Desperate to convert from XMB 1.9.11 to SMF

[Mauldraine]

Greetings to the SMF support community.  My apologies for the urgency of this request up front.  My existing server has a temperamental RAID card so I'm moving to a new server.  During this migration I decided to throw away XMB and use SMF.  I have a fresh installation of SMF 2.0.2 and initial setup has been completed.

I just downloaded the XMB convert script and accompanying sql file.  When I start the conversion process I quickly encounter the following ...

Converting topics...Duplicate entry '15614' for key 'PRIMARY'

I removed that line with a quick sql command, "delete from xmb_threads where tid='15614'", ran it again and quickly received the same error but for entry 15611.  After deleting a few more of these I realized that something bigger was at work here.  So here I am, in a bind, with only 9 days left before the old server is de-provisioned.  Can anyone help me get the xmb forums converted?  Any help is greatly appreciated.

Martin

[Mauldraine]

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I'm sincerely hoping that someone might be able to help me here.  I'm also willing to pay for someone's time to do the conversion for me.  I can send you a tar.gz file with the SQL export file, and the forum folder.  So all that would be necessary is to import it in to your MySQL instance and beat the data in to "SMF Submission".  I'd be happy to offer anyone $50 via PayPal, personal money order, or any other form of payment just to be able to keep the 2+ years of user contributions.

Please help.

[kat]

Welcome to the forum, Martin!

I saw your post, when you first did it. But, to be honest, I don't know much about converting.

But, I mentioned this, to a previous message and I have no idea if it worked, because I never got a reply.

What I said, there, was:

What about this?

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=140744.msg1553232#msg1553232

Although this was a phpbb problem, could this work?

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=139451.msg894669#msg894669

Having just searched, here, for "Duplicate entry '1781'", there seem to be quite a few things to try.

It seems to be a common XMB problem.

Let's see if any of that helps.

[Mauldraine]

Thank you for the reply.  Sadly the sql document in that other thread caused an error message in just converting the member data.  In that same thread it was suggested that I simply delete the offending entry ...

Converting topics...Duplicate entry '15614' for key 'PRIMARY'

So I deleted it (delete from xmb_threads where tid='15614') and ran it again.  In each instance of re-running the converter, I received the exact same error but with a different entry number.  Each time I would delete it ... 15615 ... 15616 ... by the time I got to 15689 I gave up and looked at how many threads I actually had.  I have 16070 threads.  At that point I could only hypothesize that I would have to delete 15614 all the way through 16070 on the off chance that it might convert, and in doing so would loose a lot of good threads.

But I did find some promise in the second thread and thought that I was on to something when it was suggested to convert the XMB data to phpBB first, and then from there to SMF.  Unfortunately, the XMB to phpBB converter is for version 2.0 and not 3.0, and hasn't been supported or maintained in years.

If there are any additional suggestions, I am all ears Ladies and Gentlemen.  My offer still stands.  I will GLADLY pay someone for their time to convert the forum data.  I have just a few days left before I have to put the XMB software on the new server.  I'm desperate, can you tell?

Thank you to all who have read this thread!!!

[IchBin™]

Mauldraine,

I'm no expert on the conversion processes either, but if you'd like I can take a stab at seeing if I can get them to work? I'll need a copy of your DB to try this. It's probably too big to email or something, so if you'd like to put it up somewhere that I can download it from your site, then you can just send me a link in PM and I'll see what happens on my end with things.

[Mauldraine]

Thank you SO MUCH IchBin.  I will dump the entire forums schema in to a file, put it some place for you to download, and will PM you the moment that it's available.  This is going to be a sleepless night for me.

[Mauldraine]

You have a PM.   

[IchBin™]

You can go ahead and delete that file now, as I have a copy of it. I'll see what I can do with it today and will get back to you as needed.

[pamanatek]

I have been having the same problem for weeks now with no solutions that I can find.

[Mauldraine]

Thank you SO MUCH.  I really don't want to have to use forum software that hasn't been actively developed for almost 2 years.  Plus SMF is one of the only forum solutions that is mobile ready.  I'm so ready to change.  I eagerly look forward to hearing from you.  Do you have a PayPal account so that I can pay you for the conversion?

[IchBin™]

Getting close! It looks like I was able to get the converter to complete. The only issue's I can see right now, is that we need to convert the way they use quotes in their posts to the way SMF does. A few more fixes and that should hopefully have it working. I'm hoping to post the updated files today.

[IchBin™]

Give these files a try and see if they work for you.

If they don't work, please post the text on the page where it says what step you are on. Also post the URL your browser shows too. Hopefully these will work.

[Mauldraine]

Sadly ...

URL path: forums/convert.php?step=1&substep=9&start=5400
Error:  Converting posts (this may take some time)...The database value you're trying to insert does not exist: poster_email

Man I had such high hopes.  So what should I do now?  Your advice is super appreciated.

[Norv]

Mauldraine,
I'm sorry for missing that, I actually experienced it too working with your database last night and got it fixed, but for some reason IchBin didn't experience it, it worked fine for him, and without replicating an error we can't fix it. So the fix wasn't in the currently posted converter. (given the size of your database and how long it takes to complete a conversion, IchBin has worked a lot of time on it, and sometimes with partial conversion processes to check only one bit or another, that bit may have passed during one of those.)

Please, give a try to the attached package. Meanwhile we'll test further the results and be ready to support the conversion of your forums.

[Mauldraine]

It's alive ...

ALIVE

Muwahahahaha.  I cannot even begin to express my sincere appreciation for all of your efforts.  My God!  I was really worried that I wasn't going to be able to keep the xmb forum data.  I'm sure through your testing you found out that we have over 100,000 posts, and I would have just cried if I lost it all.  Thank you again and again.

[kat]

Wonderful stuff, guys!

[IchBin™]

It's alive ...

ALIVE

Muwahahahaha.  I cannot even begin to express my sincere appreciation for all of your efforts.  My God!  I was really worried that I wasn't going to be able to keep the xmb forum data.  I'm sure through your testing you found out that we have over 100,000 posts, and I would have just cried if I lost it all.  Thank you again and again.

I discovered how many posts you had several times. lol The conversion of posts took quite a bit when I finally made it all the way through. Wouldn't have worked without Norv's brilliance. So glad you got it working!

[kat]

Is it worth modifying the conversion script that we have to include this?

[Mauldraine]

I do have one (I'm sure) small issue ... At the top of the forums there is a section without a name.  There are a few forums in that section.  When we go in to the admin section, and then in to the Modify Boards area, that section is called "Salvage Area".  But the forums that I see on the public view, are not listed in the admin view.  Any suggestions?  I have not moved the domain name over yet to the new server, so if you would like to look at it, it's located here ...

http://76.74.251.214/forums/index.php [nofollow]

If you need admin rights just let me know and I'll PM you with my login.

[IchBin™]

hmmm... there may be something left to figure out in the converter. I'd have to go back and look at my end results. Not setup where I'm at to check that stuff. If you'd like, feel free to PM me a temp admin account and I'll take a look at that.

Oh and definitely K@. We'll add all the fixes to our current download for this.

[Mauldraine]

Thank you.  I just sent you the log in information in PM.  I will sit here at the ready to provide any assistance you need.  Many thanks.

[IchBin™]

Definitely something weird going on there. I don't think there will be any fixing for this without having access to the database. If you don't mind giving me that access feel free to send it to me. Otherwise you might have to wait a couple of days until I can get back to looking at the conversion stuff .

[Mauldraine]

Thanks for looking at it.  I did go in to mysql and manually deleted those forums that weren't in a category.  They are gone and main menu looks like it should, but in the admin section we still cannot create another forum under any of the sections.  It gives us ...

An Error Has Occurred!
The board you specified doesn't exit

What is interesting is that it does create it, but not in the category we selected, but in a blank category and it appears down at the bottom of the home page.  Do you have access to the MySQL GUI tools?  Or I can always export the database to a sql file again and give it to you to look at.

[Mauldraine]

Ok I have more information on the off chance that it will help ...

- You can create categories but they do not show up on the public view.  I'm assuming this is due to there being no boards created under that new category.

- You can click "Add Board" under that category and attempt to create it, but it will give you the error that I shared with you.

With all that being said, the new board that you just attempted to create does show up on the public view but not in the category that you created it in.  When I look in the smf_boards table, I can see the newly created board, but it looks as if it's not getting the correct id_cat.  No matter how many I try to create under that new category, they always get a id_cat of 255.

Suggestions?

[Norv]

It surely helps, thank you for the explanation! The problem is that the SMF database structure is not fully compatible with xmb, and we have adapted it in the converter, but it needs one more adaptation:
The column id_cat in smf_boards table needs to be of a bigger integer type, i.e. smallint, mediumint or int, not tinyint as it comes with SMF by default.

You could do so in phpmyadmin, by:
- select your SMF database, and your smf_boards table
- in the 'structure' tab, 'edit' the id_cat column, and change the type, 'tinyint', to 'int'.
Please do keep a backup of your database before making such changes.

After this, your operations with boards and categories should work normally.

That means that the conversion missed a couple of your previous categories. If you wish, you can also, instead, try to reconvert, to have these back normally.
I will change the package above, with an updated one, in which the converter makes the change itself, so that boards fall normally under their respective categories during conversion process.

[Mauldraine]

Wow ... Now that was one of the easiest fixes I've had to do in a while.  It would seem that everything is working just superbly now.  You folks simply rock.  I have no doubt in my mind now that those community members of ours who constantly suggested that we move to SMF we correct in their assessment of the software and the team that supports it.

I wish you all a very Happy Easter.

[IchBin™]

So glad you are all fixed up! Happy Easter to you too!

[kat]

[Dblog]

Mauldraine,
I'm sorry for missing that, I actually experienced it too working with your database last night and got it fixed, but for some reason IchBin didn't experience it, it worked fine for him, and without replicating an error we can't fix it. So the fix wasn't in the currently posted converter. (given the size of your database and how long it takes to complete a conversion, IchBin has worked a lot of time on it, and sometimes with partial conversion processes to check only one bit or another, that bit may have passed during one of those.)

Please, give a try to the attached package. Meanwhile we'll test further the results and be ready to support the conversion of your forums.

Hi
attachment is missing..
can you re-upload plz
i'm trying to convert old xmbforum to smf 2.1

[Steve]

This is an 11-year-old and solved topic. Please start a new topic with a description of your problem.