I need to move bbpress forums to another host. I’ve looked about for an import/export function in the Admin area, but didn’t find one.

Is there any solution besides manually tinkering with the database?

Thank you.

[@ipstenu Moderator 16 years, 2 months ago]

There’s a BBXF Export and Import pair of plugins that come with the site.

I’m assuming you’re changing your domain name, because otherwise you could just export your database and save it, and your html to your own computer, and then copy them up to the new host.

[@vadi Member 16 years, 2 months ago]

Won’t be changing the domain name, just moving to a new host – but for the time being, the domain name will change temporarily.

Unfortunately I couldn’t find any import/export plugins, and I searched for them again just now… was hoping for a more fail-safe solution than exporting and importing the databases

[@ipstenu Moderator 16 years, 2 months ago]

Those plugins come default for 1.0alpha2 under the plugins tab, you have to turn them on. I suspect it’s POSSIBLE if you downloaded the alpha version, they might work in a non-alpha install, but it’s untested.

But really, if you’re just moving your domain, you can pretty much do what you’d do for WordPress or any other PHP/SQL driven site. You have two basic options.

1. Download a copy of the main bbpress files from your OLD server to your hard drive and edit wp-config.php to suit the new server.
2. Go back to your OLD forum and go to options and change the url (both of them) to that of your new site.
3. Download your database (but keep the old one just in case), upload this new database and the copy of the wordpress core files with the edited bb-config.php to your NEW server.

Or…

1. Install a new forum on the new server.
2. Export the forum content from the OLD server into a BBXF file
3. Import the data into the new forum.

[@staats Member 16 years ago]

@ Ipstenu:

Can you offer an exporting/importing solution for those working with the 0.9.0.3 stable release. I wish to move the forum to a new domain name, and have not found much discussion about the most efficient way to do this.

Thank you

Rich

[@ipstenu Moderator 16 years ago]

@staats – If you have access to your SQL database (like through phpMyAdmin), it’s much the same as moving any databased app, like WordPress

The first set of directions I put in the post above are mostly right. I’ve updated them here since there’s a couple things that should be explained differently than my copy replace from WordPress’s directions (why reinvent the wheel?). If you’ve got WP and BB integrated you’ll have to make all the changes to the files (wp-config and bb-config AND the admin settings changes) BEFORE you backup your database.

First, backup your database – https://codex.wordpress.org/Backing_Up_Your_Database (obviously the bb database, not the wp one for your case) No matter WHAT you want this copy! If you screw everything up (and we’ve all done that) you need a fall back plan.

1. Download a copy of the main bbpress files from your OLD forum to your hard drive and edit b-config.php to suit the new server.
2. Go back to your OLD forum and go to settings and change the bbPress address (URL) to that of your new site. (You may want to change your email addy here, but you don’t have to just yet).
3. IF you’ve integrated bbPress and WordPress, go to your WordPress Integration page and change any domain information there that has changed.
4. Download your database (but keep the old backup just in case), upload this new database and the copy of the forum files with the edited bb-config.php to your new server.

Again, if WordPress and bbPress are integrated and sharing a database, do steps 1-3 for bbpress, and then steps 1 and 2 here, and THEN do the last DB download step just once.

And if it’s all confusing … yeah, it’s a lot of fruit to be juggling at once.