[pixelnated]

Since I was helping a friend convert a phpbb2 board to phpbb3 I thought I’d take the time to also import the forums into bbpress (my preference).
I initially tried the import but could not get it to work and after looking on the forums saw that I was not alone.
To get the import to work I had to remap some fields in the phpbb conversion script and comment out some obsolete ones (took about 30 minutes.

If anyone needs to get your PHPBB3 users and forums converted in BBPress you can replace the phpBB.php file in wp-content\plugins\bbpress\includes\admin\converters to match the following updated code: https://gist.github.com/pixelnated/a7a9c41154cf64696ddd1c2e4f4327ed

[lantaarntje]

Sorry i gave up moved to wpForo 🙁

[maximemue]

its really a pitty. It runs so smoothly, but will only convert 15000 replies. Last try: does anyone moved from phpBB to bbpress with more than 15000 replies???

[lantaarntje]

Yes i don’t understand why bbpress don’t do anything about these problems many people want to convert but if it isn’t possible it stops :(.

[Hammy Havoc]

I get stuck on that loop too:

Converting anonymous reply authors (100 through 100 of 100)

[wurkagency]

Here’s a fix.
https://pastebin.com/0QQbxL4z

– Paste into ‘phpBB.php’ file and save in /wp-content/plugins/bbpress/includes/admin/converters/phpBB.php

Remember to back up the old phpBB.php file first.

Godspeed…..

[Hammy Havoc]

Oddly, the fix results in the same error endlessly looping:

16. Converting anonymous reply authors (50 through 50 of 50) 100%

[Hammy Havoc]

If anyone can sort this then I’ll gladly buy them a few cups of Joe to say thanks.

[Hammy Havoc]

Figured it out myself.

If anybody else is wondering how to do this, you need to make sure that no Founder, Admin or Moderator has replies or threads attributed to them.

I got around this by creating a new admin/founder account and downgrading all of the staff to standard accounts so that they could be imported.

[John James Jacoby]

Pretty weird. cc @netweb for a consult on this one. 💜

[Hammy Havoc]

Would be great to know the ins and outs of why this is the way it is. :- ) Thanks, JJJ!

[Stephen Edgar]

I’ve been traveling the past 2 weeks, will try to get to this this week

[nicely]

I’ve tried to import my phpBB users using bbPress 2.6.1 and also the above fix from wurkagency and am getting…

3.No passwords to clear
2.No users to import

…during import.

I tried demoting any admin/founders with any content as HammyHavok suggested with the same results.

Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[nicely]

I got it to work. I updated my phpbb install to 3.2.8 and used wurkagency’s script (https://pastebin.com/0QQbxL4z).

[wurkagency]

Hi All,

Had the same issue as described above. The default phpbb.php import script didn’t convert anonymous users of topics and replies and the Pixenated script looped infinately with the conversion of users.

I’ve fixed the script and uploaded to PasteBin. Feel free to share widely.
https://pastebin.com/0QQbxL4z

How To:
1) Upgrade phpBB to v.3.2.5+
2) Install BBpress 2.6 RC7
3) Upload to /wp-content/plugins/bbpress/includes/admin/converters/phpbb.php

Remember that real men don’t do backups. They cry a lot.

[sandibitenc]

If you want to jump over a step you can do so manually by changing the _bbp_converter_step in wp_options.

[Frank]

@wurkagency Yes, thank you! This fix is still needed! Been trying to figure out the issue for a couple of hours.

[irishhealer]

where can we download BBpress 2.6 RC7 as the link on bbpress.org is broken?

[Robin W]

2.6.3 is out that supersedes 2.6RC7 and incorporates the fixes in this

[heroyouwi]

hello, about phpbb 3.2.9, i mapped the corrent column in the script convert : phpBB.php
i have a heavy phpbb forum : 16 forums, 3000 topics, 95000 posts, 3000 users, all successfully imported in bbpress 2.5
here my fix :

phpbb 3.2.9 fix bbpress import

enjoy it

[Steve Boswell]

@heroyouwi’s fix no longer works. It still picks up the users correctly but no longer imports any topics or forums.

The phpbb.php file included with 2.6.5 does pick up the topic and forums but misses the users so I merged them.

here is a version that works with phpBB 3.1.3 and bbPress 2.6.5

https://gist.github.com/TheRobotFactory/e8ac4b3dea7920d69f1a959d216f92a3

[davidmanch]

Hi Guys, If someone is still having problems importing data due to looped ‘Converting anonymous topic authors’ AND if you don’t need anonymous topic authors at all then I found a solution (in my case: bbPress 2.6.6 importing from PHPbb)

1) find this file: /wp-content/plugins/bbpress/includes/admin/classes/class-bbp-converter.php
2) TAKE A BACKUP
3) Replace the content of the file with this: https://pastebin.com/cRGQiLWs
4) Save and enjoy.

Please remember, this will ignore anonymous topic authors so only use this solution if you don’t need them.

I hope I could help. David

[Robin W]

@davidmanch thanks so much for posting this answer – it will certainly help others 🙂 🙂

[Morphim]

Hi there

It’s the end of Sept 2021 and I’ve been trying to sort out an old PHPBB conversion to BBPress.
WP: 5.8.1 and BBPress 2.6.6

I can confirm I’ve done this seemingly successfully. It took a few tries but with this thread I’ve got it working.

I just wanted to share what worked in 2021.

1. I exported my old PHPBB database (.sql file) and then set up a new database on my current host and imported the PHPBB to it.
This just simplified any server timeouts and other connection issues.

2. I obviously had BBpress installed within WP, but the included PHPBB converter doesn’t work (why??) so copied two files from this thread.

a. Firstly, I had the ‘annonymous user’ loop mentioned above so copied @davidmanch great code (a couple of comments above) into:
/wp-content/plugins/bbpress/includes/admin/classes/class-bbp-converter.php
This fixed the never ending loop but the built in converter didn’t import any users, so …

b. I copied @a8bit excellent code (3 posts above this one) into:
/wp-content/plugins/bbpress/includes/admin/converters/phpbb.php
This added many more steps to the import which completed without errors. I’m thinking this code might also have fixed the annonymous user loop too but didn’t try it on it’s own?? I’d already change the code in a. above. If you do this, maybe just try this code only and see if it works.

So, if you find this now, it does work (for me at least) so hopefully you don’t have to hunt around for solutions.

The BBPress guys need to look at these two pieces of code and see why their packaged converter doesn’t work. It’s very frustrating and shouldn’t be left to users much smarter than me to fix … but I’m glad they did.

Cheers

[Ricsca2]

Thanks, I also think they have to correct the importer since you explained how to do …