After a day of on-again, off-again effort I have successfully imported my SMF to bbPress – and integrated it with WP.

I did this on a local test server, then installed bbPress live, then drop/imported my bbpress tables and user tables (my wp user tables in this case).

Steps:

1. Installed PhpBB 2.0.23 (legacy version available from phpbb people) and made sure it worked

2. Used files within a zip file called convert_smf_111_v1b.zip to convert SMF -> Phpbb. Unfortunately, I can’t find the link to the thread right now… I found this

http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=306321&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

but it isn’t as new a version.

I believe the file I used is here:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=141446

sorry I lost the link to the discussion.

NOTE 1 : I had to manually go into the database and upgrade my main account to ‘level 1’ to become admin again.

NOTE 2 : Your password probably won’t work and you probably can’t send yourself an email either. I hacked phpbb/includes/emailer.php and included the variable $this->msg into the error message so that the email appeared on the screen. This gave me the ability to reset my account and get a new password.

3. Implemented the following MOD on PhpBB to switch conflicting User Ids

http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=388155&sid=3d5e8f776a7086b6fec64c3e80c7cbca

(this part is tedious! the MOD is a pain to install and rearranging is no fun either)

Here are directions on how to install a Phpbb mod:

http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=61611

4. installed Jaim3’s PhpBB to bbPress converter per instructions

http://bbpress.org/forums/topic/a-phpbb-to-bbpress-database-converter

This created a .sql file.

NOTE 1: Make sure to create a temp folder where the file wants to be created

5. Important edits to .sql file

A) since I did an integrated WP/BBpress install, I needed to search and replace bb_user for wp_user

Delete any lines that add users who already exist in BB/WP

C) add a field called topic_resolved to bb_topics

D) Delete the sample test posts and forums in the bbpress tables

6. Import the .sql into your database. The above should have solved any conflicts, but if you get an error it should be relatively easy to figure out.

7. At this point, since I wasn’t doing it live I installed bbPress live, and then drop/created my test tables (all bb tables plus user tables) on my live server and all went well.

8. This should be everything. Have a drink.

[@affacat Member 16 years, 9 months ago]

I noticed my import didn’t import a forum’s most recent post time correctly (it was set equal to forum start date instead)

i ran this to fix it:

UPDATE

bb_topics

set topic_time =

(SELECT bb_posts.post_time

from bb_posts

where bb_posts.topic_id=bb_topics.topic_id

ORDER BY bb_posts.post_time DESC LIMIT 1)

[@_ck_ Participant 16 years, 9 months ago]

Nice work and thanks for sharing…

I just knew that using phpbb as an inbetween standard is a good idea…

ps. you might want to fix the tags on this to separate words

[@affacat Member 16 years, 9 months ago]

Tags fixed.

Why can I edit tags here and not as keymaster on my own install? Erg.

Also — I reread my instructions. One thing I’d like to clarify:

When reorganizing your forum users on phpBB using the mod, make sure to make anyone who exists in both phpBB and WP have matching User IDs. Then, when you delete them from the import script, the forum will still have all posts and topics pointing to the correct user because the record is already correct in your bb/wp user tables.

[@_ck_ Participant 16 years, 9 months ago]

I believe on bbPress users can only edit their own tags.

But that’s a good point where keymasters should be able to edit anyone’s tags – I’ll have to see if that’s the behavior in 0.9 and if not, I’ll put a ticket in trac.

eta: on 0.9 (not sure about previous versions)

keymasters can remove anyone’s tags

[@affacat Member 16 years, 9 months ago]

oh, i was actually talking about a separate issue where I can’t add/edit tags (well, I can add one per post then I get ‘no permission’ error:

https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/no-rights-to-create-forum-as-key-master#post-14757

But this issue is not actually related to this thread — anyone reading this that wants to convert following the instructions above should. i just found it odd that tag management works here but not on my own site.

[@affacat Member 16 years, 9 months ago]

We realized many of the members seemed to be showing up on the site as ‘inactive’, despite having a record in wp_user_meta with matching records containing:

bb_capabilities a:1:{s:6:”member”;b:1;}

I updated a single ‘inactive’ user to ‘moderator’, saved, then downgraded them back to ‘member’, saved… and everyone that was displaying as inactive started displaying correctly as member.

I do not know what type of glitch this was, or if it was a result of the conversion but am posting it here in case others converting run into the same issue.

[@affacat Member 16 years, 8 months ago]

yet another step.

if you want pretty permalinks you’ll need to fill in topic_slug in bb_topics.

[@citizenkeith Participant 16 years, 8 months ago]

Just want to say THANK YOU!!

I gave up converting my phpBB forum months ago:

https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/a-phpbb-to-bbpress-database-converter/page/2

But by utilizing the info here (and buy editing the SQL file by hand), I was able to get my forum into the very latest bbPress… it’s even integrated with WP.

http://www.judyhenskefan.com/forums/

Now I get to work on a new design for the forum and blog (as well as add lots of plugins to the new forum).

Thanks again everybody!

[@affacat Member 16 years, 8 months ago]

wonderful! i’m glad to hear my post was helpful!