Dear astereo,
Great guide! One thing I would add, however, is what to do when there are errors, ie troubleshooting. For some reason I get stuck at the install.php file telling me “Cannot select DB.” This is despite the fact that I have followed the directions you mentioned (and those included on this website) to a T and have successfully installed WordPress, phpBB, and other php/mysql web programs with no problem. Also it seems like the member n2 is having the same problem. If the solution is found to this, perhaps it could be put in your ultimate guide, so that others do not fall into the same trap. Thank you.
I’ve just installed bbpress and have the same problem – my posts were all -1years “freshness”
I figured out that I needed to configure the config.php with my server time and not my local time. My server runs on PDT, which is 7 hours behind my physical location (on BST, shortly to be GMT). So now my “freshness” is correct, but all my post times are wrong. I’d like to see a mod that allows the user to define their local time zone and operate independently of the board’s installation location.
Apart from that – bbpress looks great and I love the freshness of it after the clutter of phpBB.
What about importing from PunBB?
*sigh*
Please! You’ll have to be patient.. we are lucky we got this phpBB to bbpress importer this quickly.. jeesh! I’m sure brunotorre will probably make up more import scripts then.. 
If not brunotorre, then someone else I’m sure.. We’ll just have to be patient here.. Just my 2 cents …
spencerp
My mistake; you’re absolutely right — it only displays deleted posts.
Marky, I can be wrong, but the only posts which appear on the admin are the deleted ones. That may be why the imported posts don’t show.
Marky, just after posting here I realized I forgot to convert the bbcodes. I’ll try to make it shortly.
About the announcements and sticky, I’ll give a look too.
But I still don’t have a clue why posts don’t appear on the admin. If you or anyone know why, please let me know.
One more quick note: the imported posts don’t seem to appear in the admin interface, even after re-counting everything and such.
What about importing from PunBB?
*sigh*
OK, I gave the script a shot and it imported everything very nicely!
The only snag is that the bbCodes weren’t stripped or converted in the process, so many of the posts end up looking like gibberish. Also, sticky threads and announcements weren’t converted as such, although that’s less of an issue.
I certainly hope there’s enough demand for this script to justify adding these features. Otherwise, nice job!
Ok, I see there is an importing from phpbb but I’ve got a slightly different issue with vanilla. I like it but love bbpress much more now and would love to bring over my site to it. Is there anyone with any ideas on where to start on this and possibly some help over that. It would be greatly appreciated.
brunotorre, you’re a life saver! I’ll give the script a test shot tonight, and I’ll let you know how it goes.
I did this: http://brunotorres.net/unsorted/phpbb2bbpress.phps
Worked fine to me, importing a phpBB database with about 30000 records, including users, metadata, topics and posts. It takes a lot of time to finish, but works.
The code is a mess. I just finished doing this. Maybe I’ll make it better, if there’s people interested.
You have to use it on a fresh instalation, since it’ll delete any existing data.
It was just tested by me and I can’t ensure it’ll work for anyone, but I’d like some feedback.
Enjoy!
You should always feel free to discuss this or anything eles on the mailing list: https://lists.bbpress.org/mailman/listinfo/bbdev
I might do a converter for you. It’ll depend on a couple of things. If someone “in charge” here gets in touch (leaves me an email addr to contact them on) I’ll discuss with you.
Si yo entiendo bien, y recien estoy explorando bbpress mas y mas, que phpbb tiene diferentes capacidaded. bbpress me parece mas rapido pero no tiene algunas cosas que un foro bien grande debe tener, como la capacadid suscribir a un thread por email. No se, pero si my pagina era casi todo foro, yo usaria algo como phpbb o invasion, etc.
You might want to follow this thread maybe?
https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/3?replies=6
spencerp
Not yet, from what I can gather. But hopefully someone will work on an importer script soon.
Hi all,
Is there an easy way to import a phpBB forum into bbPress?
Thanks!
Hola!
Que lástima enterarme tarde, acabo de montar un foro en mi blog http://www.alhaurintorre.com con phpBB.
Me ha llevado bastante trabajo y de haberlo sabido, seguro que lo hubiese intentado primero conWP.
Cuando me recupere de la experiencia lo intentaré con bbPress.
¡¡Suerte!!
I second this request; bbPress is absolutely perfect, and I’d love to switch, but I have a six-year-old phpBB support forum filled with support topics for users to search through. What a shame it would be to lose all that info!
Thanks for sharing that Detro, the thought saving the PMs is important as well, now if *only* there was a way to grab ALL of the informations from a phpBB board, that’d be awesome.
If no one around here can do one up, I’ll see if I can get *someone* I know, to do it..
spencerp
Here is a plugin for phpBB that help to export messages to XML.
http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=281925
I just had a chat with Patrick on Live Messenger, the guy that runs phpBBhacks.com , and he said, you’ll mostly have to work directly with the database.
Or atleast that’s how he does it, he said. Also, I’m not sure if this would, or could possibly help in any way, but.. they wrote up this article: “Write a converter with the Unified Convertor System.”
Of course, like anyone would do, they made it up for the people to convert from their current forum software, to their’s, but, wasn’t sure if maybe you devs could use it to benefit yourselves or not?
Just wanted to throw this out onto the table for ya’ll.. I think it’s great that bbPress made a official release finally.. and *hopefully* soon, I’ll get to making themes for it.
spencerp
/Sidenote quick: I had dealt with phpBB before, for a few good years, installed it for peoples, for money, and shot out a few themes too. Submitted them to the phpBBhacks.com site, and had patrick in the MSN mess list for a few years..
There are no importers yet. Does phpBB have any sort of export format or would we have to work directly with their DB?
Halleleujah bbPress is getting some love! So now I want to bring in some client forums. Anyone know of any way to import the data from a phpBB db? Is such a thing possible? I really hope so.
