Config.php... What do I Do?

[Ocean]

Everything is outside of a persons area of expertise before they learn how to do it. I'm not incapable of learning so I'll take the time and ask how to do this properly and figure it out in the end.

Good for you, Novadream.

I'd much rather ask the questions than just go ahead and screw my entire site up. So bare with me if they're a little elementary for your tastes.


Is there any point at all to move my vb2 files into a folder named "forum" only to delete all these files a few seconds later? And if I do move them in to that folder for whatever reason, and I upload the VB3 "uploads" folder and then rename it to "forum" won't it than rewrite the vb2 "forum" folder?

If the procedure to move a forum cannot be incorporated with the Upgrade procedure, than it is because the location is stored in the database - which is why you would be moving your forum even though you're about to clear the directories.

In addition, if the above scenario is true, than you're better off doing the move with your old vB installation because that way, your new vB installation will be as clean as possible.

Were you to upgrade first, you would run a further risk of making a mistake in determining which files/folders need to be moved. As it stands now, your file structure is one that you've been working with for a while, so you are most familiar with it.


As to your last point, assuming that you have to do the move seperately from upgrading, this is what you want to aim for:


1. Run the procedure to move your forums from www.mywebsite.com to www.mywebsite.com/forums (or whatever you want to name the directory). This will integrate the change into your database.

2. Rename your "forums" directory to "oldforums" - as an example.

3. Prepare your vB 3.0.3 Install Package, and upload the "upload" directory into your website.

4. Rename the "upload" directory to "forums"

5. Copy over any custom files - such as custom avatars, added avatars, post icons, smilies, etc... from your old directories to your new. Don't copy over the default ones, only the ones that you (or your users) have added.

6. Run the Upgrade script as you're supposed to.

Also, you never mentioned about my avatars, smilies, post icons... if I delete them.. won't they be gone for good?

If you have added avatars, post icons, smilies, etc... then the custom additions would need to be moved into the appropriate directories in the new installation.

That is why I told you to move them, rather than deleting them. As far as the upgrade procedure is concerned, you will have deleted them because your forums directory will be completely empty when you upload your install package. However, all of the files will still be on the server - which makes them easy to transfer to their new locations.

[Novadream]

Ok so first I figure out which files I need to move by looking at my vbulletin 2 zip file... after i've figured out which ones to move... then i put them in a folder named "forum" and then 2 seconds later i rename this folder again to "oldforums" ?

everything else is very clear... except for that ^^ and this... when do i delete my oldforums folder? after i've moved the images? or after i've done everything you mentioned... run the instally script etc etc... after all of that i then delete my oldforums folder?

[Ocean]

Ok so first I figure out which files I need to move by looking at my vbulletin 2 zip file... after i've figured out which ones to move... then i put them in a folder named "forum" and then 2 seconds later i rename this folder again to "oldforums" ?

everything else is very clear... except for that ^^ and this... when do i delete my oldforums folder? after i've moved the images? or after i've done everything you mentioned... run the instally script etc etc... after all of that i then delete my oldforums folder?

Alright, here's the overall procedure:


1. Backup everything.

2. Take your board Offline.

3. Create whatever folder you want your forums to exist in. Such as www.mywebsite.com/forums.

4. Figure out what files/folders are part of your vB installation and move everything into that new directory.

5. Go into your AdminCP and change your Forum URL in vB Options.

6. Make sure that your board still works fine.

7. Rename your "forums" directory to "oldforums".

8. Prepare your vB 3.0.3 Install Package, and upload the "upload" directory into your website.

9. Rename the "upload" directory to "forums"

10. Copy over any custom files - such as custom avatars, added avatars, post icons, smilies, etc... from your old directories to your new. Don't copy over the default ones, only the ones that you (or your users) have added.

11. Run the Upgrade script as you're supposed to.

12. Go into your AdminCP, and go over everything to make sure that your board is configured the way you want it. Remember, that you are doing a major upgrade and there will be many new/changed options. Make sure that you also check for Updated Templates. There will be an option for this in your vB 3.x AdminCP. You'll need to do some work if you have customized any of your templates.

13. You'll need to go to Update Counters in your AdminCP and update a number of things here. I believe the Upgrade script will tell you which ones you need to do. The manual will also tell you, if you go to the Update Counters section. Alternately, you could also Update everything.

14. Check your board to make sure that everything looks good, and works as it should. Expect to have to do a bit of tweaking at this stage.

15. Personally, I would hold onto the oldforums directory for at least a couple of weeks to make sure that you don't get any surprises. After all, you might think that everything looks fine at first, but once you put the board online, your users might spot something you missed. If you've gone at least a few weeks without any problems, you can probably delete the oldforums directory.



There are a couple of optional steps you could add, if you want to be extra careful, such as:


1. Before you upgrade your board, Repair and Optimize your Tables.

2. After you upgrade, Repair and Optimize your Tables.

3. If you installed any hacks that modified the Database, it might be a good idea to reverse those changes in the database before you upgrade.


But it's up to you whether you want to take those extra steps. They make things safer, but they do take additional time. Ultimately, though, as long as you have properly backed up everything, you can't go that wrong.

The worst that will happen is that you have to restore everything to vB 2.x and do it all over again.

[Novadream]

Thank you for your detailed help. I know for certain I wouldn't have been able to do this without your step by step assistance. I really appreciate it!! I can't thank you enough =)


That process was huge! I can't believe I survived it for the most part.. There must have been over 200 steps in that upgrade that I wasn't prepared for at all other than the fact I had poured myself a tall glass of iced tea moments earlier.

I followed your steps exactly as you described them. And it was really easy for me to understand thanks to your help. But right now this is where I'm at...

I'm at number 13 on your list... Im not sure where to update my counters or what it even means. I dont know if this affects some of the problems my board is having at the moment or not......but I included my images into VB3 in the exact order as you mentioned.. Everything was in the same folder, icons, smilies, avatars. etc etc.. But some of the images are showing up as Red X's right now.. ALL of the avatars are Red X's... but I can see their file name where the Red X is... ALL of my posts icons work properly.. And I havent checked my smilies yet.. Im not sure why the Red X's are showing and not the images.. It seems kinda random that icons work and avatars don't.. And there are Red X's for the last post icon.. and the search thing is a Red X and so is the option to the right of search "quicklinks" is also a Red X.


I think that it can be fixed pretty simply but I wouldn't know where to start.


Thank you for all your help so far.

[Ocean]

Thank you for your detailed help. I know for certain I wouldn't have been able to do this without your step by step assistance. I really appreciate it!! I can't thank you enough =)

You're more than welcome.

That process was huge! I can't believe I survived it for the most part.. There must have been over 200 steps in that upgrade that I wasn't prepared for at all other than the fact I had poured myself a tall glass of iced tea moments earlier.

Congratulations! It sounds like you made it through the hardest parts!

I followed your steps exactly as you described them. And it was really easy for me to understand thanks to your help. But right now this is where I'm at...

I'm at number 13 on your list... Im not sure where to update my counters or what it even means. I dont know if this affects some of the problems my board is having at the moment or not......but I included my images into VB3 in the exact order as you mentioned.. Everything was in the same folder, icons, smilies, avatars. etc etc.. But some of the images are showing up as Red X's right now.. ALL of the avatars are Red X's... but I can see their file name where the Red X is... ALL of my posts icons work properly.. And I havent checked my smilies yet.. Im not sure why the Red X's are showing and not the images.. It seems kinda random that icons work and avatars don't.. And there are Red X's for the last post icon.. and the search thing is a Red X and so is the option to the right of search "quicklinks" is also a Red X.


I think that it can be fixed pretty simply but I wouldn't know where to start.


Thank you for all your help so far.

Alright, well let's start with Updating the counters.

In your AdminCP, under Import & Maintenance, you'll find a section called Update Counters. This is where you need to go.

The section in the manual that references this page is here: http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/m...nance_counters


The problems you're describing with the images is probably relatively easy to solve - but Updating your Counters after a major upgrade like this one is more important by far.

Now, the manual will tell you which counters you have to update. But to be honest, after doing a major upgrade like this one - if I were you - I would run most of them.

The big reason why you might not want to do this is if you have a huge board, and don't want to take the time to do it. Smaller reasons would be, for example, if you have manually changed anybody's Post Counts.

Before you do this, if you haven't run Repair and Optimize on your Tables yet, I would recommend that you do so.


After that, this is what I recommend you run - and in the order specified:


1. Rebuild Thread Information

2. Update Post Counts

3. Rebuild Forum Information

4. Update User Names

5. Update User Titles

6. Rebuild User Reputation (If you use this, or have ever used this)

7. Rebuild Statistics

8. Rebuild Attachment Thumbnails

9. Rebuild Post Cache (This option will only be displayed if you use it)

10. Rebuild Styles (Check for Styles with No Parent = Yes, Renumber all Templates from 1 = No)

11. Rebuild Search Index (This will take a while)


After you have run all of that, your board will be most of the way towards being done. When you've completed this list (or even just the bare minimum that the manual specifies as necessary), tell me where you are with the images.

I don't anticipate that your situation will have changed, necessarily - but it might. So when you're done, tell me how things are looking, and we'll take it from there.

[bubbasmurf]

The best way I found to upgrade was to rename the fourms folder on my server and the upload the folder in the zip file called upload to the server and then rename it to fourms, change the config.php file and run the http://www.******.com/forums/install/upgrade.php
doing it this way if I made a mistake I could allways rename both folders again such has my 301 folder back to forums and I wouldnt lose anything. But everthing went ok so all I needed to do was to put my smilies back in to the images folder and things like that. After I did that I just deleated the old folder 301 and now everything was upgraded to the new forum.

[Ocean]

The best way I found to upgrade was to rename the fourms folder on my server and the upload the folder in the zip file called upload to the server and then rename it to fourms, change the config.php file and run the http://www.******.com/forums/install/upgrade.php
doing it this way if I made a mistake I could allways rename both folders again such has my 301 folder back to forums and I wouldnt lose anything. But everthing went ok so all I needed to do was to put my smilies back in to the images folder and things like that. After I did that I just deleated the old folder 301 and now everything was upgraded to the new forum.

It could not have been that simple for Novadream.

First of all, the root of his forum directory was the same as the root of his website. So he had the files for his website mixed in with the vB files. This mess had to be seperated out before he upgraded.

Secondly, your procedure isn't completely correct, in that it doesn't mention that if something went wrong, you couldn't just rename folders - but you might have to restore your database as well.

And lastly, for an upgrade from vB 2.x to 3.x, there are other steps that need to be taken - such as updating counters. Add to that, the fact that vB 3.x has many added and changed options compared to 2.x - which means that you can't just upgrade and run - but you need to actually go over everything to make sure that the board is running the way you want it to.


Upgrading from 3.0.1 to 3.0.3 might be simpler - but from 2.x to 3.x, with the complications that Novadream had - it's an entirely different animal.

[Hal]

The Saint-of-the-Month Award goes to 'Ocean' for patience and concern for a fellow user in distress. Good job!!

[Ocean]

The Saint-of-the-Month Award goes to 'Ocean' for patience and concern for a fellow user in distress. Good job!!

<blush>

[Novadream]

The Saint-of-the-Month Award goes to 'Ocean' for patience and concern for a fellow user in distress. Good job!!

Your forgot "understanding" as well. He's even defending my situation for me now too =)

And this is definitely not as easy a process as some people might try and make it out to be. I've had to do at least 500 different tasks upgrading from VB2 to VB3... Just the sheer time it takes is enormous. I spent at least 10 hours yesterday and now today I've been running these operations from 9AM until now 5PM.. And I just finished... I've easily put in 72 hours on this entire thing... I wouldn't be so quick to pretend that it's wham bam and the upgrade is done. Im glad I never knew it took this long or else I probably would have made an excuse out of laziness to stick with VB2. But I've put in the time now thanks to Oceans perfect decriptions which is proof that nobody is incapable of following directions as long as they know how to read. Which I do luckily :/

Ocean: I've spent the entire day doing exactly what you mentioned (updating the counters and so on) Everything you mentioned to do, I have completed it now. I checked my forums out after doing all these things.. But the images I mentioned earlier are still showing up as Red X's. Now that I've updated the counters etc etc. Fixing the images is the next step? Or anything else before the images need to be solved?

Thanks.

[Ocean]

Ocean: I've spent the entire day doing exactly what you mentioned (updating the counters and so on) Everything you mentioned to do, I have completed it now. I checked my forums out after doing all these things.. But the images I mentioned earlier are still showing up as Red X's. Now that I've updated the counters etc etc. Fixing the images is the next step? Or anything else before the images need to be solved?

Thanks.

Nope, it's time to work on those images.


Now, you said that some of the default images are not loading properly - such as the triangular arrow that's supposed to be next to the Search and Quick Links portion of the NavBar, is that correct?

If any of the default images are not loading, that suggests that you may have overwritten something when you transferred images from your old installation to your new. Or perhaps, those files didn't upload properly


If that's the case, than let's try this:


1. Under your root forums directory, rename your "images" directory to "oldimages".

2. Upload the "images" directory from your vB 3.0.3 Install Package into the proper place on your website.


Then take a look. All of your default vB images should load properly.


Once you've reached the point of the default vB images loading properly, then we'll deal with the custom images.

[Novadream]

Ok I figured out that problem thanx to your advice once again... and it lead me to figure out how to fix all of my Red X's.. So everything is perfect now =) All my avatars, post icons, and smilies are working as they should now.


Just a few quick questions.. When i upload a smilie and then give it a short cut name.. Example -> [happyface] sometimes the name has too many characters and my smilie page where you click more to see all the smilies will then show the short cut name as something like Example -> [happyfa

How do I stop my forum from shortening the name? I want it to let me have longer names if I want to.


and this beige box that surrounds where you type here (when replying or beginning a new thread its visible)

<-------------------------------------------------------->

How do i change the colour of it?

How do I let users upload a profile pic? How do I go about that?

And my forum information is at the bottom now... such as "threads" "posts" "members" and 'welcome our newest member' it used to be at the top before and I liked it that way the best. How do I move this little area back to the top and not underneath the currently active users part?

Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Ocean]

Ok I figured out that problem thanx to your advice once again... and it lead me to figure out how to fix all of my Red X's.. So everything is perfect now =) All my avatars, post icons, and smilies are working as they should now.

Excellent! I'm glad you got everything working!

Just a few quick questions.. When i upload a smilie and then give it a short cut name.. Example -> [happyface] sometimes the name has too many characters and my smilie page where you click more to see all the smilies will then show the short cut name as something like Example -> [happyfa

How do I stop my forum from shortening the name? I want it to let me have longer names if I want to.

This is happening because within your database, the "smilie" Table has a character limit of 10 characters. You can change this by going into whatever program you use to manage your database and changing the Size of the "smilie" Table to 20, for example, which is ample for most people.

and this beige box that surrounds where you type here (when replying or beginning a new thread its visible)

<-------------------------------------------------------->

How do i change the colour of it?

How do I let users upload a profile pic? How do I go about that?

And my forum information is at the bottom now... such as "threads" "posts" "members" and 'welcome our newest member' it used to be at the top before and I liked it that way the best. How do I move this little area back to the top and not underneath the currently active users part?

Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The rest of your questions, you should be able to easily find answers to by doing a search on this board. These are topics that have been answered to a great degree, and you should have no problems finding ample solutions.

As a tidbit of what you're looking at, however...


1. Changing the border colors of the WYSIWIG Editor needs to be done in one of the PHP files, I believe. I don't think it has an easy solution, such as editing a Style.

2. Being able to upload a profile picture is something that is controlled via Usergroup priviledges. So you can set this individually for each Usergroup.

3. Moving the statistics to the top of your page will involve editing the templates.


If you are unable to find answers to some of these questions, it's best to post the questions seperately in the "How Do I..." subforum. Not only will it be easier for you to get answers, but you will be helping others find them as well, when they are asking the same questions.


I'm glad that everything worked out well for you and I hope I was able to help you through the learning process.

[Novadream]

"This is happening because within your database, the "smilie" Table has a character limit of 10 characters. You can change this by going into whatever program you use to manage your database and changing the Size of the "smilie" Table to 20, for example, which is ample for most people."



Hi ocean. Im not sure what you mean by 'program' and I would need exact instructions of where the smilie table is cuz im not sure about where its located either.

Thanks.

[Ocean]

Hi ocean. Im not sure what you mean by 'program' and I would need exact instructions of where the smilie table is cuz im not sure about where its located either.

Thanks.

As an administrator/owner of vBulletin, it is strongly recommended that you have some way of accessing and managing your database - which is where all of your board information is stored (posts, threads, user information, vB Options, etc... ).

Most people here use phpMyAdmin. But some people use other programs - I do, for example. If you haven't done so already, you need to set up Admin access via whatever interface program you choose.

Once you have that (assuming you don't have it already), you then need to make the changes I described in order to increase the character limit for smilie replacement text.


How you set up a database administrator program depends on the program you choose, as well as whomever is hosting your database server. If you want maximum compatibility with help and advice on this board, you'll probably want to use phpMyAdmin, as that is what most people here are familiar with.

That having been said, you can get more information on phpMyAdmin from their website - www.phpmyadmin.net.


They have documentation available online, and by going through it, as well as talking to your server host, you'll be able to set up an administrator application without too many problems.