Is it critical that a user have their old phpbb posts tied to their new WordPress/bbPress identity? Is it ok if their old posts are tied to their old username?
How much overlap between your userbase is there… how many of the 115 WordPress users also have phpBB accounts?
All of them (except maybe one admin account). There won’t be anyone in WordPress who isn’t in bbPress.
The only ones with separate accounts might be the three admins, and they’d need to be the same across WP & bbP.
How much overlap between your userbase is there… how many of the 115 WordPress users also have phpBB accounts?
Also – if “Mister X” has two accounts (one on each system)… is it critical that the comments in WordPress and in bbPress be merged into the same account? Or would you be ok with having them be separate accounts…
There are ~115 in WordPress, and even though there are ~400 in the old phpBB forum we’re about to bring over, we really only care about the current 115 (the ones in WP).
Here’s the situation: I’m moving a membership site from an old static HTML site w/ a phpBB forum over to a WordPress install and a bbPress forum. The WordPress site is set up, users added, membership issues handled w/ the WishList Member plugin, and my phpBB › bbPress conversion questions have been answered; my questions are about integrating that newly converted bbPress w/ the WordPress.
- Is it possible to use WP 2.8.4 and bbPress 1.0.2, or should I stick with bbPress 0.9?
- Is there any way to integrate the two that would allow for a continuous login?
- And perhaps the biggest question is: how do I upload/merge the converted bbPress database with the existing WP database?
- And once that’s done, how to deal with the disparity of users in WP with the old bbPress?
One idea I have is to create a new bbPress install that’s integrated with WP, and then once the conversion of the old forum is complete, to try to import that data into the existing install. Would that make sense?
Or, is it possible to just have the two databases separate, but use plugins (assuming I’m sticking with 0.9) to create the continuous login? Is that even possible? How would that share user data?
So, what would you do if you were in my shoes? Thanks for all your help.
No, but I wouldn’t recommend using more recent builds of bbPress… since a lot of plugins aren’t supported in 1.0 yet. Unless of course, you don’t plan on using many plugins… then ymmv.
You can get user integration (complete with cookie support) between just about any two versions of bbPress and WordPress. Start a new thread with your questions around that, and we can all chip in and advise!
I’ve gone between bbpress, Simple Press, and phpBB3 using wp-united. I’m back to bbpress, just because I’m looking for something lighter, and I would presume, as time rolls on will be more in sync with WP. It’s frustrating though, as this is about the fifth time I’ve done a clean install of bbpress and still can’t get it to recognize login cookies. That’s logging in and logging out.
It does at least recognize users’ information, and my user base isn’t high maintenance.
I have double checked all of the cookie/salt values. They match. I don’t have a secure salt in my WP, so I didn’t have a value to put into bbpress. Could that be it? Also, nowhere in my bbpress installation does it ask for a noonce value. Could that be it?
I haven’t done any ‘deep integration’ yet, but from what I can tell that has more to do with aesthetics, which I’m sure will cause me more ‘funnerific’ problems.
I realize there are dozens of topics dealing with this, but nothing seems to really help on my end. I’m using WP 2.8.4.
Thanks @johnhiler – definitely fills in the puzzle a little.
A couple questions:
- Any thoughts about using more recent builds than 2.7.1 & 0.9?
- One difference I’m seeing with my situation is that it’s WP’s users we need to bring into bbPress, not the other way around. The WP setup is a membership site, handled with the Wishlist Member plugin, so they’ll be logging in there first.
Ugh… I’m realizing I’ve got a bucket full of ugliness here… from the fact that there are going to be bbPress users (old, inactive ones) who aren’t in WP, trying to match up the WP users with the bbPress users, and the whole “logged into WP/logged out of bbPress” issue, since it looks like I may not be able to have shared cookies since I’m working with new versions of both software packages…
… this may be more than is possible right now. I’ll keep trying to figure it out, though. Thanks for your help, everyone.
adamkayce – It’s absolutely possible. 
I’ve done it a few times now.
These links are hugely helpful:
https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/integration-of-established-wp-and-bbpress-installations
https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/successful-reverse-integration-steps
The hardest part of the integration is how to handle “name collisions”… i.e. what do you do when two users share the same usernames in bbPress (from phpbb3) and WordPress. That’s discussed nicely in the above links.
Good luck!
Thanks, Kawauso… so, any guidelines/instructions about getting bbPress to use the WordPress user tables on a post-install integration? And am I right in assuming that the issues stem from having two databases (since you’ve got existing forum data, you can’t merge the two, right?) ? Sorry if these are newb questions.
Do you know if the ideas on this post would do it? https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/wordpress-and-bbpress-integration-101 — The reason I ask is because it seems like there’s a lot of info circulating about how it worked, or might work, under earlier versions of WP & bbP… but it often changes. Now that we’re up to 2.8.4 and 1.0.2, is it any different, or more viable? Is it as easy as pointing bbP at WP’s user tables, in addition to the “normal” integration steps? (I’m hoping to save myself a few hours of reading, that’s all… )
Most integration issues I tend to see are related to deep integration, rather than straight forward user integration. I guess it boils down to, does bbPress transfer over existing users to WP’s user tables cleanly (or at all) if you integrate it post-install. It would be possible to do manually anyway, since their respective user tables are essentially identical in structure, but bbPress users would have no WordPress meta whatsoever.
Now, of course, the Big Question is: is it possible to take this newly-converted bbPress forum and get it to integrate nicely w/ a WordPress install? From the poking around that I’ve done, it seems that people have only had success integrating a brand-new bbPress install, not one with data/history in it.
I’d love to be proven wrong, though… any ideas?
(Tried to convert phpbb 3.0.5 to bbpress 1.0.2 and got this error:
SQL ERROR [ mysqli ]
Table ‘xxx_phpbb.bb_forums’ doesn’t exist [1146]
An SQL error occurred while fetching this page.
Any way I can fix this? Thanks in advance for any help. )
Hi all,
that’swhat i was looking,too. Thank you.
But:
I got the same error as above. I solved it.
I made a new table which i named like the missing file. So it seems to work. But the database has been deleted by half after excecuting the script. I have no idea what to do anymore. Help is needed.
Thank you
I’m looking for someone to make this plugin. If money is the issue please email me. Something like this but simpler. http://forums.phpbbgarage.com/garage.php
Whoops, my bad – I missed it. The link in the first post still works – reposting it here just in case. (You should still read that first post, though, for the directions…)
I migrated my forum from another forum software (SMF > phpbb >bbpress), so I already had lots of posts. Whenever I want to edit a post that was made before the migration, the whole layout breaks. If it had chapters, it won’t have any chapters. If you quote an older post that the whole layout of that post breaks.
Is this a common problem? How can this be solved?
Maybe I need to run a SQL query? To update all the older posts?
The very, very first link in this thread (where it says download ‘here’) works:
http://members.lycos.co.uk/wmnkhayal/files/phpbb3tobbpress%20converter.tar.gz
but that’s the version without any fixes
Hi All, very interested in a phpbb3 to bbpress converter. Have searched all over and I keep getting linked back to this post. Any updates?
What is with the blank page??!!@#$%??? Whenever the bb-config.php file is created (with the correct db name/user/pw), the installation crashes. After successfully installing numerous wordPress blogs, phpBB bulletin boards – all on the same server with the same settings – this is the ONLY installation that has given me such a problem on the install.
It looks like the original poster’s link still works Adam:
http://members.lycos.co.uk/wmnkhayal/files/phpbb3tobbpress%20converter.tar.gz
Maybe it was a temporary outage?
There was a post on page 2 that said the script was no longer downloadable… does anyone know how to get a hold of it now? (I tried all the links in this thread, but none of them worked.)
Thank you very much for your comment, Olaf.
Just to be precise, I am happy to host any other PHP scripts as well (even competitors like phpBB and SMF), so I can also do buddypress & wordpress.
It’s just that I love bbPress best, and am emphasizing it more than other PHP systems. bbPress is really miraculously beautiful.
Hi,
I have an existing phpbb2 forum and was hoping to migrate the existing data into bbPress, followed by integration to WordPress MU. Here’s the steps i’ve done so far:
1. installed a fresh copy of bbPress 1.0.2
2. downloaded phpbb2bbpress converter from http://www.iteisa.com/phpbb2bbpress/
3. ammended the necessary stuff inside the file and ran the script
4. installed WordPress MU
I was comparing the bb_ and wp_ tables and would like to know:
1. can i simply insert into wp_usermeta, (user_id, meta_key, meta_value) from bb_usermeta table where the meta_key = bb_capabilities because it looks safer than just replacing wp_usermeta with bb_usermeta due to the existing entries in wp_usermeta which i’m unsure of their usage?
2. it also seems that i should insert all the necessary values from bb_users table to wp_users table because wp_users has more columns
are there anything else database-wise i need to do?
After the above i know i need to install a bbpress-integration.php into WordPress MU and do some settings on both bbPress and WordPress MU settings/configs. Are there any other steps i’m missing out?
I would really appreciate any help on this
Hi
Has anyone used the bbPM system that was developed by Nightgunner?
If not can you suggest another one?
I need a PM system where users can interact with one another to send PMs and also attachments like photos.
I haven’t tried BBpress before…the other solution is phpbb3 and that has a good one but it is a lot of work to install it.
Thanks
because every second post I read here seems to be trouble with integration not working out, and an enormous headache.
I just want it all to be easy. I want bbsync to work again, but like so many 3rd party things, it died. That’s why I’m having trouble committing to any CMS, one does XYZ but not ABC, requiring a plug in (that could die), the other does ABC but not XYZ which is again a 3rd party plug-in, which again could die.
I really want one software, a community portal. It has to have a nice home page, a nice blog, and a nice forum community side to it.
I want all the features of each to be CORE (no vital 3rd party functions dying) and already installed, “out of the box”. (EG: BBpress being “fully loaded” like SMF and phpbb3. Just click boxes for the functions you want to work!)
I want a “bbsync” styled function to be core. EG: Each blog article submitted by our expert authors would be automatically copied across to a forum and auto-linked to the forum.
EG: At the bottom it would say “If you enjoyed this article, please click HERE to leave a comment”.
As far as I know, the Kunena forum team for Joomla might be developing something like this for the Joomla core blog, but the core blog is VERY minimalist and doesn’t even seem to have an archive function! So my preference would be if WordPress made BBpress a “fully loaded plugin” (automatically integrated) with bbsync as a core option as well.
But if Kunena are bringing their own version of ‘Joomlablog sync’ to life with K1.6, then maybe I’ll just have to convert CMS’s.
