phpBB to SMF problem

[royscott]

I have been trying to run the conversion of my phpBB version 2.0.15 to SMF version 1.0.3. It completely fails to recognize my password to the SMF database for some reason that I cannot fathom.

[ediww]

roy,

after the conversion, use the admin usernames and password from the phpbb board.

the smf users/posts et cetera are completely lost during the conversion, replaced by the phpbb's

wwell edi

[[Unknown]]

Are they in the same database?  Are you using the DATABASE password, or your administrator password?

-[Unknown]

[royscott]

No they are not in the same database, they are in two seperate MySQL files. However, both databases have the same password. I am using the password that was on the email I received from the setup of SMF. This password works for MySQLAdmin. So at the moment I am somewhat confused as to what the problem is.

[ediww]

roy,
sorry i did not follow correctly...;/

anyway, the import script requires that both boards must use the same database.

if you can not do it, you can always dump and then put phpbb2 data in the new (where smf will be) database, then import into smf (where you will lost all of your users et cetera, sorry again), and, after the import, drop the phpbb's tables.

wwell edi

[royscott]

I appreciate your attempts to help me with this. However, it looks like the conversion requires some knowledge of MySQL that I do not possess. You see what has happened is that my web host vendor has recently dropped their support for PhpBB. In the past I was able to install and update it from an item on my cPanel. This is no longer the case. Now the only forum software supported by my vendor is SMF through a thing called "Fantastico" in my cPanel. My PhpBB has been running for several years and unless I can convert the database into SMF it will not be useful to me. I do not want to start the forum over from scratch. When installing SMF from Fantastico it automatically creates a new database under the name of "smf1". The PhpBB is running from a database named "xmb1". This being the case it does not appear that I will be able to  pull the data from PhpBB into SMF at this time.

[Grudge]

royscott, you should be able to convert it just fine. When fantastico installed SMF it would have created a "MySQL User", this is someone who can see the SMF database. The problem is, by default, this user will not be able to see the phpBB database - and because of this it can't pull any data from it.

What you need to do, is tell the server that you want this user to be able to see the phpBB database too - and it's actually quite easy with cPanel. I'll try outline the steps below as clear as I can.

1) Log into cPanel
2) Go To "MySQL Databases"

On this page you'll likely see lots of confusing stuff - unfortunately this is where we need to do our stuff!

3) At the top will be a list of all the databases on your server, along with some junk about users, skip down this page until you get to an area which has two select boxes next to each other, and is under the heading something like "Add User to database" - this is where we do our stuff.

4) On the left hand box, select the user which has access to the SMF database. I expect it will have the words "smf" in it's name
5) On the right hand box, select the database where phpBB was installed (xmb1)
6) Click "Add user to database"

That should do it. If all that worked what you've done is told the server that the user fantastico created for SMF is allowed to see the data in phpBB too - so now it can do the conversion.

Grudge

[royscott]

I tried your instructions, but I still get an "incorrect password" error on the conversion script.

[Grudge]

Ah - the incorrect password *must* be because you are entering the wrong database password. To find the right one do the following:

1) FTP into your server account, browse to the SMF directory, and download Settings.php
2) Open Settings.php on your computer, and look for the $db_passwd, the value it is set to is the password that fantastico created.
3) Use this password in the conversion script!

[royscott]

Thank you very much for your patience and expertise. Fantastico had plugged some strange password into the db when it installed SMF. It had no relation to what they sent me for the password. When I added the SMF user to the PhpBB database and used that password the conversion went as smooth as silk.

[Sully]

Grudge,

AWESOME.. you have saved me SOOOO much time, i cant thank you enough. I was also battling the password issue.. couldnt for the life of me figure out what the hell it was..

Thank You Sir!

Sully