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Introducing bbConverter – Convert your current forums for use with bbPress 2x


  • Anointed
    Participant

    @anointed

    Thanks to AWJunkie we are proud to announce the official release of bbConverter, the only tool you will ever need to convert your current forums for use with bbPress 2x.

    Currently supported platforms:

    1. bbPress 1x

    2. Vbulletin 3x – 4x

    3. Invision Power Board

    Future platform support already in progress:

    1. PHPbb 3x

    2. Xenforo

    Platforms being considered

    1. myBB

    Download:

    http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bbconverter/

    Installation:

    1. Upload the bbConverter folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory

    2. Activate bbConverter through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress

    3. Go into your WordPress admin under ‘Settings’ and choose ‘Converter’

    4. BACKUP YOUR WORDPRESS DATABASE!

    5. Choose the platform you want to convert from and fill in the database information. Click start

    6. Once the conversion has completed, visit the WordPress Admin ‘Tools’ section and click ‘Recount’

    7. Do NOT deactivate the plugin once it is finished as it is needed for user password management.

    Did I forget to mention — BACKUP YOUR WORDPRESS DATABASE BEFORE STARTING!

    Important Note:

    It is important to understand that this script is going to be modifying your wordpress database in order to bring over your forums/topics/replies/tags/ and users from your old forum setup. This means we are directly modifying your database which means backup is paramount.

    Ok, now that is out of the way, let’s get to the plugin itself.

    Each Forum sofware, whether bbPress 1x, vbulletin, or Invision Powerboard, has its own configuration file. For example vbulletin calls the file config.php

    This is the file which contains your database connection information and you need to save this information in order to fill out the plugin start screen.

    Required options:

    1. Platform you are converting from – dropdown

    2. Database server — usually localhost

    3. Database port — (example: vbulletin uses 3306)

    4. Database Username

    5. Database Password

    6. Database Name

    7. Database Table Prefix — If you installed your forum software using a prefix enter it here. ( example: vbulletin default uses vb_ ) If there is no prefix, then leave it blank.

    8. Rows Limit — This represents the number of database rows the plugin will convert during a single cycle. I would start this number at 50 or below at first. Keep in mind that forum conversion takes a huge load on the server mysql so if you are on a shared host, you may want to notify your host before running the script.

    If you are on a dedicated server with shell access, then I would suggest opening up a terminal window and monitoring the resources. You can change the ‘Rows Limit’ at any time while the script is running. I have gone as high as 2500 instead of 50 on my servers. ( don’t click stop/start as it is not needed to change the limits )

    9. Delay time — Suggested to use 1. This is the number of seconds that the server waits between the conversion cycles. It gives your server a second to catch its breath.

    Other Options:

    1. Clean — If something actually goes wrong, then you can choose to clean the database. This will effectively remove all the imported data and allow you to start the conversion over.

    2. Restart — Restart allows you to pick up where the script left off should you have the need to stop and start the process. Example is when your browser or computer window closes during the conversion process. If you close the browser during conversion for any reason, then the conversion stops.

    3. Users — You have the option of choosing not to import your users. If you are using bbPress 1x and have the forums linked to your WordPress install already, then you do not need to import users. Do not check the box. Otherwise you do want to import your users.

    Once Import is complete:

    1. Recount — Once everything is finished, then go to the wp-admin/tools and choose recount. This is going to present you with a screen full of checkboxes. Check every box and click submit. This is going to line up all the topic/replies/user posts counts etc.

    2. Keep bbConverter plugin active after conversion.

    bbConverter has a special script which will allow your users to maintain their old forum username and password. In a nutshell, when a user signs in for the first time after the forums convert, the script will check their old password, validate it, and then use the WordPress system to generate the identical password for the user in the appropriate place. This means that you need to keep bbConverter active until every single user has logged into the forums in order to maintain password management. This is not at all resource intensive, and you won’t even notice the plugin running in the background.

    That’s it your finished.

    O, did I mention… BACKUP YOUR WORDPRESS DATABASE FIRST!

    Enjoy!

Viewing 25 replies - 51 through 75 (of 191 total)

  • Ed
    Participant

    @edkubisa

    any ETA on the updated tool? thanks.

    I talked to them a couple days ago and got the impression an update was coming this week.


    MishaOLS
    Member

    @mishaols

    Hello guys, I just wanted to ask you how does it look with the bbconverter update? Is it going out any time soon? I really can’t wait to finish my project. Thank you very much!


    shooo
    Member

    @shooo

    hi all,

    i have a phpbb forum with 150 000 replies, 12000 topics et 7000 members.

    I want to try to upgrade on bbpress.

    if i convert my phpbb forum on bbpress 1.1 and convert this bbpress 1.1 on bbpress 2.0?

    do you think that is a good idea ? do you know a good plugin for convert phpbb on bbpress 1.1?


    Ed
    Participant

    @edkubisa

    I hate to nag, but I would really like to know if this will work with punBB anytime in the near future?

    If not, I will just move to a different system – my current setup is just spam infested – no punBB plugin can stop it. I really need to jump ship soon :(


    Anointed
    Participant

    @anointed

    @Ed

    Alex is out of the office for the weekend. I’ll ask him on Monday and report back. I talked to him on Wednesday and he said he was working on a new vs. but I did not ask what was being added.

    *I do know that he offers custom created systems if you need it right away. There is a contact form on the bbconverter site to reach him directly.


    Ed
    Participant

    @edkubisa

    thanks a lot Anointed :) Let’s hope he has good news, as I have no money for custom work i’m afraid :(


    ebiznet88
    Member

    @ebiznet88

    Hi there Anointed One. I urgently wish to convert my phpBB forum to bbpress.

    Can you give me a ‘rough’ estimate on when this plugin can also do phpbb conversions?

    Many thank in advance!


    Anointed
    Participant

    @anointed

    I actually have no estimates right now for added features. Adam is absolutely slammed at work right now. I know he is working on a more streamlined vs. of the plugin, but do not know if it is going to include new importers or not.

    *If you are a programmer, the plugin is built to be easily extended for new systems. If not, I know that he offers a paid service for custom conversions.

    Beyond that I have no new news to report.


    AWJunkies
    Member

    @awjunkies

    Sorry guys been slammed I will try to get the update out before weekend is out. Today have to finish up another project so no way it will be today. So look for it in coming days.


    ebiznet88
    Member

    @ebiznet88

    Thank you Adam for the work that you do.

    This update you mention, would it happen to contain a converter for phpBB to bbpress as well (keeping fingers on both hands tightly crossed and holding my breath!)?


    csburdick
    Participant

    @csburdick

    Hiya! Looking to get a phpBB forum converted to bbPress. Any updates on when that’l be available or if you can even do it as a paid service? Thanks.


    chrisella
    Member

    @chrisella

    Thank you Adam for the work that you do.

    This update you mention, would it happen to contain a converter for phpBB to bbpress as well (keeping fingers on both hands tightly crossed and holding my breath!)?

    I second the good sentiments here and also desperately hope that a phpbb converter is on the horizon too.


    DiannaM668
    Member

    @diannam668

    Let me also tag along on the latest thank yous. I’m so excited about this converter and hoping desperately that the phpbb converter will come out really soon.

    I have an SMF forum and tried with some of the notes on this thread but with no luck. I got a bit lost in the notes of it. I’ve been working for a few days straight trying to get something figured out to get this client’s forum into bbpress.

    I’ve converted my SMF forum into a phpBB forum. There is another WP plubin for phpBB to BBpress conversion, but it’s in huge beta mode I believe. I’m able to pull everything but the actual posts themselves. So close but yet so far.

    So I have 2 forums ready for whichever way that I can find the first available options to convert.

    If anyone has fine tuned the SMF conversion as well, let me know.

    I’ve tried everything I can and keep running into issues.

    I’ve been watching this forum for a few days now for updates.

    This is great stuff! Can’t wait to get my hands on the phpbb conversion option. :-)

    Thank you so so so so much in advance!


    ebiznet88
    Member

    @ebiznet88

    I believe there’s a huge installed based of phpbb forum owners looking to convert over to bbpress because of the attraction of integrating seamlessly with WP. I believe the number is even bigger compared to the other forum platforms such as Invision and vBulletin as phpBB is free.

    SMF is also free but its newer than phpBB and so I believe there are fewer of such boards around.

    Because of this, I hope the bbpress crew can see where they want to put in their efforts to create or complete the converter for phpbb. ;)

    It would be a great step forward for the community of bbpress users, don’t you agree :)


    DiannaM668
    Member

    @diannam668

    Hi ebiznet88, I agree, it does seem phpBB is the most commonly used board. In my attempts to try to get my conversion done, I looked into Invision and vBulletin to see if I could get my SMF or phpBB versions of my forum over into Invision or vBulletin and then use the converter. I’ve tried everything.

    For those who have SMF, the conversion over to phpBB is very easy and clean cut and no issues. It’s a plugin for phpBB from their site that you use. I had no problems. So if the phpBB converter comes out, those who have a SMF forum like I did, can convert to phpBB and then use this converter for bbpress.

    Yes, I totally agree with you. :-)

    I’m waiting with baited breath (or whatever that expression is…LOL)

    So excited to see it come out if they (Adam, AWJunkies and/or whoever else is working on it) are able to have time to work on it.

    I would be very indebted to them! :-)


    ebiznet88
    Member

    @ebiznet88

    Oops, I just committed an “eggcorn” when I said “baited breath”.

    I meant, waiting “with bated breath” which means “in a state of suspenseful anticipation.”

    I tried converting my phpBB to bbpress 1 using an older converter, with the idea to then converting bbpress 1 to bbpress 2. However, while the posts were converted successfully, the users weren’t so all the posts were attributed to “Anonymous”.

    Its a pity I met with a dead end there. My posts asking for help with that problem went unanswered; otherwise I would suggest that procedure here.


    chrisella
    Member

    @chrisella

    mmm today I managed (successfully I believe) to use this script (with some edits) : https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/importing-from-phpbb#post-313

    to convert my phpBB3 to bbPress v1.0, and then I used bbConverter to convert the bbPress v1.0 to v2.1

    and all seems to have copied fine :)

    one Issue I’m having is the passwords.

    When I try and login with a user and the correct old password it continously fails :/.

    It seems (after going through the code a bit and the database) that it’s looking for _bbc_class in the user meta table in this code but that isn’t there in my table atall.

    /**

    * Convert passwords from previous forum to wordpress.

    */

    public function convert_pass()

    {

    global $wpdb;

    $username = $_POST;

    if( $username != ” )

    {

    $row = $wpdb->get_row( ‘SELECT * FROM ‘ . $wpdb->users .

    ‘ INNER JOIN ‘ . $wpdb->usermeta . ‘ ON user_id = ID ‘ .

    ‘ WHERE meta_key = “_bbc_class” AND user_login = “‘ . $username . ‘” LIMIT 1’ );

    if( $row )

    {

    $converter = newBBConverter( $row->meta_value );

    $converter->translate_pass( $username, $_POST );

    }

    }

    }

    Any ideas ?

    I know this is quite vague so I can give any more details if needed.

    Cheers


    DiannaM668
    Member

    @diannam668

    ebiznet….bated breathe, that’s it. LOL!

    I tried this route going from phpBB to bbpress 1.0 standalone and I cannot remember what stumbling block that I encountered. I’ve tried so many routes but every one has an issue.

    I’m going to try it again right now as we speak. Chrisella, if you figure out the password issue, if you don’t mind post it, in case I have the same issue. I’m going to retry right now.


    DiannaM668
    Member

    @diannam668

    chrisella, I’m at the phpbb3 to bbpress converter notes on the phpbb3 support forum and the gentlemen writing the code has mentioned passwords and something to do with MD5 hashing. I don’t know what that means, but there is a link to some coding to correct the problem with passwords. Not sure if that is what you may need, but take a look.

    https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/phpbb3-gt-bbpress-converter-beta-release

    The password plugin they mention is at:

    https://bbpress.org/plugins/topic/md5-insecurity-for-bbpress/


    chrisella
    Member

    @chrisella

    Heya

    In the end I decided to give ForumConverter for a direct phpBB3 -> bbPress convert.

    It worked flawlessly for me and converted everything without a single hiccup.

    I was actually amazed as I was expecting to have to edit files, alter configs or manually sort some bits, but it did a very good job.

    It’s called ForumConverter on the WP plugins download, I’d have a look if you need phpBB3->bbPress conversion now.


    ebiznet88
    Member

    @ebiznet88

    Chrisella, does ForumConverter convert phpbb to bbpress 1 or 2 directly?


    chrisella
    Member

    @chrisella

    It worked for me going from phpBB3 3.0.9 to bbPress 2.1 (I’m using the developer version of bbPress)

    and bar 5 orphaned topics for an unknown reason (5 out of ~10,000 isn’t bad) it worked perfectly.


    tnwinn
    Member

    @tnwinn

    I’m definitely not up to par (re: computer/coding knowledge) with everyone that has been posting on this thread, but I’m not a total idiot, either… in other words, I can follow directions, but be gentle on me!

    I don’t know if one of these plugins mentioned might be the fix for my problem. From what I can tell, I am having minor problems since downloading the bbPress plugin (I have version 2.0.2 currently installed) but previously had a WP-bbPress forum integration set-up. It wasn’t fully integrated into my theme, but I at least had seamless logins, etc. You can see from my homepage here: http://www.gogo-gringo.com/ and my forums here: http://gogo-gringo.com/forum/.

    However, now when I try to access or edit forum topics and replies from the WP dashboard, it doesn’t affect anything at http://www.gogo-gringo.com/forum. Much to my dismay, I’ve realized there is also now a http://www.gogo-gringo.com/forums which pulls up within my site, but looks pretty awful. I will have to try and edit the style to get it to work.

    I would rather have the latter, more integrated one(www.gogo-gringo.com/forums/) working and looking stylish.. and get rid of the older one (gogo-gringo.com/forum/) but of course keep all my users and posts.

    Could someone point me in the right direction? Thanks a million in advance!


    DiannaM668
    Member

    @diannam668

    Hi Chrisella, I gave it one more college try on that Forumconverter plugin and it even mentioned needing to use bbpress 2.0 rc4 version. I installed the older version of BBpress but still no go. I’m getting stuck when I get a 500 internal server error and I believe I’m timing out.

    When I get the error page after about 2 minutes of conversion, it then makes me log into my wordpress installation as if it’s trying to install itself. I put my login info as it asks and it then gives me a long list of the errors that occurred. It does say “…… has exceeded the ‘max_questions’ resource (current value: 75000)].

    When I go to my forum, I do have the forum and topics, but no actual posts. So close yet so far.

    If I knew how to further fix my timeout issue, I may try to call my web-hosting to see if they could guide me on the issue or maybe give me more conversion time just for this issue…I’m just grasping at straws.

    If no luck on this last attempt with calling my web-hosting, I’m at the mercy of AWJunkies guys for when they have time to possibly finish the plugin for a phpBB conversion. They will totally make my day.

    I’ve pretty much tried every route one can possibly try to get my forum over to bbpress. I’ll just wait with crossed fingers and toes. :-)

Viewing 25 replies - 51 through 75 (of 191 total)
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