Simple Machines Community Forum

SMF Support => SMF 1.1.x Support => Topic started by: Streamline on January 17, 2011, 10:26:33 AM

Title: Help moving a forum to a new host.
Post by: Streamline on January 17, 2011, 10:26:33 AM
Hey everyone!

I have searched and tried this and searched and tried that and I keep hitting a wall.

What I am attempting to do is move a forum from one host to another. In my haste I missed the backup of the forum step and I think this is where my problem is. I have redirected the DNS and can no longer look at my old forum from the forum itself. I do still have access to phpMyAdmin though.

Another problem I think I am having is that I am trying to move the forum over to a new domain name. Can anyone point me in the right direction? or even help do it. I would be willing to pay a small fee through paypal but honestly I can't afford much.

Thank you!
Title: Re: Help moving a forum to a new host.
Post by: cicka on January 17, 2011, 10:30:48 AM
Quote from: Streamline on January 17, 2011, 10:26:33 AM
Hey everyone!

I have searched and tried this and searched and tried that and I keep hitting a wall.

What I am attempting to do is move a forum from one host to another. In my haste I missed the backup of the forum step and I think this is where my problem is. I have redirected the DNS and can no longer look at my old forum from the forum itself. I do still have access to phpMyAdmin though.

Another problem I think I am having is that I am trying to move the forum over to a new domain name. Can anyone point me in the right direction? or even help do it. I would be willing to pay a small fee through paypal but honestly I can't afford much.

Thank you!

You should make a backup now that you still have access to the phpmyadmin at the old host and restore that at the database at your new host. Then upload the files and change the database information at the Settings.php file and then correct the paths and urls. You can do that with this tool

http://download.simplemachines.org/index.php?thanks;filename=repair_settings.php
Title: Re: Help moving a forum to a new host.
Post by: Streamline on January 17, 2011, 11:52:26 AM
what settings should I have selected when making a backup. I tried this once before and I kept getting an error stating that the new forum didn't have the same structure. I have ads on the old one and this seemed to be where it tripped up.
Title: Re: Help moving a forum to a new host.
Post by: kat on January 17, 2011, 12:23:20 PM
If you go to your site's CPanel>backups and download the "Full home directory" (Your site) and get the database, too, you can go to the new site's CPanel and restore both, from there.

Then, get the file that Cicka mentioned http://download.simplemachines.org/index.php?thanks;filename=repair_settings.php upload it to your new site and point your browser to it, to get the paths/database settings sorted. :)
Title: Re: Help moving a forum to a new host.
Post by: Streamline on January 17, 2011, 01:09:15 PM
Thank you. I am trying now but, and this is what happened before to me, it for some reason crashes all of my domains.
I get this error:
Forbidden

You don't have permission to access / on this server.

Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

I thought I was doing something wrong but the hosting company fixed it last time fairly quickly. I have a trouble ticket in and I will try the repair_settings then.

Title: Re: Help moving a forum to a new host.
Post by: Streamline on January 17, 2011, 01:56:15 PM
Ok  My domains are now up and running but I am still having an issue.

the board is found at http://www.reticentcomplicity.com/dirtbags/discussion_board/index.php

I am getting an error stating "Connection Problems  Sorry, SMF was unable to connect to the database. This may be caused by the server being busy. Please try again.

I did run the repair settings and set everything to the suggested values there and saved.

I also notice that when I go into phpMyAdmin there is no existing database? I did a full backup of my old site and full restore? Do I have to create a new database again for this to work?

This is where I have ended up a couple times, the so called "wall" I spoke of.

Please help.
Title: Re: Help moving a forum to a new host.
Post by: Streamline on January 17, 2011, 03:15:51 PM
I should also add that I see the old files there although it says there is no database??
Title: Re: Help moving a forum to a new host.
Post by: Illori on January 17, 2011, 03:18:33 PM
you need to create a database and a user with your new host and put that information in the repair_settings.php when you run it. You also need to insert your new database tables before running repair_settings.php
Title: Re: Help moving a forum to a new host.
Post by: Streamline on January 17, 2011, 03:23:58 PM
Thank you Illori.

How do I go about inserting my new database tables. I am a novice when it comes to this, lol not that I needed to point that out. Do I need to name the database anything specific? or will any name and user suffice?

Title: Re: Help moving a forum to a new host.
Post by: Illori on January 17, 2011, 03:26:31 PM
any name should work, and any username as long as you remember them. you can do some googling on how to restore a backup using phpmyadmin to get more details on how to restore it.
Title: Re: Help moving a forum to a new host.
Post by: Streamline on January 17, 2011, 03:32:10 PM
Thanks again. I added the database and user and such and one of the errors the repair_settings file was giving has stopped. Hopefully I can figure out the table backup. This should all be done through phpmyadmin though correct?
Title: Re: Help moving a forum to a new host.
Post by: Illori on January 17, 2011, 03:36:57 PM
restoring the backup? yes it is done though phpmyadmin.
Title: Re: Help moving a forum to a new host.
Post by: cicka on January 17, 2011, 03:38:41 PM
Here you can see hot to retore the database.

http://docs.simplemachines.org/index.php?topic=490.msg5447#msg5447
Title: Re: Help moving a forum to a new host.
Post by: Streamline on January 17, 2011, 03:44:17 PM
Thank you so much for all the help!! I am up and running and all seems well and good. I have been struggling with this for a week and a half.

THANK YOU!
Title: Re: Help moving a forum to a new host.
Post by: cicka on January 17, 2011, 04:12:15 PM
Happy to hear that your problem is solved :)
Title: Re: Help moving a forum to a new host.
Post by: kat on January 17, 2011, 04:59:24 PM
WooHoo!


Nice work, girls!  :)