Converting from Snitz Forums

[ssoltz]

[Unknown],

Thanks for the response.

Maybe the convert.php was old...I'm not sure i understand how that happened, but maybe that's the case.

I will try things overnight with the new files.

I have arranged for a new host tomorrow. I met him here and he seems to know what he is talking about. I'll let you know how that goes. If I still have problems, at that point it may be time for you to have a look in phpMyAdmin.

I really appreciate all the help.

Thanks,

[ssoltz]

OK, got a new host...

For fun, I left the old conversion going at my old host...its still going!

Anyway, after a couple directory snafus, I got SMF installed. During the convert, I got this error, which I don't believe I received at my old host:

Converting boards... Successful.
Converting posts (this may take some time)... Unsuccessful!
This query:

    ALTER TABLE `dockdogs_main`.smf_messages
    ADD tempID int(11) NOT NULL default 0;

Caused the error:

    Duplicate column name 'tempID'

I'm not sure what this was about but at least the conversion seemed to be going a lot faster...but I'll count my chickens when they have hatched!

Thanks,

[[Unknown]]

Hmm, that means you tried to run it twice, or copied over the data while the old was going.

Run this query in phpMyAdmin:

ALTER TABLE smf_messages
DROP tempID;

-[Unknown]

[ssoltz]

[Unknown],

That was the first thing I tried.

Then I dropped all the SMF tables altogether and ran the install again and then the convert.

Still the same error...

EDIT:

Just for fun, I actually did the SQL query in the SQL query requester by hand instead of using a GUI method and now I get this message:

Recalculating forum statistics... Unsuccessful!
This query:

    SELECT mem.ID_MEMBER, COUNT(pmr.ID_PM) AS realNum, mem.instantMessages
    FROM members AS mem
    LEFT JOIN pm_recipients AS pmr ON (mem.ID_MEMBER = pmr.ID_MEMBER AND pmr.deleted = 0)
    GROUP BY mem.ID_MEMBER
    HAVING realNum != instantMessages;

Caused the error:

    No Database Selected

Thanks,

[ssoltz]

Well, I've tried from scratch a couple of times and I still get the first error I mentioned above.

Interestingly, even though my old host was incredibly slow and was proving to be not up for the task of our new site, the conversion process did complete, after about 24 hours, with no errors.

I looked and the posts were all there and the foprums were even arranged in the proper order. Unfortunately, the smf_members table I believe was not correct. I could not seem to login. I tried my administrator level account (not the Super Admin, who in Snitz is member 1 by default), which was member 3. I also tried another account I had made once to make sure non-admin level members were not seeing what they weren't supposed to see. Both accounts came back as "username doesn't exist" or whatever it says. So, I went to look at the columns in the smf_members table and here are some observations on what I saw (I'm a n00b, so I'm not sure if this is wrong or right, but I'm guessing it's wrong):

memberName->  field was empty for all records except record 1, the admin
realName     ->  field contained the login or usernames

I take it this is incorrect and it would explain why I am not able to login to any accounts.

Now, if this is just an anomaly for my old host, fine. I'm not doing anything else there, anyway. If there is a bug here, I thought I would bring this to someone's attention.

Thanks,

[[Unknown]]

Now having access, I saw what was wrong almost right away: whatever you used to copy the data to MySQL didn't copy any indexes, which is more than understandable.  Unfortunately, without indexes it is virtually impossible for things to work at even a fourth the speed they should.

I've added the indexes and the converter is going on its merry way.

I just fixed the M_USERNAME problem.  My test data had it filled in for everyone, which is obviously wrong.

Just for everyone's knowledge, I used the attached converter file and added the following indexes:

ALTER TABLE FORUM_REPLY
ADD INDEX TOPIC_ID (TOPIC_ID);
ALTER TABLE FORUM_TOPICS
ADD PRIMARY KEY (TOPIC_ID);

Now it's racing along .  I think my earlier changes (in hopes of speeding things up) were not needed.

Had to step away for a moment - it's now half done (in 10 minutes.)  That's more like it.

Please forgive me for not realizing this was the problem earlier.

-[Unknown]

[ssoltz]

Wow...nice work!

Everything looks pretty good. Is the realName field supposed to be the user's full name? Does this get lost during conversion? Not a biggie.

A bigger concern is that the passwords do not appear to be making it over intact, for whatever reason. I know that there were some big issues with this with v1.05, but I was under the impression that this would be OK with 1.1. When I try to login using one of my two accounts, it immediately sends me to the Retrieve password dialog. I take it this should not be happening.

This would be a big issue for us. Any ideas why the passwords would not be porting over correctly? Is it maybe the local MySQL GUI I'm using?

By the way, [Unknown], I have left things the way they were in case you have time to poke around some more.

If we can get this one last thing worked out, I think we will be good to go!

Thank you so much for all the work!

[[Unknown]]

Wow...nice work!

Everything looks pretty good. Is the realName field supposed to be the user's full name? Does this get lost during conversion? Not a biggie.

The realName column might be better understand as "displayName".  The memberName column might be better understood as "loginUsername".

A bigger concern is that the passwords do not appear to be making it over intact, for whatever reason. I know that there were some big issues with this with v1.05, but I was under the impression that this would be OK with 1.1. When I try to login using one of my two accounts, it immediately sends me to the Retrieve password dialog. I take it this should not be happening.

That means you've gotten "password incorrect" too many times.  Try closing your browser completely (all windows) and see if it works after that.

-[Unknown]

[Joshua Dickerson]

The realName column might be better understand as "displayName".  The memberName column might be better understood as "loginUsername".

Should consider changing them in SMF to match that.

[ssoltz]

Well,

I don't think that's the case; for my installation at least.

I went back to my old Snitz forum (still running) and went to my old "regular user" account and logged in just fine.

Came back to the new SMF install (and yes, I did close all browsers, etc.) and I get "Password Incorrect".

Any ideas? Are my passwords getting "Lost in Translation" somewhere?

[[Unknown]]

The realName column might be better understand as "displayName".  The memberName column might be better understood as "loginUsername".

Should consider changing them in SMF to match that.

Why?  I think "loginUsername" is horribly ugly anyway, but why change it everywhere when it's not necessary?  It might change in a future major release, but it really isn't something worth breaking mods worse over imho.

I don't think that's the case; for my installation at least.

I went back to my old Snitz forum (still running) and went to my old "regular user" account and logged in just fine.

Came back to the new SMF install (and yes, I did close all browsers, etc.) and I get "Password Incorrect".

Any ideas? Are my passwords getting "Lost in Translation" somewhere?

Hmm... that's interesting.  Please try it now.

-[Unknown]

[ssoltz]

Hmm... that's interesting.  Please try it now.

Yes, it seems to be working now....

Well, don't keep me in suspense...what did you do?

In all seriousness, I need to be able to get this procedure down so that I can duplicate it again predictably (or at least as much as possible). I would like to run one more test and them do the real conversion in a couple of days. I take it there is no way to do an incremental convert (that almost sounds ignorant just saying it)? I realize I will need to add the indexes right before the convert. Is there an additional step I need to run vis a vis the passwords or did you just jun some kind of repair function?

Most of all, thanks for your perseverance in assisting me with this, I obviously could not have done it myself.

[[Unknown]]

Sorry, it seems it wasn't working properly in 1.1 Beta 4, but it only took a quick change to fix that (which will be in the next release.)  I know I tested it, so it must have gotten changed again somewhere in the mean time.

Anyway, you won't need to do anything.  Just make sure you use the same LogInOut.php currently there.

Edit: In other news, I've decided this makes a good case for writing a converter with direct ODBC support so that converting to MySQL and losing indexes can't be a problem.  I'm working on it.

-[Unknown]

[ssoltz]

[Unknown],

Ooops...

In case you get this before the IMs I sent you...

I had already begun the "trial run" for the conversion process, so I of course deleted all of the files, including the nice LogInOut.php that you wrote for me.

If you could go ahead and post that here, that would be great.

Everything else went like clockwork; the adding the indexes was the trick, for sure. convert.php took only fifteen minutes, at the most. a Big improvement over 24+ hours, I'd say.

Also, was the LogInOut.php customized for my specific forum? Or is it something everyone could use? If that's the case, I will include it in an instructional post for others in my situation to use, step by step. I figure that would be the least I could do after all the help you have given. Also, I did change the passwords back to what they were before, so if you need to get in, let me know. You can contact me on any of the major chat servers, if that's easier.

Thanks again,

[[Unknown]]

Sorry for my too-slow response .

Basically, find this:

Code Select Expand

// YaBB SE, Discus, MD5 (used a lot), SHA-1 (used some), SMF 1.0.x, IkonBoard, and none at all.

And make it:

Code Select Expand

// YaBB SE, Discus, MD5 (used a lot), SHA-1 (used some), SMF 1.0.x, IkonBoard, and none at all.
if (strlen($user_settings['passwd']) == 64 && function_exists('mhash') && defined('MHASH_SHA256'))
$other_passwords[] = bin2hex(mhash(MHASH_SHA256, $_REQUEST['passwrd']));

That's not what I changed, but that will do it and is the easiest way to fix it.  It won't have any ill effects anyway.

As I said, this was a bug in any case, and it's been fixed for the next release (which isn't long away so I don't expect it to be a huge problem for the few converters we've had from Snitz; as you can see, this path has not been trodden by hundreds.)

-[Unknown]

[NoRad]

Marathon conversions are fun. 

[ssoltz]

[Unknown],

Or should I say "the man"...

yep, that did it...I will post my steps here sometime today.

You really went above and beyind here. I am looking forward to enjoying and having my clients enjoy SMF for some years to come.

Maybe I should make a last post over at Snitz to try to bring some other "converts"?

Thanks much!

[Joshua Dickerson]

Not saying it should happen /now/ but it does confuse a lot of people.

[NoRad]

As much as I support a migration from Snitz to SMF, I think that might be in poor taste even if the Snitz community is more or less dead. I noticed the other day that they hadn't updated or released anything new in about two years. Oh well. SMF > Snitz any day.

I highly recommend becomming a charter member when you get a chance. You can expect this "above and beyond" support for years to come thanks to the charter contributions. Of course everybody gets wonderful support, but it's a nice way to give back to the community. 

[ssoltz]

Yes, I think you are correct...posting on Snitz to 'advertise' how great another competing forum is would probably be in bad taste. I would probably post something along the lines of 'Snitz to SMF converter' but that may also be uncool. Oh well, I'm just exceited that I got things working and I'm very happy with the level of support I have been given.

Radianation, were you talking to me about becoming a Charter Member? Maybe you didn't look, but I have been a Charter Member since the very moment that I decided to make the switch. The reason I did this is because I knew I would need a fair amount of help going in and I didn't want to take advantage. Especially since I plan on using SMF for a commercial site. I feel that the fifty bucks has already paid for itself easily.

I plan to post the steps I took to convert from Snitz to SMF sometime today (time willing).

Thank you,