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Topic: A little assistance required

I have some forums that were free, so don't blame me that they were IPB :) Anyway, the free hosting has ceased to be offered as my bandwidth has exceeded 1GB/month - must have been quite popular!

Out of almost pure luck than anything, I did an MySQL backup just yesterday. I have read the thread concerning how to change IPB -> PunBB, and downloaded Chacmool's converter, but I'm not too good with this kind of thing.

Would anyone be prepared to help me with this conversion, so that I end up with a MySQL dump of my forums in PunBB?

That way I can go about finding some hosting, as it looks like I could be in trouble otherwise.

Also, when i was doing my browsing yesterday, I found that the vast majority of the IPB database is actually for spider logs, rather than user/post data. Maybe having PunBB would halt this use of bandwidth?

Re: A little assistance required

Joey wrote:

Out of almost pure luck than anything, I did an MySQL backup just yesterday. I have read the thread concerning how to change IPB -> PunBB, and downloaded Chacmool's converter, but I'm not too good with this kind of thing.

Would anyone be prepared to help me with this conversion, so that I end up with a MySQL dump of my forums in PunBB?

Sure, I can help you :)
Do you only have the MySQL-dump then? Can't you install a webserver at home and run the converter there instead? I think it would be much easier than converting the dump.

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Re: A little assistance required

Chacmool wrote:

Can't you install a webserver at home and ...

The quick way: AppServ :D

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Re: A little assistance required

I used WinLAMP to create an Apache server on my home PC, but I've tried a PHPbb --> PunBB conversion before and I wasn't very good at it.

How good is your converter anyway Chacmool? ;) :)

Re: A little assistance required

Yeah, it's really hard to fix the bugs if no one tells me they exist :)

It work's fine here anyway, maybe you could send me the dump?

6 (edited by Louis 2004-05-28 17:39)

Re: A little assistance required

Chacmool wrote:

Yeah, it's really hard to fix the bugs if no one tells me they exist :)

Testing, testing, testing :)
http://www.google.com/search?q=php+unit+testing

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Re: A little assistance required

The file is about 1MB, so hotmail doesn't like me sending it. I'll upload it to my webspace so download it from here:

http://www.apsk07.dsl.pipex.com/ibf_dbbackup.zip

I hope its salvagable :)

Re: A little assistance required

Louis wrote:
Chacmool wrote:

Yeah, it's really hard to fix the bugs if no one tells me they exist :)

Testing, testing, testing :)
http://www.google.com/search?q=php+unit+testing

Have you ever tried unit testing a conversion script?

"Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life."

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Re: A little assistance required

If someone could have a look at it, it'd be much appreciated. Email in profile :)

10 (edited by Louis 2004-05-29 21:15)

Re: A little assistance required

Joey wrote:

If someone could have a look at it, it'd be much appreciated. Email in profile :)

It took about 10 minutes before I realised I had to put the converter in a subfolder in a punbb installation, then it took another 4 for me to use the mysql command line to insert the dump in a new database and give the punbb database access to the ibp database. Ugh I hate security sometimes.

File: _start.php
Line: 46

PunBB reported: Unable to fetch user info
Database reported: Unknown column 'e.aim_name' in 'field list' (Errno: 1054)

Switching line 46 in _start.php and line 8 in _users.php to the following fixed the error:

$res = $db->query('SELECT m.* FROM ...

InvPB to PunBB converter at page: _polls   

Converting polls: 0...
PunPoll not installed, redirecting...

Never redirected me. Had to manually change to ?page=6 from ?page=5

File: functions.php
Line: 9

PunBB reported: Unable to get count value for table: badwords
Database reported: You have an error in your SQL syntax. Check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '' at line 1 (Errno: 1064)

After staring puzzled at the code for a bit, I realised it was because there was nothing inside the ibf_badwords table for the script to convert. Better add a check or something to that.

Oh and it's not "cencored" or "cencoring" but "censored" and "censoring" ;)

Next on to ?page=7 (manually typed, because of the above error)

File: _bans.php
Line: 5

PunBB reported: Unable to get posts
Database reported: Table 'invpb.ibf_banfilters' doesn't exist (Errno: 1146)

No problem, I'll assume he just didn't ban anyone. Needs another check or something to avoid the error message though.

Next on to ?page=8 (manually typed again because of the error)

Info     
Conversion done!

Database converted in: 1085865131.97s

Note: Don't forget to rebuild the search index!

   
PunBB status     
PunBB contains:
Users: 155
Categories: 8
Forums: 0
Topics: 248
Posts: 5028

   
InvPB status     
InvPB contains:
Users: 157
Categories: 8
Forums: 0
Topics: 248
Posts: 5028
Polls: 23

Because your board contains polls (and I didn't have the polls mod installed) I'll re-do this, to get the polls done too, then create an sql dump of it, if you want.

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Re: A little assistance required

Arrgh! Why me? :/

When I load the PunRes site, my firewall says:

The page cannot be displayed
There is a problem with the page you are trying to reach and it cannot be displayed.   

Please try the following:
Click the Refresh button, or try again later.

Open the Web site home page, and then look for links to the information you want.
If you believe you should be able to view this directory or page, please contact the Web site administrator by using the e-mail address or phone number listed on the Web site home page.
10060 - Connection timeout
Internet Security and Acceleration Server

Technical Information (for support personnel)
Background:
When the server, while acting as a gateway or proxy, contacted the upstream content server, it did not receive a timely response.

Well, I tried. :/

12 (edited by Louis 2004-05-29 21:24)

Re: A little assistance required

Here's the PunBB database I managed to create
(without polls, sadly, because I couldn't install the PunPolls mod):

Joey: Don't use this link untill I've looked at it! /chacmool
http://www.CSpotkill.com/joey_punbb.sql.gz

Just create a new PunBB install, get it working with a database, then drop all the tables in the database PunBB is configured to use and load the above SQL instead. It will create the tables automatically and populate them with the data I managed to convert. Use PHPMyAdmin if you're unfamiliar with databases.

Re: A little assistance required

Nice job Louis :) Though, there are some errors, I'll look at it right away.

Re: A little assistance required

Done! Some work left to do, but it's mainly removing of bb-code, <br>'s and such things. Some comments:

Louis wrote:
Joey wrote:

If someone could have a look at it, it'd be much appreciated. Email in profile :)

It took about 10 minutes before I realised I had to put the converter in a subfolder in a punbb installation, then it took another 4 for me to use the mysql command line to insert the dump in a new database and give the punbb database access to the ibp database. Ugh I hate security sometimes.

Yeah, I should have written some instructions in the readmy. I'm about to do this untill next release.

Louis wrote:

File: _start.php
Line: 46

PunBB reported: Unable to fetch user info
Database reported: Unknown column 'e.aim_name' in 'field list' (Errno: 1054)

Switching line 46 in _start.php and line 8 in _users.php to the following fixed the error:

$res = $db->query('SELECT m.* FROM ...

This don't solve the problem completely. This way one user is lost in the conversion (the one with id=1). This is done beqause in PunBB the guest-account have id-number 1, and therefore no "real" user can have this ID.

Louis wrote:

InvPB to PunBB converter at page: _polls   

Converting polls: 0...
PunPoll not installed, redirecting...

Never redirected me. Had to manually change to ?page=6 from ?page=5

My mistake, a "exit" at the wrong place. Thanks! :)

Louis wrote:

File: functions.php
Line: 9

PunBB reported: Unable to get count value for table: badwords
Database reported: You have an error in your SQL syntax. Check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '' at line 1 (Errno: 1064)

After staring puzzled at the code for a bit, I realised it was because there was nothing inside the ibf_badwords table for the script to convert. Better add a check or something to that.

Oh and it's not "cencored" or "cencoring" but "censored" and "censoring" ;)

Next on to ?page=7 (manually typed, because of the above error)

File: _bans.php
Line: 5

PunBB reported: Unable to get posts
Database reported: Table 'invpb.ibf_banfilters' doesn't exist (Errno: 1146)

No problem, I'll assume he just didn't ban anyone. Needs another check or something to avoid the error message though.

Next on to ?page=8 (manually typed again because of the error)

All of this is caused of empty tables. I've fixed this by setting a variable to -1 instead of "nothing".

Louis wrote:

Info     
Conversion done!

Database converted in: 1085865131.97s

Note: Don't forget to rebuild the search index!

   
PunBB status     
PunBB contains:
Users: 155
Categories: 8
Forums: 0
Topics: 248
Posts: 5028

   
InvPB status     
InvPB contains:
Users: 157
Categories: 8
Forums: 0
Topics: 248
Posts: 5028
Polls: 23

Because your board contains polls (and I didn't have the polls mod installed) I'll re-do this, to get the polls done too, then create an sql dump of it, if you want.

True. You also see that there are no forums in either version. I think this is caused by different handling in different versions of InvPB. I've made the converter for the newest version, and they've changed alot between them. The problem with the users (m.*-solution) is also a consequence of the version-problems.

I've fixed most of this now, and I'll put a sql-file here shortly. I have to test the converter on new newest version of InvPB before I release another version of it though. Thanks Louis for the help!

Re: A little assistance required

Joey:
Which version of InvPB did you run? There's differences between them, so the quote's in the posts ends up like this is PunBB. A solution to the problem is to upgrade the database with their script before running the converter.

<!--QuoteBegin-Savagemoon+May 22 2004, 01:58 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Savagemoon @ May 22 2004, 01:58 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-sum1sumwhereatacomputer+May 21 2004, 06:52 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (sum1sumwhereatacomputer @ May 21 2004, 06:52 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> erm, I've only heard the DL one, but I do want to hear the original.  I'm really anoyed because I was in HMV the other day and they didn't have a section for the rasmus! :mad: <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
None of the uk record stores do.

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Re: A little assistance required

Hey guys - I got Chacmool's email, and I really appreciate the help being given, I know that its a lot of work for you guys and in the end you aren't the ones who directly benefit.

I can't get onto the forums to see what version it is, although I can look at other forums from the same host, and the version seems to be "Invision Power Board(U) v1.3 Final © 2003"

To be honest I'm not overly bothered about polls - I just wanted to make sure that both the users and their posts are there as a major priority.

I'll hang tight for a bit until you can iron out the problem mentioned in the last post, and I hope this SQL dump has gone some way to helping with your converter?

Re: A little assistance required

Always nice to help :)

The problem is that the converter is made for Invision Power Board 2.x, so there's some changes between the versions. I've converter polls, posts and all that anyway, and it should be no problem to write a script that changes the way quotes are handled.

I'm going to se Metallica (WEEEEE!) today, so I'll probably look at it tomorrow sometime.

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Re: A little assistance required

Much appreciated guys :up:

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Re: A little assistance required

Chacmool wrote:

The problem is that the converter is made for Invision Power Board 2.x, so there's some changes between the versions.

Well yes, for now, supporting 1.3 at minimum would be a good thing. It's difficult to get at 2.0 with their current website, and after downloading it and running the upgrade script, then modifying it to support the database, then realising this WASN'T going to work, I looked it up on google and found ...

This is the fourth IPB 2.0.0 development update. These updates are designed to keep you informed on the development progress of Invision Power Board v2.0.0.

We've almost completed IPB 2.0.0 PDR 3 and this is where things get quite exciting as we begin to wrap up the 'middle' part of the last stage of development and testing. So far we're very pleased with the progress and the great work in finding and reporting bugs.

(blah blah, new features, blah blah)

Latest Release Date Estimates

PDR3 (next beta release): Monday 17th May
RC1 (first supported release): Thursday 27th May

Please note that these dates are only estimates and should only be used as a guide. They are subject to change without notice due to the unpredictable nature of software development. Put simply: they are dates that seem reasonable based on the current speed of development.

(More blah, blah)

Upgrading to PDR 3 from PDR 1 or 2

We have initiated our new upgrade system and a new upgrade module will be written for PDR 3.

Upgrading from 1.3 to 2.0.0

There is currently no upgrade path from 1.3 to 2.0.0. We plan on writing the upgrade script for around PDR 4 (Beta 4). Until then please don't try and import a 1.3 database into 2.0 - it simply won't work.

So it seems there's no way to upgrade right now to 2.0. We'll have to wait until the next release, which was supposed to be 3 days ago, but I guess it has been delayed.

Keep in mind:

1.3 is the current stable release and it is always recomended that you upgrade to the latest stable build. Also even if 2.0 comes out in a few weeks it wont be considered stable until it has been tested by a large customer base.

At this point I would not plan on upgraded to 2.0, dont even think about it until it is stable, unless you are willing to run a beta.

I know ibf's development cycles are fast but I would like to give you an example, last year I made the jump to vB 3 beta 3, a year later im still running the RC 3. RC's are considered more stable then beta's but it still isn't gold, so that site has been running 'beta' software for over a year now.

So I really would fix the 1.3 support, as I doubt people will be using 2.0 for another few months ...

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Re: A little assistance required

Yes - sort out 1.3 :D

Re: A little assistance required

I've made some changes to the converter now. When filling in the forum-settings the user can choose between 1.3 and 2.0. There's only some small differences between the versions, so there's no problem having it in one converter.

Found out that converting to InvPB 2.0 before converting it to PunBB is not a good idea beqause the passwords can't be converted from InvPB2.0.

I'll upload the converter to a server tomorrot if someone is willing to test it for me.

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Re: A little assistance required

Using my DB... :D

23 (edited by Louis 2004-06-01 04:36)

Re: A little assistance required

I'll test it ... with your DB, Joey (and PunPolls, now that I can download it)

Re: A little assistance required

Joey wrote:

Using my DB... :D

Yes, I've tested it with your DB, but I need a "large" 2.0-database also. Second, I'm thinking about converting the private messages too, but I'll look at it later today.

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Re: A little assistance required

The main problem with IPB other than it being crap, was the amount of bandwidth consumed. As I said earlier, a lot of the DB was for "spider logs". Will PunBB mean that less of my bandwidth is consumed or is it irrelevant?