XMB converter -- need clarification

[Crazy Pete]

Hey folks,

I've used vBulletin as a regular forum member on a few different sites, and I'm now looking into using it for my forum software on my domain, http://www.expectedmiracles.com. We're the official fan site of Universal Records recording artist Matt Nathanson.

Currently we're using a heavily modified version of XMB 1.5, and I saw an annoucenment on here from a month or two ago that an XMB converter was finished for vB. My question is this, which version(s) of XMB does this convert successfully? At the moment, we have 526 topics / 4368 posts / 235 users, with much more growth expected in the weeks and months to come, so it's vitally important that the conversion be able to go as smoothly as possible and with as few headaches as can be avoided.

The main issue I have though, is that since this is such a modified version from how XMB is after a standard installation, I'm worried that the converter script might try to look for things to change that aren't there, or find things there that it doesn't know how to change over.

Hopefully I'm making sense, and hopefully someone can help me out a bit more by offering some more info on it. Thanks very much!

[Cary]

The XMB Converter imports your posts and stuff from version 1.6

So, you could upgrade your XMB to 1.6 then convert.

[Crazy Pete]

Thanks very much, Cary. I'm assuming also that this script will work with the new XMB 1.8 that's just been released? I had been leery of upgrading to that as well because I didn't want to lose the hacks I had installed, but I just tried it on my test system here and it went will. I lost them, but the main bulk of the data is still there and that's what important anyway.

So, this will work with XMB 1.8 -> vB?

[Cary]

To be honest, I'm not sure. I think it does, but I'm not 100 percent sure, so I'm not promising anything.

If you could dump [backup] your database and send me a copy of it, I could test it out for you. Or - seeing that you are a licensed member, you could test the import script yourself - just make sure you backup your database first. (just in case the script doesn't work for you.)

[Crazy Pete]

Originally posted by Cary

If you could dump [backup] your database and send me a copy of it, I could test it out for you. Or - seeing that you are a licensed member, you could test the import script yourself - just make sure you backup your database first. (just in case the script doesn't work for you.)

I could do that, but currently our database is around 9MB, so that might take a bit to get to you depending on how I send it. As far as being a licensed member, I'm actually not just yet, but if all will be well as far as switching over goes, I'll be registering probably next week. Just have to get a few other things cleared up first.

[Steve Machol]

Originally posted by Crazy Pete
Thanks very much, Cary. I'm assuming also that this script will work with the new XMB 1.8 that's just been released?

I doubt this will work, particularly if there have been any changes to the XMB database in 1.8. If not, then it might work.

[Crazy Pete]

Originally posted by Steve Machol
I doubt this will work, particularly if there have been any changes to the XMB database in 1.8. If not, then it might work.

As far as I've been able to tell, there haven't been any changes made to the database structure, it's mainly just code changes and optimizations.

-- Edit: Nevermind, I downgraded to 1.6b2 anyhow, so that should work fine. Thanks very much for all the help, by the way.

[Crazy Pete]

Originally posted by Cary
To be honest, I'm not sure. I think it does, but I'm not 100 percent sure, so I'm not promising anything.

If you could dump [backup] your database and send me a copy of it, I could test it out for you. Or - seeing that you are a licensed member, you could test the import script yourself - just make sure you backup your database first. (just in case the script doesn't work for you.)

I'd still like to do this, Cary, if you're still willing to try it out for me. My gut tells me it will work, but I'd just like to be sure before I plunk down the cash. Forgive my moderate insistence.

[ManagerJosh]

Originally posted by Crazy Pete
I'd still like to do this, Cary, if you're still willing to try it out for me. My gut tells me it will work, but I'd just like to be sure before I plunk down the cash. Forgive my moderate insistence.

As Cary stated before, email him a copy of your database and he'll check if it will work. Cary's email is [email protected]

[Crazy Pete]

Thanks Josh, I e-mailed that off to him just now. We shall see..

Edit -- Well, we saw indeed. It converted everything almost perfectly, the only thing to change was the forum order and a few minor things. The last post date/time wasn't there on the main forum display, but one new post and that was fine. Also, a few threads showed up as stickies when they shouldn't have been, but that's also an easy change. Excellent results, and many huge thanks to Cary for trying that for me. You guys rock!

[ManagerJosh]

Great to hear that Crazy Pete.

[Scott MacVicar]

if you go into the admin panel and rebuild all the counters like it says on the last step of the importer it will sort the last post info for each forum and other things.

I used 1.5 for my test forum and then 1.6 and I dont remember any differences in the database, so it should work with XMB 1.5 and above as well as DevBB 1.0 and above which was a fork of XMB.

[Cary]

Yep... he was using 1.5 and it seemed to convert smoothly