Help needed / YaBB 1 Gold SP 1.3.1 to SMF

[Ploy1886]

Hello, I'm posting on behalf of hxxp:moneysavingexpert.com [nonactive] (I am their junior web developer).

We currently have a forum with 24,000+ users which grows each day.  We also use YaBB 1 Gold SP 1.3.1, and its getting to the point where we have to rebuild the memberlist every day - its that big!

We are considering using SMF (I have recommended it to the web manager), and we need to know the following:

• Is SMF able to upgrade the forums from YaBB 1 Gold SP1.3.1 without any problems?
  
• Will it handle a forum with the amount of users that we deal with?
  
• Would there be a significant speed improvement? (the forums run quite slowly at the moment)
  
• Are you able to install the forums for us?
  

I would most a swift response - this is a serious issue to us - a problem that needs solving ASAP.

Yours,
~ William Dalladay-Elliott


Moderator-Edit: Subject clarified

[Oldiesmann]

Is SMF able to upgrade the forums from YaBB 1 Gold SP1.3.1?

Yes. However, you will have to do it in two steps. See the instructions at the end of this thread.

Will it handle a forum with the amount of users that we deal with?

Yes. SMF should have no problem with a forum this size.

Would there be a significant speed improvement? (the forums run quite slowly at the moment)

Yes, there should be a major speed improvement.

Before you start your upgrading, you should make sure your server is capable of running SMF. Check out [[t:Install Guide]] and Upgrade Guide for more info.

Instructions for converting from YaBB Gold

Step 1a:  Install YaBB SE
Go to http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=57105
Download either yabbse_1-5-5.zip or yabbse_1-5-5_safe.zip (unless your server has PHP running in safe mode, just use the first one. It's more convenient that way).
Extract that to your computer and upload install.php and the .yse file.
Make sure the directory is chmodded to 777 and then go to http://www.yoursite.com/yourdirectory/install.php (actual URL will point to wherever you uploaded the files from that package).
Follow the instructions to install YaBB SE.

Step 1b: Convert your old board
Download the yabb2yabbse_1-5.zip file from the same place you downloaded YaBB SE.
Extract that zip file and upload yabb2yabbse.php to your YaBB SE directory.
Make sure Settings.php is chmodded to 666 and then point your browser to http://www.yoursite.com/yourdirectory/yabb2yabbse.php

Step 2: Convert to SMF.
Clean up your directory by deleting everything from your YaBB SE directory except Settings.php and the attachments directory (if you have any).
Download the upgrade package from http://www.simplemachines.org/download.php
Extract all of these files to your computer and upload them all to the same directory where you installed YaBB SE.
Make sure Settings.php is chmodded to 666 and then point your browser to http://www.yoursite.com/yourdirectory/upgrade.php
You will most likely be asked to enter your FTP information so SMF can chmod the files properly - just enter your username and password and follow the instructions. The path and servername that SMF gives you should work just fine.
Find something to do for a couple minutes while the script converts everything (will probably take a little while since your board is so big). At the end, check the box next to the instructions saying delete this file. This should automatically delete upgrade.php for you (self-destructing files - isn't PHP fun? ).

Finally, go to your SMF install and configure things the way you want them. If you need any help, let us know and we'll do our best to help you out.

[Owdy]

Are you able to install the forums for us?

Yes http://www.simplemachines.org/charter.php

[[Unknown]]

We are also working on a direct converter.  With that many members, the current YaBB SE converter may not be able to handle the conversion process.

May I ask, how many posts does your forum currently have?

Obviously, you would be able to test the converted version, see how it runs, etc... while the old version is still being used.  It could then be converted a second time when you were ready, assuming you would choose to switch over .

-[Unknown]

[Ploy1886]

Heh, to be honest I've yet to see yet a YaBB forum as big as hours.... the 24,000 users was hit about a week ago, we get upto 400 signups a day - sometimes more!   YaBB is killing itself atm :S

Things are that serious... our dedi server WILL handle SMF (I've used SMF before myself - will be signing up for my own Charter Membership when I get my next pay ).  Its a dual CPU system with 2Gb memory running Debian 3 and on a 10mb line (we pay for the line ourselves, the hoster just gets the line in for us, so its a dedicated pipe ).  I know it has php on the server too

I'll check for mod_rewrite, since I prefer the /index.php/board etc kinda urls, plus it would help for the members (only about 2% of them are techies, myself included )

[Unknown] I myself prefer SMF, for its looks, its performance and moddability Though I have had to contact vBulletin and Invision Power.  I would most like the opportunity to test that script when it comes out   (for the business site, and personal one too if you wouldn't mind)... my email addr is will [at] moneysavingexpert [dot] com for my work and william [dot] dalladay [at] gmail [dot] com (Sorry about not putting in @'s and .'s  I've had probs with using them before in terms of spam :S the [at]'s and [dot]'s have cut those probs down a little )

Addition: Nearly forgot to ask, if we did go with SMF what kind of support services do you offer?  If there was a problem we'd need to deal with it immediately and be able to get support there and then (by phone preferably, though email or forums would be cool if fast responses could be guaranteed).

Okay my boss has seen these forums... and he personally asks:

• Is there any other forum out there thats SMF and has roughly: 25,000+ users, 4,000+ posts a day and 350,000 total posts?
  
• There is a lot of cross linking on these forums, from users, and from articles on the site.  Will ALL those links be converted?  (this is a necessity)
  

Thanks

[Oldiesmann]

Addition: Nearly forgot to ask, if we did go with SMF what kind of support services do you offer?  If there was a problem we'd need to deal with it immediately and be able to get support there and then (by phone preferably, though email or forums would be cool if fast responses could be guaranteed).

Okay my boss has seen these forums... and he personally asks:

• Is there any other forum out there thats SMF and has roughly: 25,000+ users, 4,000+ posts a day and 350,000 total posts?
  
• There is a lot of cross linking on these forums, from users, and from articles on the site.  Will ALL those links be converted?  (this is a necessity)
  

Thanks

If you sign up for Charter membership, you will get dedicated support via a helpdesk. The helpdesk (for the most part) notifies all the staff members via email as soon as there's a new request, so we are able to get to it quickly. You will also get your own support area on this board (a special charter-members-only support board ), but that is mostly used for minor problems and not major issues. If you don't sign up for Charter membership, the support forums here are about all you get.

As for forums - the largest SMF board I know of at the moment is Coppermine's support forum (http://coppermine.sf.net/board - 52,769 posts by 10,353 members in 10,557 topics).

Unfortunately, converting your old board so that links to topics on it would then point to the appropriate topic in SMF would not be that easy to do without writing a custom Perl script. If you can find consistancies between SMF's URLs and YaBB's, you can write a script to re-direct them. Otherwise you'll just have to leave your YaBB board up but disable registrations, logins and posting and leave a message at the top of the board asking people to look for information at your new board.

[[Unknown]]

http://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/

Much larger in terms of posts, but also much smaller in terms of members.  Obviously it varies widely based on many different things.

The links can be "convertered" in that they can be automatically redirected.... this will take, of course, a YaBB.pl script that is not really YaBB .  It's actually not all that hard to write one, Oldiesmann..

-[Unknown]

[Oldiesmann]

Sorry [Unknown]... I don't know much about how YaBB Gold works and I don't know Perl very well either, so I wasn't sure how easy it would be to do that.