Threads in impex import from WebBBS

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  • jola
    New Member
    • Nov 2008
    • 29

    Threads in impex import from WebBBS

    I am having problems to import my WebBBS data. The threading is not working correctly. The threading data in WebBBS is handled so that WebBBS adds a PREVIOUS>?? tag to each message that is an answer to another message, where ?? is the number of the previous message that the message is an answer to. Here is an example of how a thread in WebBBS could look:

    Original threads/posts in WebBBS:


    Code:
     
    Message 1
    Message 2
        Message 3, answer to message 2
            Message 4, answer to message 3
        Message 5, answer to message 2
            Message 6, answer to message 5

    Imported threads/posts in vBulletin using impex:

    Code:
     
    Message 1
        Message 6
    Message 2
        Message 3
        Message 4
        Message 5
    As you can see the import is not using the PREVIOUS>?? tags in the WebBBS data correctly and messes up the threads.

    Anyone have any ideas on how to correct this? Is it possible for impex to base its threading just on the data given in the PREVIOUS>?? tags in each message in the WebBBS messages? I'm not very used to vBulletin impex imports so I'm a bit confused how threads should be handled in a multi-threaded import where a thread is split into several sub-threads
    Last edited by jola; Sat 6 Dec '08, 7:38am.
  • Steve Machol
    Former Customer Support Manager
    • Jul 2000
    • 154488

    #2
    Which version of WebBBS is this?
    Steve Machol, former vBulletin Customer Support Manager (and NOT retired!)
    Change CKEditor Colors to Match Style (for 4.1.4 and above)

    Steve Machol Photography


    Mankind is the only creature smart enough to know its own history, and dumb enough to ignore it.


    Comment

    • jola
      New Member
      • Nov 2008
      • 29

      #3
      WebBBS Version 5.12

      It is WebBBS version 5.12 (the latest official version, although it is several years old by now).

      I am testing it on a simple test forum which I just setup.

      Comment

      • Steve Machol
        Former Customer Support Manager
        • Jul 2000
        • 154488

        #4
        Strange, the docs show that Impex only suports the forums for some reason:

        webbbs
        Tier = 2
        Source version support in ImpEx = 5.12
        • Import forum

        Nothing else. Fill out a support ticket and ask for Jerry. Be sure to include all the login info needed for him to have access to your vB, FTP and the databases.
        Steve Machol, former vBulletin Customer Support Manager (and NOT retired!)
        Change CKEditor Colors to Match Style (for 4.1.4 and above)

        Steve Machol Photography


        Mankind is the only creature smart enough to know its own history, and dumb enough to ignore it.


        Comment

        • jola
          New Member
          • Nov 2008
          • 29

          #5
          Thanks Steve. I'm actually already in contact with Jerry. But I guess he, as most people, don't work on Saturdays, so I thought I would post a question here instead.

          Jerry did confirm to me before I bought vBulletin that imports from WebBBS 5.12 would work for everything (forums, threads and posts). However, so is not the case I'm afraid. To confirm that it is not something that I have changed in my version of WebBBS I even installed a completely vanilla 5.12 test forum which I tried to import just a few threads/posts from into vBulletin using impex. It didn't work and the threads got messed up as I showed in my first post in this thread.

          Comment

          • Steve Machol
            Former Customer Support Manager
            • Jul 2000
            • 154488

            #6
            Unfortunately Jerry is the only one that can sort this out. Sorry.
            Steve Machol, former vBulletin Customer Support Manager (and NOT retired!)
            Change CKEditor Colors to Match Style (for 4.1.4 and above)

            Steve Machol Photography


            Mankind is the only creature smart enough to know its own history, and dumb enough to ignore it.


            Comment

            • jola
              New Member
              • Nov 2008
              • 29

              #7
              Some things fixed myself, but still problems

              I'm responding to myself here. I have managed to fix some of the problems with webbbs imports myself. The bbs?? internal directory structure in a webbbs forum needs to be handled differently and I modified the impex/systems/webbbs/000.php file to correctly handle the bbs?? directories in a webbbs forum.

              The thread and parent post settings in imports from a webbbs forum is also broken in impex and this will break the threading in imported webbbs forums as described above. I have fixed this by making modifications in the impex/systems/webbbs/002.php file.

              A webbbs forum also uses some html tags in the posts that break the format of imported posts a bit. To fix this I had to do some minor modifications of the impex/ImpExFunction.php file.

              Importing one webbbs forum now works great in my modified impex version. However, when importing more than one forum things break. There must be some bug remaining which I haven't been able to sort out yet. I hope that Jerry and the vBulletin people will help me there, since this problem is very closely related to the internal vBulletin/impex details.

              Comment

              • jola
                New Member
                • Nov 2008
                • 29

                #8
                WebBBS Imports Finally Working

                I have finally been able to get the import routines for my old WebBBS forums to work.

                The impex import (build version: 1.91) for WebBBS are broken and I had to modify the import routines significantly. vBulletin are aware of my modifications and I hope that they will implement this into future impex releases so that it works better for future users who want to import WebBBS forums.

                The modification I have made are:

                1. Manual addition of my forum directories to the 000.php file

                2. Correct usage of the bbs?? directories in a WebBBS forum in the 000.php file. These directories are an internal data-structure in WebBBS and they were originally used incorrectly and this created many incorrect sub-forums in the imported data.

                3. Corrected the translation of WebBBS message texts. Originally the imported messages did not always start on the correct line, had incorrect translation of HTML codes that caused double line-breaks, initial message lines missing etc.

                4. Corrected the thread and parent post information for imported messages in the 002.php file. Originally imported threads were broken and did not get the correct parent post information set.

                5. In addition to these source code modification to impex I also had to increase the php memory limit and the php max execution time. Otherwise the import broke half way through.

                Using these modification I have been able to import all messages from my old WebBBS forums My old forums had almost 200,000 messages, dating back more than 10 years.

                If you are a WebBBS user and want to switch to vBulletin and import all your old messages you should make sure that vBulletin has implemented these corrections in impex. Otherwise your import will not work very well.

                Comment

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