Upgrade from 3.0.x to 3.5 and move forum location at the same time?

[BoomShackaLacka]

I'm running vBulletin 3.0.7 at the following address:

http://www.example.org/community/

I would like to upgrade to vBulletin 3.5 and move the forum to another location at the same time. I'd like it to be:

http://community.example.org/

I've already created the necessary subdomain, stopped my current domain, and backed up my MySQL database via SSH. I'm still reading the documentation but I'm a bit stumped on what to do next. Any recomendations?

Thanks in advance for your help.

[BoomShackaLacka]

I guess my question is, should I upgrade vBulletin 3.0.7 located at

http://www.example.org/community/

and then move it to:

http://community.example.org/

Or should I download a copy of all the php files etc... in the /community/ folder, upload it to community.example.org, and then upgrade? I can follow the directions in the FAQ.

[George L]

do the upgrade on which ever server is more powerful.. so if new server is more powerful, move 3.0.7 to new server then upgrade

if old server is more powerful, upgrade then move

if they're on the same server, just do the upgrade then move... read this guide for fool proof way http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=158122

[BoomShackaLacka]

Thanks for your help eva2000. I'll probably start this process tonight (eastern time) and let you know how it goes. A few questions; Does a MySQL dump also carry the users associated with the database? We have many attachments, avatars, smilies, and so forth on our board, will these be messed up in any way? How can I avoid broken links to attached files for example if I move the forum to community.example.org and then upgrade? Again, I don't take the help for granted. Thanks. Your method of upgrading makes sense. I'm on my second read through to make sure I'm understanding it correctly since this is my first time upgrading vBulletin (and moving it) all together.

[BoomShackaLacka]

eva2000, I noticed a mistake in step seven of your guide. It's very small but I thought you may want to correct it anyway.

Bad:

7. upload all the vBulletin files except the images/ folder and config.php.new to temp directory created in step 4 above i.e. http//domain.com/forum2. Make sure you upload these files in ASCII format

Good:

7. upload all the vBulletin files except the images/ folder and config.php.new to temp directory created in step 5 above i.e. http//domain.com/forum2. Make sure you upload these files in ASCII format

[George L]

thanks for the correction

yes mysqldump backs up whatever is in database.. if you have attachments in filesystem you need to back those up manually

broken links won't happen if after you update you update the bburl in admincp options

[BoomShackaLacka]

Thanks for your help again eva2000. I still haven't done the upgrade as I had to request SSH access to our shared server and was just granted access. If you don't mind helping me out one more time, how do I backup the attachments manually? I'm going to be using your method for the forum upgrade. Do you have or know someone who has some step by step instructions on moving attachments successfully from the 'old' to the 'new' board? I'd like to avoid broken attachment links if possible.

[George L]

for me on 3.0.x if

/home/username/attachments is attachment directory on file system
/home/username/public_html is public web root

in ssh telnet i type


cd /home/username/
tar cf attachments_141005.tar attachments


that creates tar file name attachments_141005.tar for transfer to new server

note tar has max limit of 2GB in size

once on new server move tar file to

/home/username

type

tar xf attachment.141005.tar

that would extract attachments and then make sure to chmod to correct permissions for attachment directory

[BoomShackaLacka]

Thanks for all your help eva2000. I'm getting the following error when running the upgrade.php script.

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: print_next_step() in /home/username/public_html/install/upgrade_308.php on line 75

I've tried searching this forum but haven't found anything yet. Can anyone help me figure this one out?

Thanks!

[George L]

what PHP and mysql versions you using ? make sure all vB php files are uploaded in ASCII mode in ftp

[BoomShackaLacka]

Here are the versions:

PHP version = 4.3.11
MySQL version = 4.0.25-standard

I'm pretty sure the PHP files were uploaded in ASCII mode. I'm using SmartFTP which is supposed to take care of that automatically. Any ideas as to what this could be?

[BoomShackaLacka]

Okay, I reuploaded all of the vBulletin 3.5 files with SmartFTP to be sure it was done right and wala. I was able to upgrade. Now I'm going through the AdminCP to make sure everything is fine and dandy. eva2000 I appreciate all your help. It's not taken for granted.

[George L]

Great to hear all is well

[BoomShackaLacka]

Great to hear all is well

I'm happy. So far, everything is working as it should. My avatars weren't showing after the upgrade but the issue was fixed after I reverted the postbit templates to their default states.

I wonder, is there a way to do a global search and replace for a text string in vBulletin's MySQL database? I'm asking because there are posts on our forum that include links to posts and threads within our forum and I'd like to fix them. They are broken because we moved from:

1) http://www.example.org/community/

to:

2) http://community.example.org/

Does anyone out there know a good MySQL command I can run to replace any links directing to "http://www.example.org/community/" with "http://community.example.org/" inside posts?

[BoomShackaLacka]

Links fixed!

I wonder, is there a way to do a global search and replace for a text string in vBulletin's MySQL database? I'm asking because there are posts on our forum that include links to posts and threads within our forum and I'd like to fix them. They are broken because we moved from:

1) http://www.example.org/community/

to:

2) http://community.example.org/

Does anyone out there know a good MySQL command I can run to replace any links directing to "http://www.example.org/community/" with "http://community.example.org/" inside posts?

Many thanks to MarcoH64, I found a solution to this problem.