Here’s some info on the existing forum:
Users: ~2.5K
Forums: 38
Topics (threads): ~5K
Replies: ~95K
link website your forum sir?
Update:
Stopping and re-starting the process doesn’t work just by clicking on the start/stop button. However, after re-loading the page and re-entering the old forum data, it seems to crawl a bit further. I’ll try to take this to the end, while noting down the ranges of replies it stuck along the way. Meanwhile, any helpful input would be much appreciated 😉
Update:
This is interesting, also might prove to be helpful to the dev team:
Although the process seemed to have stuck at range 50750-50999, on a separate tab I visited the Replies section of the Admin panel and noticed that the total entries there where actually 51250. When I re-started the import process, it started at number (guess what) 51250.
This is so buggy it’s getting unreal. After a stuck range, I re-loaded the page, entered the old forum DB data but I forgot to select the platform from the dropdown and left the first option in the list (I only found out later), so the process asked me to repair the imported data. I repaired it, then tried to continue the import process (that’s when I realised I had forgotten the platform thing) and instead of continuing, it started from ground zero, creating duplicate entries! Such a pity, it had reached 61450.
I’ll give it one more go using the built-in importer. I have already started the purging process. Meanwhile @netweb, is there ANY documentation / material to help me perform the import hands-on, using my MySQL / phpMyAdmin skills?
Sorry this isn’t the best of experiences 🙁
Can you try the 2.6 alpha version, available from this page as “development version”
• https://wordpress.org/plugins/bbpress/developers/
• aka https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/bbpress.zip
Also if you “right click” any of the items as they import and select “Inspect element” to view the source code you will see the direct MySQL queries as they happen, you can then use these to help debug directly in phpMyAdmin 🙂
Aha! I never would have thought that the actual query would be lurking in there.
I have re-started the process and it seems to roll smoothly so far (fingers crossed), at about ~28K replies at the moment. If that one eventually fails too, I’ll go for the alpha version.
Thanks Stephen.
Update (and info for the developers):
I have the import process running in one tab, and a random admin page in another, which I keep re-loading to maintain the session alive. Meanwhile, I also occasionally run this query on the database to keep an eye on things:
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM 'wp_posts' WHERE 'post_type'='reply'
Here’s what I noticed:
Although the import process tab states that it’s
Converting Replies (51700 – 51799)
the actual total replies imported at any given time are in the next range, eg. between 51800 and 51899 (resulted by the MySQL query above).
Whenever it stalls without outputting dashes, it’s always on a round figure, eg. 51600, and re-starting the import process starts at 51601 OK.
Also, at one occasion, the session expired. I logged back in at the second tab, then returned to the importing tab and as soon as I closed the login modal, the import pane started outputting dashes.
I’ll keep this topic updated with any further info until the import completes. Hope this proves useful to someone.
I think this has been reported before, but although the process started at a speed of several hundred entries per minute, from that point on it only gets slower. Just after the 50K mark, the import speed is now several seconds per entry.
If reduced speed is the only topic of concern during an import, then I would say there are no concerns at all 🙂
Improving speed is something that is already ongoing for years (see e.g. https://bbpress.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/1925) and will probably never end, but that’s positive in this case.
Let’s just hope the import ends correctly, whatever time it might take.
Pascal.
Yes! It just passed the 60K mark! Another 30K to go.
After this is done, what tables should I selectively backup so I won’t have to worry about re-importing? Does it store any data outside user, usermeta, post and postmeta?
@construtordesite – Although I’m no expert, this is what works for me: as soon as the process stalls, with or without dashes, click on the Stop button, re-load the page, enter all the old forum database info (don’t forget the platform!) in the form, then click Start. The process should start where it’s left off.
The above was spam 😉
It theoretically continue to run at the same speed at reply 1-100 or 90,000 – 90,100.
A recent case of similar behaviour was due to another plugin being active and hooking into pre_get_posts(), this caused every single post being imported to be run through this and was the cause of the slowness.
Check what other plugins are running to see if this is the cause.
And no, *all* bbPress data is stored in the standard WordPress db tables, bbPress does not create any tables of it’s own.
Nope, that’s definitely not the case here. The only other plugin running was Jetpack; I deactivated that too but there’s no notable difference in speed. It’s now just above 62K.
I just noticed that there are lots of replies attributed to user “Anonymous”. Looked further and realised that they’re attributed to user IDs that don’t correspond to any user accounts. Will that be fixed with the repair tools after the import is done or has it gone completely awry?
Currently at 67K and going.
Some assistance please; this query:
SELECT DISTINCT 'post_author'
FROM 'wp_posts'
AS t1
LEFT JOIN 'wp_users' AS t2
ON t2.ID = t1.post_author
WHERE t2.ID IS NULL AND t1.post_type = 'reply'
ORDER BY 't1'.'post_author' ASC
returns 306 results. This one:
SELECT COUNT(*)
FROM 'wp_posts'
AS t1
LEFT JOIN 'wp_users' AS t2
ON t2.ID = t1.post_author
WHERE t2.ID IS NULL AND t1.post_type = 'reply'
returns the number 29547.
So, there are 29547 replies attributed to 306 users that don’t exist in the user table. Will that get fixed by the repair tools or should I stop the process and try something else?
OK, this is scary:
At 69305 imported replies, it stalled (for the zillionth time) and after the re-starting attempt I got an error message stating that my old forum database table does not exist (!!!), and that I should repair any missing information. Meanwhile, 30899 (45%) of those replies are attributed to 323 non-existent users. Yes, the numbers have grown.
Alright, repair time. Wish me luck.
Several days of patience went down the drain at the click of a button. After repairing, the import process started again at ground zero, creating duplicates for everything already imported.
69305 entries. Down. The. Drain.
OK, getting red-hot mad and start yelling won’t do any good. What’s the next best option? Trying the alpha version. Alright, let’s do that.
Just a few minutes into the new day, December the 4th, the alpha version has been installed and the import process has been launched. Let’s see how this one goes.
Less than half an hour later, I’ve already passed the 10K mark at a speed of about 20 entries per second. Now we’re talking.
So, the entire process completed successfully 94 minutes later, at a blazing speed of 20 entries per second. If you need to import a VB3 forum into bbpress, v2.6 is the way to go people.
Wonderful news! I know exactly how it feels to hit that ‘Import’ button – although the process seemed to go a lot smoother for me (fingers crossed)!
@beerallica, thank you so very much for your detailed information.
I’m planning on converting a vbulletin 3.8 into bbPress but I’m reading all of the experiences from other folks that I’m able to find and yours seemed to be one of the most detailed ones.
How do you rate yourforum now when comparing with the old vbulletin?
Thanks.
