First up, make sure you have run the phpBB recount tools which ‘should’ make sure phpB database is in good shape before you get started.
The importer is designed to import your users from phpBB and that is where your problems will now be as you already have some users in WordPress…
During the import the importer if it finds a username already exists eg ‘username’ it will create a new user with a prefix ‘imported_’ eg ‘imported_username’.
After the import is finished you can use WordPress’ user admin panel to delete (one by one) each ‘imported_’ user and as you do you are presented with the option to reassign all posts to another user, select the user you want from the dropdown list and your done.
This gets painful very quickly if you have 1,000 users to do this to one by one.
You may be surprised to see my bbPress forum
“Internal Server Error” 😉
You may be surprised to see my bbPress forum
“Internal Server Error” 😉
Yeah, another issue I was having is my phpBB3 private forums copied over public, and when I’d go into bbPress and choose “Hidden” and save it would refresh as “Open” again :/ so I deleted the forum. When I did that all hell broke loose for several hours. Server company said that phpBB3 was putting too much of a load on the shared server. I guess the import process put me close to the limit and the deletion process put me over.
I’ll try your suggestion, thanks.
Here’s a screenshot of the forums, Gyazo’s finally back up: http://gyazo.com/ef928ad4738251e1bd6ab1c39a0b710b.png
I’ve resychronized the phpbb3 forums and begun the conversion process by “Purge all information from a previously attempted import”. I then reimported also bringing the members this time and… still only up to five months ago 🙁 Wait, I wonder if that’s when I installed WP-United. I disabled the plugin, but maybe it’s somehow messing with the import process. Is there any way to import some phpbb3 tables into bbPress “by hand”?
Are you running the ‘Repair Tools’ after importing to recalculate the counts?
As the importer is running SQL queries grabbing ‘all the things’ directly from the phpBB MySQL database this should not be an issue.
It should not be missing anything, but, thinking about this for a moment, do you know if WP-United alters any phpBB or WordPress database tables? If so do you know what changes it makes?
What happens if you disable WP-United plugin before importing?
What happens if you delete WP-United plugin? Does it uninstall any changes it made?
(If you try deleting WP-United make sure you have website and database backups)
Yep, as mentioned, I tried it with WP-United disabled and recalculated in phpBB3 first then in WordPress bbPress after the import, each one. My next step is removing it altogether and trying it then. I’m not sure what changes WP-United might make on the database, but phpBB3 does have an Auto Mod package that is part of the process so I’ll have to remove it from phpBB3 too before I can try again. I’ll try to come back and report what I learn! 🙂
I have followed WP-United author’s instructions for removal by disabling in WP, removing the code (by hand to be sure) from all phpBB3 files and deleting WP-United files from phpBB3, deleting the plugin in WP. I then purged the cache in phpBB3, resyncronized in phpBB3, imported to bbPress, and resynched there – – Still only get posts up to five months ago 🙁
Maybe it’s the Kiss Portal that’s causing the issue? Maybe it puts a difference in the database that the importer doesn’t recognize?
Now I have disabled Kiss Portal, purged the cache in phpBB3, resyncronized in phpBB3, imported to bbPress, and resynced there and still upon import only get posts up to five months ago.
Anybody have a clue what the issue might be or know of a resource that might show me how I can retrieve my posts from phpBB3 into bbPress by hand?
The best idea I have at the moment would be for you to post on http://pastebin.com or http://gist.github.com an excerpt of your phpBB table with a couple of entries either site of this mysterious ‘5 month mark’
Fire up phpMyAdmin and open your phpBB database:
Run the following query substituting > 5 & < 15 values with appropriate values from a couple of rows that shows what data IS being imported and also what is NOT.
SELECT *
FROM phpbb_topics
LEFT JOIN phpbb_posts ON phpbb_topics.topic_first_post_id = phpbb_posts.post_id
WHERE phpbb_topics.topic_id > 5
AND phpbb_topics.topic_id < 15
Now at the results of that query at the bottom of the page is export click that and select Custom - display all possible options select the format as CSV and check the Put columns names in the first row check box.
Upload that file somewhere and post the link here (or send me a DM on Twitter) and I can have a look at exactly what is going on.
Edit: fixed mysql code formatting
Alrighty, thanks so much for your help! I was thinking “no way someone’s going to want to help with this mess” and didn’t rush to check back (think I needed a small break too.)
Thanks too for the detailed “how to”! I followed your instructions as well as I could, some discrepancies in options available, so hopefully I’ve got the info you need to take a peek at what’s going on. If gzip doesn’t work for you let me know and I’ll zip or not, upload another version.
I have the file (and removed the link in your post above).
Which of those topics are and are not getting imported as all 6 (331-337) look fine to me and ‘should’ import without issue.
Topic 333 was the last Topic to be posted that will import over, but several Posts made after that make it from the next day, from that topic and others.
Yeah, once you directed me into my phpadmin, I looked at the tables of those posts (had never done that before) and they all look exactly the same. It must be another table that’s throwing the bbPress importer off.
Edit: I just noticed they’re in a weird order:
331
333
—————————————
332
335
336
337
The two above the line will import over, nothing after will. Notice how “332” is under the line, even though it would fall in between Topics 331 and 333. Not sure if it’s a clue or if this is totally normal.
OK, turns out the CSV won’t cut the mustard in this case, so these two queries match the results of the last dataset you send me.
SELECT * FROM phpbb_topics WHERE phpbb_topics.topic_id > 330 AND phpbb_topics.topic_id < 338
SELECT * FROM phpbb_posts WHERE post_id IN (3810,3819,3840,3851,3862,3863)
Can you run both of those queries and this time when you click export (There are two export labels, click the one in the ‘Query results operations’ section)
This time you only need to select ‘quick’ and format ‘SQL’ and zip both thos files and attach a link here.
Thanks for your continued effort at trying to help problem solve! I don’t understand “There are two export labels” or see a “Query results operations’ section” so apologies if I’m missing something. Here are the steps I’m doing, let me know if I need to do something different and I’ll redo (using second query as example)
Run SQL query:
I choose “Export” on bottom right:
I leave Export option “SQL” button selected in upper left, I’ve left all other options as 1and1 default, and saved as “zipped”
@netweb I’m not sure if you’ve missed the post or if you’re understandably busy, but thought I’d give this a “bump”.
Apologies, snow & under are a couple of terms that come to mind.
I just imported your data into a clean MySQL database and everything imported correctly.
(The one side note is a couple of BBCodes, [align & [flash weren’t converted to WordPress ‘safe’ HTML, but that is another issue.)
Where to from here I am not sure as ‘your’ content appears fine at my end and isn’t causing the importer to miss/fail etc.
I think the next step would be for you to try this on a local install:
MAMP if you use Mac http://www.mamp.info/en/mamp-pro/index.html
XAMPP if you use PC http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html
Setup and install WordPress & bbPress in this install.
Export your entire phpBB database and import it into your local setup and give that a go.
https://www.phpbb.com/kb/article/transferring-your-board-to-a-new-host-or-domain/
My theory here is there could be ‘something’ going on with your web hosts configuration and if the local import works we can then export this data from WordPress on your local host and then import this into your remote host.
First up, make sure you have run the phpBB recount tools which ‘should’ make sure phpB database is in good shape before you get started.
I’m also having a problem importing from phpbb, can you please tell me where I find the phpbb recount tools?
Thanks
First up, make sure you have run the phpBB recount tools which ‘should’ make sure phpB database is in good shape before you get started.
I’m also having a problem importing from phpbb, can you please tell me where I find the phpbb recount tools?
Thanks
You should find it on the first page of your phpBB ACP, scroll down a little.
phpBB3 has had some updates in the last year, I wonder if those updates are making the bbPress importer not be able to do it’s job? Maybe different coding now?
Everything is still going fine, I ran some phpBB imports yesterday whilst implementing a few minor updates.
Details are here https://bbpress.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/2467
Feel free to download the latest from here:
https://bbpress.trac.wordpress.org/browser/trunk/includes/admin/converters/phpBB.php
I just found out yesterday that one of the issues I’m having might indeed have something to do with the phpBB3 mod, Kiss Portal. I did take your advice, @netweb, and attempted to install it on a Wamp (this is why it’s taken awhile to get back, my Wamp crashed and I’m troubleshooting), and in the process I’ve discovered that there is a file calling for a phpbb3_k_vars_config table on my Wamp server, even though there is no phpbb3_k_vars_config table in my running board’s database and it’s working fine. The Wamp board crashes saying it cannot find this table. I’m trying to get answers from the Kiss Portal crew, since during the search I discovered this is the same error I was getting when I first installed the portal. They actually went into my database and got it working at that time. But if I’m not mistaken, something in their files is looking for this table. Both boards have phpbb_k_vars_config table, without the “3”. So I might be getting closer to figuring this thing out.
Here is the error, in case anyone has seen this before and knows what it means:
General Error
SQL ERROR [ mysql4 ]
Table ‘*******.phpbb3_k_blocks_config_vars’ doesn’t exist [1146]
An sql error occurred while fetching this page. Please contact an administrator if this problem persists.
Thanks for the update, if I get time I might take a peek at the ‘Kiss Portal’ mod for phpBB, it would be nice to finally get your forums imported into bbPress after soooooo much time. It took me a good 6 months to get my original site from phpBB to bbPress and now I write all the forum converters 😉
Finally got it sorted and was able to convert the phpbb3 forum into my local bbPress forum! I did indeed find an error involving the portal that was hitching me up on installing on my local server, but there is a possibility that I was making another mistake: I may have been telling the importer that the table prefix was phpbb3_ instead of phpbb_, since there are tables of both and I did not know that. I’m not sure if I was doing that or not.
So now do I export my bbPress tables from my local site using mysql and import them into my live site’s database?
@netweb, would you do me the favor of deleting the download link I posted 10 posts up please? Thanks 🙂
It doesn’t look like it, but does bbPress have it’s own XML importer available? Again, I’ve successfully converted my phpBB3 forums onto my local bbPress, and now I’m unsure how to get those posts onto my live site. Would I just export the bbPress tables from my local database and import them into my live site’s database?
Removed, and sorry I missed your previous post and am just trying to come up with a good answer for you. I do it directly using export/import with MySQL, so looking for a plugin that will do this quickly and easily for you.
I haven’t forgotten 😉 I am working on a couple of things to help this without relying on doing it directly with phpMyAdmin and SQL queries which is pretty much the only way at the moment.
I haven’t forgotten 😉 I am working on a couple of things to help this without relying on doing it directly with phpMyAdmin and SQL queries which is pretty much the only way at the moment.
Awesome! Thx for the update.
