just cut all that data, people can re-upload those.

The next big syntax errors showed up in buddy stuff. I cut that stuff, I am no way no how good enough with this stuff to identitify and correct those.

The new big syntax errors are showing up in table inserts. I don't know how much of that is just personal prefrences users can re-update and how much of that is actually going to effect the forum itself in a big way.

This would not be a horrendous headache if I could just cut the syntax errors and keep going and pick up the problems or correct them later, but phpMyAdmin appears to need a new blank data base each time I run this sql query, otherwise it comes back midway through with "already have table access." And it does not give me an option to continue past a syntax error, it just wants me to go backwards. So I keep getting halway through this and having to start over. Which is making me crazy, it is not like this is a quick thing going in and cutting and repeating is getting really old. And each time I just end up with half the sql file transfered and half still sitting there with no way to get it except to start over -- and then hit a new syntax error. Which should not even be in there since it came straight off a site I did not write it. Sigh.

Any suggestions?

Part of me suspects there are not really even syntax errors all over the place like the program is suggesting that something else is going on that is giving it grief and that is just the message it has to give me but I don't know for sure. There were big problems with the buddy stuff but what could be that wrong with the table inserts? Double sigh.

[eva2000]

there are problems with using phpmyadmin to import a sql file, it's best to upload your sql backup to your new account and ask your web host to telnet import it into a database you created or for them to create a database which you specify a name for

[seemaxrun]

Thanks. Can they import it into the existing forum data base or will there be conflicts with that?

Boy this is wearing me out.

[eva2000]

Originally posted by seemaxrun
Thanks. Can they import it into the existing forum data base or will there be conflicts with that?

Boy this is wearing me out. no it will be have to be a clean database used to import into

[seemaxrun]

Thank you Eva. I think I am going to just leave a lot of data behind. I can put a lot of this in by hand faster than most people can get around to transfering data and this has cost me a day already messing with phpMyAdmin just to find out it cannot do the transfer. Thank you very much though this is good for next time (there is always a next time -- wry grimace).