Merging two VB 4.1.12 forums

[creativepart]

I'm attempting to merge two VB 4.1.12 patch 3 forums together. I'm doing tests in a DEV area.

I've worked to equalize the two forums. The forum names are identical, the two sites are set up as identical as I can make them.

I've run the test import twice but even though everything says it's working fine and there are basically no errors the finished test forum is missing all the imported threads and even many of the existing forums in the target site are deleted and missing all threads and posts after.

Seems like this would be the easiest of forum mergers. Is there some issue merging to VB 4 forums I should be aware of?

6 years ago I imported a phpbb forum into a vb 3 forum and it worked much better than this.

[Zachery]

If you never finalized the old import, you need to do that first.

http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/impex_multi_import (use the version drop down for 4.x and then go to the page again)

[creativepart]

Sorry no, it's not a multi-import. The impex import I did 6 years ago that I referenced was not on either of these two forums.

No, I'm just merging two nearly identical vb forums of the same version and finding missing posts, threads, and forums. You would think that this would be the easiest two forums to merge with impex.

I went through and made sure that the forum titles were identical in the two sites I'm merging. Could it be that impex is having problems because the two sites are too identical?

[Loco.M]

Sorry no, it's not a multi-import. The impex import I did 6 years ago that I referenced was not on either of these two forums.

No, I'm just merging two nearly identical vb forums of the same version and finding missing posts, threads, and forums. You would think that this would be the easiest two forums to merge with impex.

I went through and made sure that the forum titles were identical in the two sites I'm merging. Could it be that impex is having problems because the two sites are too identical?

Have you done everything you suppose to do after the import of the first forum.. eg, removing imported ID's?

[creativepart]

I think I've done everything. It's tough to know for sure, none of the Impex Manual links operate any more. In fact, the whole Impex is a mess. There is wording everywhere in the program that indicates you are importing into a VB 3 database, even when you're not. Even the ImpExConfigs.php says "# The following settings allow ImpEx to connect to the vBulletin 3 database into which you will be importing data."

And here is the link contained in the ImpEx application for the ImpEx Manual -- http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/impex. A missing page.

My biggest issue is that one complete section of forums that exists in both of the sites I'm merging together just disappears in the the test merger. Below are two complete sections -- one in each of the sites I'm merging -- and none of this is importing. But not only that, the entire section is disappearing from the new merged website. It's like they are canceling each other out.

Some things are importing -- but this whole huge section is just gone rather than merged.

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There are lots of things missing. All the members of the "Super Moderators" usergroup are missing. The Target forum has 3,400 members and the source forum has 690 members but the merged version after ImpEx has 1,700 members.

I know this is the reason I'm doing this in a DEV environment but, back to my original post -- if it's this problematic merging two identical VB forums of the same version then the Import system isn't very good.

I'll start over on a new test import from scratch and see if I can determine what the problem is.

PS. I found the ImpEx manual, and yes, I'm doing everything to finalize the import.

[Zachery]

You need to make sure you're in the vb4 manual.

[creativepart]

I deleted the tables in the database of the DEV area and reimported the files. Then I made sure everything was optimized and repaired. And I ran the ImpEx import again.

For some reason when I launch Impex I get taken to the list of routines (modules) and not the screen where you tell impex that you are importing vb4 into vb4. I have to click "Database Cleanup & Restart" and then "delete session" before I get taken to the list of systems so that I can select vb4 > vb4. If I don't do that and just start on the 14 modules when I click the first module "database preparation" Impex assumes I'm importing a PHPBB 2.2 source website. Mind you this is after the entire database of the target site has been dropped and then the database reloaded - what I would call a clean environment devoid of any previous import attempts.

Isn't Impex supposed to start with the "systems" selection first - before running each of the 14 modules? Any idea why after putting in my customer number the page refreshes to the 14 modules page and not the systems page and then thinks I'm importing phpbb > vb4?

Anyway, after figuring this out, I reran the import and this time it worked fairly well.

I had two issues. The first was when I ran the "import custom pictures" module. When I ran that I received a database error. But it wasn't clear what the error was. So, I skipped that.

The next problem was when I ran the "import attachments" module. The module ran but showed all errors and I could see file not found errors. Yet, looking at posts I can see attachments.

What is missing is Custom Avatar thumbs. Even after rebuiding custom avatar thumbs in the maintenance section and seeing them all run normally I can't find any files at all in the customavatars/thumbs folder.

I'm still doing all of this on my DEV version of the site so, I can try things again and see if I can solve these last two issues. But this time the number of members is correct, and so is the number of threads and posts. Plus ALL of the forums were correctly appearing too.

Thanks for any help you can provide on the above issues.

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I'm just now going through the impex manual again.

I found this graphic of how to launch and proceed with impex. This is what my impex is not doing.



Instead this is what happens when I launch Impex:

[Zachery]

That normally means you have an active impex session.

[creativepart]

That normally means you have an active impex session.

Except I don't. But you know what? I purchased the target website from someone, and I suppose it's possible that HE imported from PHPBB to VB and has left the previous session active.

I have no idea if this is the case or not, but it's starting to make sense. I do know that the target site was started in 2001, so this scenario makes some sense.

[Zachery]

that is why I linked the multi import guide. If you really wanted, you could do two imports to a completely clean forum, would save some headaches in some ways.

[creativepart]

I'm getting the following DB error when I try to run the "custom pictures" module:

ImpEx Database error

mysql error: Invalid SQL: 
					INSERT INTO
					customprofilepic
					(
						importcustomprofilepicid, userid, filedata,
						dateline, filename, visible, filesize, height, width
					)
					VALUES
					(
						'3',
						'3',
						'',
						1328387641,
						'123.jpg',
						1,
						0,
						0,
						0
					)
				

mysql error: Duplicate entry '3' for key 'PRIMARY'

mysql error number: 1062

Date: Friday 04th 2013f January 2013 07:26:55 PM
Database: dev-fendertalk
MySQL error:

Any idea why this would be??

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Also, the Attachment module runs -- and shows file not found on every file -- and then shows nothing but errors for that module's results.

I've used the full path "/var/www/vhosts/mydomain.com/httpdocs/forum/images/attachments" for the source for these files and they are in that location. So, I don't know why they'd be "not found."

And, yes, the attachments are in the file system for both the target and the source in the import.

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I've just tried a dozen "path" options for this. And I can see that Impex is looking for file names that end in "dot attach" instead of jpg or gif or png. No wonder the file is never found.

so, I'm seeing the following error when the module runs



You can see the file name ends in .attach. Why would that be happening?

PS. I moved the source files to a different full-path than the one details in my previous post, that's why it's different in the screen shot above.

[Zachery]

Can you put them back into the database?

[creativepart]

I assume I can. I take it I would have to do that to both the target and the source. Is that correct?

What about avatars and profile pics and such as well?

And what about the SQL error on custom pictures?

[Zachery]

It looks like you've lost a unique index on that field. I'd suggest starting over again (not ideal), and making sure everything is in both databases. It should make the transition the most smooth.