moved domain to new server and forum kaput

[Simtech]

I need some outside help... I've been pulling my hair out on this and it's clear that I'm missing something really simple.

My old server needed upgraded so I leased a new one and moved the whole website over to the new IP address.

The new website is up and has been for a couple of days, the regular home page checks out fine, the problem is the forum. Is there anything in the vbulletin files that specify the domain's IP address rather than just the actual domain name?

I downloaded the entire website via CuteFTP and transferred it to the new IP. The nameservers have all been updated as well. I use Plesk on my server so I can monitor things like PHP safemode etc. (safemode is off).

I read all through http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/moving_servers but this appears to me more along the line of moving to a whole new website.

The old server was Fedora Core 4, the new one is 7.
Both sites have the same domain name, same database name and password.
Old site uses MySQL 4.1.20, new one uses 5.0.45

The database is all moved over correctly, all of the tables check out fine.

But when I try and access the forum I get an HTTP 500 INTERNAL SERVER ERROR

http://www.simtechonline.com/forums/

The files are all there, I even tried entering a index.htm test file in the /forums directory and the page came up, but it's just not wanting to use the index.php files even though I have php services selected.

The files are CHMOD 644, just like what was on the old server.... is there some hidden .htaccess file that didn't get generated that needs to be in the forum's root directory? I've also done a server reboot and power cycle with no luck.

It can't be a MySQL database error as the forum page isn't even getting that far. Any clues? I can't afford to keep pulling my hair out on this as don't have enough hair left to begin with!

update: I did try recopying the files over too... no luck.

[dodgeboard.com]

That's odd. Your admincp login comes up...

You are SURE you uploaded the PHP files in ASCII right?

[Simtech]

CuteFTP was set to global settings, which is the default and all of the other websites moved fine.

I'll dump everything and reload once more...

[briansol]

in my.cnf, set old_passwords = 1. 5.0 might need this to connect...

but that doesn't seem to be the issue.

is php working?

make a php info script

[Justin98TransAm]

is the sever setup for .php files as a default document type? like, rename your phpinfo.php file to index.php file and put it in the forums directory to see if it opens.

[Simtech]

Thanks for the help so far. I downloaded the entire forum once more though this time I'm forcing ASCII format and uploaded it in the same method... forcing ASCII rather than global detects. Same problem exists.

So I'm guessing a simple move such as I am attempting should work? This is way before any possible database issues!

I created a simple phpinfo.php file using
<?php
phpinfo();
?>

and installed it in my forum directory.

See http://www.simtechonline.com/phpinfo.php It runs okay. This is the new server IP.

https://68.178.156.14:8443/sitepreview/http/simtechonline.com/forums/phpinfo.php is the old server where the forum works. This is an offline preview look at the old site through Plesk, but the stats are the same.

[Simtech]

Okay - it's been fixed, though in a really bastardized way.

What I did was download and reinstall the whole forum. During the install it came up and asked if I wanted to do a clean install or an upgrade (as it saw all the entries in my database), I chose upgrade.

It started working my my default (blue) style was really a mess. I have custom headers and footers and the updated code appeared in the boxes but the forum itself did not display the google ads nor the header images. So I reverted them and then re-entered the code that I had just erased.

That was weird.

My banned IP addresses were still in the admin area, my smilies were all there, and as far as I can see all of the posts and data is okay. I'm busy rebuilding all of the stats and maintenance issues just to be safe.

If this happens to anyone else I fixed this issue by setting up the MySQL database exactly as the old one & moving over all of the tables. I then installed vBulletin from scratch and when it prompted me to do a clean install or upgrade (even though I had no files on my server) I chose upgrade.
Once done I copied over all of the forum files and let them overwrite the recently installed ones.
After that I had to fiddle with the skin to get it back to the way it was.

Thanks to everyone for their inputs!