[bbuser12345]

I’m confident you’ll figure it out.

I wish I was as confident…

It’s fine to be frustrated, but your tone towards the volunteers trying to help you is pretty crappy.

My tone is one of exasperation (maybe desperation). I have been using BBPress for 5 years, and stuck with it through “the dark years”. I have read all the help pages, and I know my way around a command line, yet this converter, built ostensibly to help non-experts, does not work and I cannot find help. I have a message board that is falling apart, and being overrun by spam, and I have spent countless hours trying to migrate the database using the converter. Which is just the first step in migrating the forum.

If you don’t like the documentation, change it. It’s a WordPress site where everyone is an Editor, and you can be part of the solution just like every other volunteer, or you can be upset because the amazing free software you’re using isn’t as polished as we all know it could be. If only we had more volunteers… Paradox.

I am not sure whether to laugh or cry. If I knew what was wrong with the documentation, I would change it. Of course if I knew what was wrong with the documentation I would likely not have a problem in the first place and would never have sought out the documentation. There is your paradox. People who seek out documentation are by definition having trouble and are likely not expert users. They are the last people who are qualified to improve the documentation.

We brought the old bbConverter into bbPress in 2.1. bbConverter development stopped, and I took it over and brought it into bbPress core along with several much needed fixes. Trying to use software that you know is abandoned and others have not succeeded with is generally a bad idea.

Thats great information!! Why does it not appear either on the bbconverter plug-in page or on the https://codex.bbpress.org/import-forums/ page?

I should note that I don’t see any way for me to add this information to the documentation of either the old deprecated plug-in (which gets downloaded and installed many times a day apparently) or on the codex page for the converter.

The connection failure doesn’t provide the feedback you’re wishing for. There is no “your password was incorrect but the username is okay” level of feedback, so you’re on your own. Based on how capable and experienced you are, let’s assume it’s correct anyway.

Wait! You said connection failure… how do you know it is a connection failure? Is there something in the message (or that is not in the message) that tells you that? If so why does the console not report:

“You have failed to connect to the server. At least one of these three things is wrong: The Old Database’s Server Name, The Database’s User Name or the old Database’s User Password. Unfortunately, this converter cannot tell you which one or more of these things is wrong”

Instead the error I get is one I would expect if I had the name of a table in my database wrong in a query.

Look, I know that you cannot pass on information to the user that the server does not report. But when I access mySQL databases and servers the wrong way with a mySQL client or R or python or myPHP I get error messages with error codes. Things like “#1045 Cannot log in to the MySQL server”. This lets me know what I have screwed up so I can fix it. Is it a missing table or the wrong database name? Or am I not even connecting to the server at all? Again if for some reason you are not getting these messages then I guess I am “on my own”.

So… you’ll have the best luck if your bbPress 1.1 tables are in the same database as your current WordPress installation. Maybe try exporting those tables out of the other database, and importing them into the current one, and give it another shot.

Even more good information! Thank you. I would edit the documentation to let others know about this, but every time I try to log in to the codex site for BBpress, I get taken to the buddypress site.

=======================================================================
For what it is worth:

My tone is also one of frustration. BBPress is an awesome bit of code and you guys have spent a great deal of time making it do really awesome things, but as is the case with many opensource projects, no one seems to care if anyone can actually use the awesome product.

I am a part of a pretty big opensource community, and bad documentation is a systematic problem. People make amazing things then fail to help users actually use the code. I write lots of code that I end up releasing to that community. I spend a good bit of time making my documentation work for people who are newbies to using the program. I assume they picked up the program just to use my package/functionality and I write my help with that in mind. Why?, because I want them to use my code, I want them to learn about the program, and I eventually hope they will become a part of the community and contribute.

[bbuser12345]

Fair enough. If I have to pay someone more than $20 to use the provided migration wizard I will. (FWIW, on oDesk people are free to bid whatever they are willing to bid to do the project.) I have been trying this conversion on and off myself for about 6 months, I’d pay $100 if someone who knew what they were doing would help me out. (Why it would take anything like 20-40 hours for someone to figure out what I need to fill in on a web form in order to get the wizard to work is beyond me.)

This should be simple right? I have a BBpress standalone and I want to convert the database to be used by the plug-in. This is the simplest case. I know how to set everything up all I need to know is what set of magical things to put in the form fields to get the converter to actually work.

I know how to back up my database, and I use mySQL all the time in my daily work. I write programs for a living that access and analyze massive data bases. If I knew what needed to be done to the data base to make it work with the plug-in (that is what the wizard is doing under the hood) I could do the migration myself with an R script or something similar. However, there is no place where it is documented what needs to be done to convert the database.

The statement that: “Once you have the right tools and become relatively proficient, it’s actually pretty easy.” is tautological. However, it is the sentiment one gets when trying to follow the BBpress’ documentation: “If you already knew how to do this, here is how you would do this”.

Here are a few of the issues:

Half of the replies in the forums say to follow this plan:
https://codex.bbpress.org/import-forums/

The other replies say to use the plugin:
https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bbconverter/

Which is it? Why are there two different ways? Is one applicable to one situation and the other to another?

Of course neither will work for me (and many others apparently). The support page at http://bbconverter.com is dead and so there is no information there. The other page contains very sparse information about what one should put in the form fields.

***Here is the biggest issue. The console on the wizard does not give any information that would help you diagnose what step in the process has failed.

For example I just get:

==========================================
Please don’t forget to update your counters HERE

WordPress database error: [Table ‘databasebbpress.forums’ doesn’t exist]
SELECT convert(forums.forum_id USING “utf8”) AS forum_id,convert(forums.forum_parent USING “utf8”) AS forum_parent,convert(forums.forum_name USING “utf8”) AS forum_name,convert(forums.forum_slug USING “utf8”) AS forum_slug,convert(forums.forum_desc USING “utf8”) AS forum_desc,convert(forums.forum_order USING “utf8”) AS forum_order FROM forums AS forums LIMIT 0, 100

No forums to convert-
Not clearing default passwords-

Not Converting users Selected-

No data to clean-

Starting Conversion…

==============================

I am left to wonder, is the problem logging in to the server?
If so:
Is the problem the server name?
Is the problem my password?
Is the problem my username?

Is the problem connecting to the database?
If so:
Is the problem the database name?
Is the problem a permission?
Is the problem my password?
Is the problem my username?

I am just told that the database does not exist. Well it does, I can log-in using myPhp and there it is.

I will continue to search for “the right tools” and to become more “proficient”. In the meantime I will continue to try to find someone who know enough about the guts of BBpress and WordPress to tell me why my database that does exist, does not exist in the eyes of the converter.

[bbuser12345]

So I can’t even find anyone who will take my money to help me with this… sigh.

[bbuser12345]

I can access the database through phpMyAdmin. What do I need to change?

[bbuser12345]

I can access the database through phpMyAdmin. What do I need to change?

[bbuser12345]

I am using the kakumei theme. Where would they be hardcoded?

[bbuser12345]

I am using the kakumei theme. Where would they be hardcoded?

[bbuser12345]

Any word on this. It would be nice in anonymous posts could be held for moderation while registered users could freely posts.

[bbuser12345]

I was finally able to read up on subversion, find a client and install 1.1. Last night.

For future reference to those who find this:

To install the development trunk:

1) Go get a subversion client. For your purposes this is like an FTP or web browser client that lets you download “special” file types. There are many clients out there. All you need to be able to do is “check out” things. Almost all the free ones will let you do this. I used svnX for mac.

2) Now you need to find the address of the current BBPress trunk. They do try their best to make it hard for newbies who just want the damn fiels but you can find the address here:

Download

See the line that says “vn co http://svn.automattic.com/bbpress/trunk/”

You do not need all of that. All you need to do is tell your subversion client that the “repository” is at “http://svn.automattic.com/bbpress/trunk/”. In the same way you would give a web browser the address of a page where you were going to download a file.

3) “check out” a copy of the trunk. check out is subversion speak for “download”. There are reasons why for development purposed they say “check out” but you don’t care about that.

4) You will have to tell it where to download the file. In subversion speak you tell it where to put your “working copy”. Again there are reasons for this but you don’t care you just want the damn files.

5) Now you have a folder with the newest version of BBPress. The one that is far more stable than the current “release” and the one everyone on the forum will tell you to go “get” if you have any complaints about the current “release”.

They will not tell you how to do this. That would be easy (see above). Nor will they write a simple script that will make the trunk available as a simple .zip file that a normal person could download. Again, that sort of thing would just be two damn simple.

[bbuser12345]

I was finally able to read up on subversion, find a client and install 1.1. Last night.

For future reference to those who find this:

To install the development trunk:

1) Go get a subversion client. For your purposes this is like an FTP or web browser client that lets you download “special” file types. There are many clients out there. All you need to be able to do is “check out” things. Almost all the free ones will let you do this. I used svnX for mac.

2) Now you need to find the address of the current BBPress trunk. They do try their best to make it hard for newbies who just want the damn fiels but you can find the address here:

Download

See the line that says “vn co http://svn.automattic.com/bbpress/trunk/”

You do not need all of that. All you need to do is tell your subversion client that the “repository” is at “http://svn.automattic.com/bbpress/trunk/”. In the same way you would give a web browser the address of a page where you were going to download a file.

3) “check out” a copy of the trunk. check out is subversion speak for “download”. There are reasons why for development purposed they say “check out” but you don’t care about that.

4) You will have to tell it where to download the file. In subversion speak you tell it where to put your “working copy”. Again there are reasons for this but you don’t care you just want the damn files.

5) Now you have a folder with the newest version of BBPress. The one that is far more stable than the current “release” and the one everyone on the forum will tell you to go “get” if you have any complaints about the current “release”.

They will not tell you how to do this. That would be easy (see above). Nor will they write a simple script that will make the trunk available as a simple .zip file that a normal person could download. Again, that sort of thing would just be two damn simple.

[bbuser12345]

Just to summarize my questions:

1) Can the old anon plug-in be fixed while we all wait for the next version of BBPREss.

2) When will this next version be released (1.1? 1.03? a wordpress plug-in??)

3) Is the current development version stable enough to use live?

4) How does a normal person get a version of the development version to install.

If the answers could be phrased in ways that don’t assume I already know the answers that would be helpful.

[bbuser12345]

Just to summarize my questions:

1) Can the old anon plug-in be fixed while we all wait for the next version of BBPREss.

2) When will this next version be released (1.1? 1.03? a wordpress plug-in??)

3) Is the current development version stable enough to use live?

4) How does a normal person get a version of the development version to install.

If the answers could be phrased in ways that don’t assume I already know the answers that would be helpful.

[bbuser12345]

I knew it was to straight forward to be true.

[bbuser12345]

I knew it was to straight forward to be true.

[bbuser12345]

Thanks Markus!

[bbuser12345]

Thanks Markus!

[bbuser12345]

Is this thing on?

[bbuser12345]

Is this thing on?

[bbuser12345]

^ And here is the attitude of so many in the “open source” community.

The question is are you making your software for the end user or as a plaything for other developers. So many open source projects look like a giant circle jerk.

If it takes editing .php files and knowing SVN and other developer centric things just to get basic functionality then your software will never get out of the ghetto you have created for yourself. At least have a help page that walks people through installing the latest trunk (what is that anyway?).

I can’t even read the blog updates and get any real sense where the project is because of all the jargon and “project in-group speak”. And here is the kicker I write code all day. I am not even close to the kind of user I would think you would want to be able to run your software.

It just gets really frustrating and the dismissive tone with which our concerns are often met exacerbates the problem.

[bbuser12345]

^ And here is the attitude of so many in the “open source” community.

The question is are you making your software for the end user or as a plaything for other developers. So many open source projects look like a giant circle jerk.

If it takes editing .php files and knowing SVN and other developer centric things just to get basic functionality then your software will never get out of the ghetto you have created for yourself. At least have a help page that walks people through installing the latest trunk (what is that anyway?).

I can’t even read the blog updates and get any real sense where the project is because of all the jargon and “project in-group speak”. And here is the kicker I write code all day. I am not even close to the kind of user I would think you would want to be able to run your software.

It just gets really frustrating and the dismissive tone with which our concerns are often met exacerbates the problem.

[bbuser12345]

Right… the SVN…

I was hoping to have to learn a complex procedure in order to simply download an experimental version of software for my high traffic message board.

Is there a way to just download and install the software like a normal person?

[bbuser12345]

Right… the SVN…

I was hoping to have to learn a complex procedure in order to simply download an experimental version of software for my high traffic message board.

Is there a way to just download and install the software like a normal person?

[bbuser12345]

And around and around we go.

[bbuser12345]

And around and around we go.

[bbuser12345]

^ You are right to be hesitant.

I have had updates break a long relied upon plug-in. I am told not to worry because the functionality has been incorporated into the core software…well,.. it has been incorporated into the NEXT version… which may be called 1.03 or 1.1… which may or may not be released…and if it is it may or may not be a wordpress plug-in.

Ugh.

But once you adopt it you are stuck. There is no way for me to migrate out. So I am stuck without a key component of my board until….?????