phpBB 2.0.18 path name/ converter help needed

[earthysam]

Let me preface by saying I am very, very new to anything forum related, and was brought in by admin to facilitate our group moving to our own website. As such, I've learned as I've gone and figured out how to design and publish a website and install SMF all in about a week. Please forgive me if I don't know basic terms, and speak to me simply as I am really unlearned in everything phpBB and SMF. I apologize in advance for asking a question that has probably been covered in many other areas on this website.

Anyway, now we need to move our current forum over to the new SMF hosted on our website and I am totally stuck at the phpBB path name. I have the SMF installed, the converter page is up, and I just cannot for the life of me figure out what the phpBB path should be. Our phpBB 2.0.18 is hosted on forum5 right now, and I've been all through the myphpadmin trying to find something that will work, to no avail. Obviously, our forum5 url did not work as a correct path, either.

So then I exported the phpBB forum to my hard drive, then uploaded it onto the new website in the same folder as I have SMF. It's now on the web, but only as a text document and not as a functioning forum. Still, the url to that page does not work as a correct path.

I've searched here and on Google, but I'm afraid any answers that I get that way either aren't clear enough for me or don't relate to my problem. Please, can someone help?

[KGIII]

Get a good FTP client - go to the forum via FTP (I am not gonna tell ya - I'll teach you though) and right click on the file or folder and select path. Once you do that a few times (and specifically on the phpBB path which is what you want in this case) you'll see how it works and feel a sense of accomplishment and learning. If you really need help after that then one of us will likely happily do this for you.

While you're here there are some good docs on converting. You can look at it but it won't be so basic as to explain that. Instead do as I just said. You can find free FTP clients all over the place but I recommend looking at www.snapfiles.com for your needs.

[earthysam]

Thank you for your response. I think I understand what you want me to do, but I'm still encountering a problem somewhere.

I am using the FTP connection that comes with Windows XP Professional. I logged onto my website's files via that FTP connection, and found the SMF folder with the old forum (default named localhost.sql) but when I right-clicked there was no "path" only the basic cut/ copy commands. When I viewed the properties, there was a location "hxxp:[email protected]/SMF/localhost.sql [nonactive]" but that did not work as a path on the converter, either.

I am sorry to be so dense, but I have really learned a lot in a short amount of time, and this is stumping me all up.

Perhaps you are saying I should forgo my default XP FTP connection and register with snapfiles? I am not sure that will solve my problem, as my files are transferred and published on my website (though, again, the php forum is just a text document and not a functioning forum) but if you think finding a new FTP connection will help I will do it.

Thanks again for your response and patience.

[KGIII]

You don't need to register. Just pick one and download it. Don't use the default FTP client in your web browser. Filezilla is a good one I understand. I use AbsoluteFTP but that's no longer available and isn't free as I recall.

[earthysam]

Thank you. I have Filezilla, too, and am not seeing a "path" when I right-click the old forum file, which is located on my new website in the SMF folder.

Please, is there any other help available to me? I am about to give up, as I have tried everything I can think to try.

Is it possible I have incorrectly published the phpbb file on my website and that is why no path is appearing? As I said before there is no functioning phpbb forum on my website, just a text document with all the coding from the old forum. Is that .sql text file enough for the converter to recognize and use to convert to SMF???

[KGIII]

You'll need to have the .sql imported. Drop me a PM and I will head in and take a look if you would like. In the PM reference this thread and include an IM client (MSN or Google Talk or AIM or what not) and I'll see if I can get this sorted for you and explain what's going on.

[JayBachatero]

Was this solved?

[Michael24]

Thank you. I have Filezilla, too, and am not seeing a "path" when I right-click the old forum file, which is located on my new website in the SMF folder.

Hi -- I'm new to SM as well, trying to migrate my old phpbb to SM and I also cannot find the path, as it's not coming up when I right click as suggested.  I shoud mention that at first I made it up, in other words I just looked at the folders for both SM and phpbb and guessed at the paths.  It "worked" as in at the bottom of the page it said the conversion was successful but when I went to the new SM board nothing was moved.  Some kind of success.  Anyway, now when I try to use the same path I get an error message saying it's incorrect. 

Can someone please advise?  Thank you.

Michael

[JayBachatero]

Michael who is your host?

[Michael24]

Michael who is your host?

Hello, JayBachatero -- My hosting company is Netfirms.  My contract ends in November and I can't get out of there soon enough.  Any suggestions?  :-)

I finally found the correct paths (which turned out to be the same with the exception of the folder names at the end!) and it still won't work.  I called Netfirms and they were of no help at all.  "3rd party software, contact them."

This is the new error message:

Sorry, the database connection information used in the specified installation of SMF cannot access the installation of phpBB2. This may either mean that the installation doesn't exist, or that the MySQL account used does not have permissions to access it.

The error MySQL gave was: SELECT command denied to user 'u70466552'@'cgihost' for table 'phpbb_users'

[JayBachatero]

Ok to get rid of that error look at this topic.

Common conversion errors.

[Michael24]

Ok, that helped -- thanks -- but now this is where I'm stuck.  I just decided to re-install SMF on my exisiting phpbb database.  It acutally moved some forums and topics over but hardly anything until it stalls and the conversion page is just a white blank page.

here are some screen grabs of what's happening:





So I keep clicking "continue" and it just counts down 3 - 2 - 1 and then I click again and again until the page just stops responding and turns into a white page.

[Michael24]

Ok, this is what happened.  The board DID migrate over and it seems to have mostly done so sucessfully even though I got those error messages.  The reason why I could not see the other fourms and posts it moved is because the new SMF forum mimicked the "hidden" settings I had on phpbb -- I didn't know it was that good!  So yeah, I'm sort of a dummy regarding that.  But some things still don't seem quite right.

The "last post" section on the far right is blank on some of the tables for instance.

Here's a link to the board.

www.simplystreisand.com/messageboard

you can use user name SMFuser

password is:  password.

[JayBachatero]

Do a stats recount and find and repair errors.
Admin > Forum Maintenace.