Opinions on Project

[TheGamer]

Hello! A user from InvisionFree came to my forum the other day and talked about a possible merge. Of course when someone PMs you and asks for a merge and gives you a http://*.invisionfree.com link, you immediately think that they're BS'ing you and somehow want you to magically merge your forum into theres and let them take control... No. This person has InvisionFree, and they would like to make the switch to vB, SMF, IPB, phpBB anything but InvisionFree. They would like to merge posts with me on Gamer Unlimited. I almost crapped when I saw that this InvisionFree board has 160,000 + posts. I told him that if we went through with this plan, I would handle obtaining the .sql file from InvisionFree. "Shouldn't cost too much" I thought. Well this is what I got: http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/8552/sqlcrapuu3.jpg

What a bunch of crap! I'm working with the admin and I can probably end of getting these backups for free, or cheap. If not, then forget it.

But, in the hopes I can get them for free, I'm faced with a dilema after that, too... The pain of converting and merging it all. Here were my thoughts: InvisionFree can only be converted to Invision Power Board 1.3, IPB 1.3 can be converted to SMF, but we won't do it that way, we'll convert it, and MY forum temporarily both to phpBB. We'll then use the phpBB merge tool on the two forums. Then go to SMF. Sounds sort of easy, but I'm sure it's not.



Please tell me what you think I need to be prepared for and do in this process.

Thanks!

[gamesmad]

Should be fine, just backup at every stage incase you encounter any problems or something goes wrong.

Will

[Oldiesmann]

You shouldn't lose anything from the phpBB to SMF conversion. You will lose some information during the conversion to phpBB from SMF, although I'm not sure how much - attachments will definitely be lost, and sub-boards will just get converted as top-level boards. If you actually want to login to phpBB before you convert to SMF, you will also have to reset your password. Not sure what will happen in the IPB conversion - some things might be lost there as well, but a lot depends on how much invisionfree gives you.

If you do go through with this, you should just go straight to 1.1 RC3 from phpBB - at that point the data will be in phpBB format, so converting to 1.1 RC3 will save you a lot of time.

Also, make sure you set aside a day or two to do this, as the conversion will take a really long time - could take a few hours to convert from the merged phpBB back to SMF.

[TheGamer]

Thanks a bunch, as always, Oldiesmann.

So everybodies passwords will be reset?

[winrules]

IIRC the only the people from the invision board will have to. And I think they will only havew to type it in twice.

As Oldies said I'd recommend upgrading to RC3 in the process.

[TheGamer]

Okay. Thanks. Also, any idea how big a database with 190,000 posts, 6,571 topics, and 720 members would be? Ballpark.

Also, typing RC2 in the graph/post was a mistype.

Edit: Approx 200MB in size.

Thanks