doing an import while the source forum is active

[DannyITR]

I know that official vb instructions always recommend a full backup of the source forum before an import. There doesn't seem to be any mention of turning the source forum off during the import. I realize any posts made during or after the import would be erased but other than that is it necessary to turn the forum off?

I'm importing a medium phpbb3 into vbulletin. Yesterday my server seemed to crash during the import of the private messages. It took 7 hours to do 140,000 messages. It had taken only 30 min to import all 220,000 posts. If I can leave the source forum open during the import the users would appreciate it.

[Tauhid]

I know that official vb instructions always recommend a full backup of the source forum before an import. There doesn't seem to be any mention of turning the source forum off during the import. I realize any posts made during or after the import would be erased but other than that is it necessary to turn the forum off?

I'm importing a medium phpbb3 into vbulletin. Yesterday my server seemed to crash during the import of the private messages. It took 7 hours to do 140,000 messages. It had taken only 30 min to import all 220,000 posts. If I can leave the source forum open during the import the users would appreciate it.

Users will appreciate truly but it is wise to turn off the source board, you never know when it can crash. I did it with live boards and to be honest, nothing happened but your forum seems quite active, I wouldn't take that much risk. It doesnt take much time, do it when there is the least number of users online, I am sure you know by your web statistics right? Try doing at that time and you will be fine.

[Wayne Luke]

Moved to a more appropriate forum as this has nothing to do with pre-sales.

Both forums should be inactive during the import. Allowing active posting on the source forum can cause data corruption during the import.

[Jerry]

I have to agree with Wayne on this, for testing purposes make a copy of the source and use that.

Though for the final close the source board (or use a more up to date copy) as that is the safest, and also a lot faster due to the load on the database. i.e. the source isn't being hit with posts & searches etc.

ImpEx is quite unforgiving to a database.

I would take the 30 mins (plus clean up time after) opposed to risking my source data.