Smooth migration

[DEGE]

I have a VB 3.8.4 fully licensed installed and working. Since I'm having some serious performance issues with my hosting provider and after several instances of no solution I decided to migrate all my VB to a new hosting.

As anyone here may know, migrating a VB is quite a mess. You really don't know when the DNS servers will be updated, and if you don't want to lose any data you have to be extra careful.

So I did what the migration documentation says

- Moved all my files to the new server
- Edited the config.php in the includes directory to point to the new database
- backed up all my database and restored it on the new server

The point is... I cannot get it to work on the new server prior to migrate my domain in the DNS
Servers. I cannot log with any user neither the superadministrator user. It always rejects my login attempts and in some cases redirects me to my old server.

As the title of my post says, I want to do a smooth and flawless migration from one server to the other. I want to configure the new installation as "Board Closed" so that I can move the lastest SQL tables backup to it before opening it to the users.

Can anybody tell me what am I doing wrong?
What am I supposed to do to do a flawless migration?
Do I have to migrate my DNS servers and pray that the whole VB system in the new server works fine as an act of faith?

I'm rather a "see to beleive" man, so it sounds very strange for me to trust in a blind system migration.

Hope anyone can help me.

DEGE

[Trevor Hannant]

Have your new provider given you a temporary URL or a DNS address you can point to at the moment? I've moved a few boards between accounts over the past 2 years and never had any problems with accessing from these methods.

[DEGE]

I do have a temporary URL to access my page ate the new server, but when I try to login at this page I get redirected to the old url (where my forum is now) without accepting my user nad or password

[Trevor Hannant]

In phpMyAdmin, take a look at the bburl field in the setting table - is this set to your temporary URL or the main one?

Also check the cookiepath on the same table - if this set as '/' then try changing it to '/forumpath/' and clear your cookies on your machine to see if that helps

[Miljan]

I have a VB 3.8.4 fully licensed installed and working. Since I'm having some serious performance issues with my hosting provider and after several instances of no solution I decided to migrate all my VB to a new hosting.

As anyone here may know, migrating a VB is quite a mess. You really don't know when the DNS servers will be updated, and if you don't want to lose any data you have to be extra careful.

So I did what the migration documentation says

- Moved all my files to the new server
- Edited the config.php in the includes directory to point to the new database
- backed up all my database and restored it on the new server

The point is... I cannot get it to work on the new server prior to migrate my domain in the DNS
Servers. I cannot log with any user neither the superadministrator user. It always rejects my login attempts and in some cases redirects me to my old server.

As the title of my post says, I want to do a smooth and flawless migration from one server to the other. I want to configure the new installation as "Board Closed" so that I can move the lastest SQL tables backup to it before opening it to the users.

Can anybody tell me what am I doing wrong?
What am I supposed to do to do a flawless migration?
Do I have to migrate my DNS servers and pray that the whole VB system in the new server works fine as an act of faith?

I'm rather a "see to beleive" man, so it sounds very strange for me to trust in a blind system migration.

Hope anyone can help me.

DEGE

I have the same problem with my hosting provider and I also must migrate my forum. Where I can find migration documentation?
I have temporary URL and this migration must be done until 20.jan, I need help about this.
Soory for my english.

[Trevor Hannant]

http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/main/moving_servers

[Miljan]

Thanks.
I have one more question.
Can I by new vb4 and make clean install on new server, and then just move mysql from old server and connect that base with new vb4?

[Trevor Hannant]

No, the databases are different - you NEED to run the upgrade script to upgrade a site properly.

[lance77]

Hi everyone,

i have a related problem in a similar way

(1) in my old server, where my forum is in 3.8.x version,
using admincp, i backed up and downloaded this file - vbulletin.sql

(2) is this vbulletin.sql the same file as what i would get if i back up using PhpMyAdmin ?

(3) what should i do with vbulletin.sql?
load it into the new server using PhpMyAdmin?

(4) would impex be an easier way for me?
i'm not so concerned about the member database but i'm more concerned with the forum posts and threads as there's plenty of useful knowledge recorded in there...

(5) last question,
should i install version 3.8.X first in new server, import, then upgrade to VB4.0.1
or can i install VB4.0.1 straightaway and import the data?

[Trevor Hannant]

2 - yes however The most reliable method of backing up and restoring a database is with shell access via ssh. This is because backing up with a PHP script like that in the Admin CP or phpMyAdmin can result in PHP timeouts errors and an incomplete backup file. Please see the instructions here:

Backup:

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

Restore:

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

P.S If you don't have shell access, some people have also 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

3. You could although it will depend on the size of the file and the max upload size that your host has set on your server. Again, see the above links

4. You should be OK restoring your current database backup

5. Import the backup into your new database, upload the 4.0.1 files (no need for the 3.8 files if you're going to upgrade straight away - remember to edit config.php first though!) then run the upgrade script