vbulletin 3.6.x conversion from sql only

[otsian]

Hi everyone,

Someone just recommended smf to carry on our forum after disaster, and I must say, I like it!  wee problem though ..

I only have a backup of the sql for vbulletin.  The converter I found requires the installation of vbulletin itself on the same server.  I have the database in place, but none of the other files.  Unfortunately, I can't even install a fresh vbulletin, because our web host owned the licence, and his server was unplugged due to a financial issue.  Phones calls not returned. but I digress!

Is there a way to convert from only the sql of a vbulletin forum?  I'm not thrilled about having to purchase a licence so I can install it, just to then convert to smf.

Thanks for having this forum!

[otsian]

ok, I'll answer my own question.

I googled a bit to find out the values that are in the config, and what the file should be named.  So I created a fake vbulleting dir, and created includes/config.php in it, with the following contents:

<?php

$config['Database']['dbname'] = "XXX";
$config['Database']['technicalemail'] = "[email protected]";
$config['MasterServer']['servername'] = "localhost";
$config['MasterServer']['username'] = "XXX";
$config['MasterServer']['password'] = "XXX";
$config['Database']['dbtype'] = "mysql";
$config['Database']['tableprefix'] = "vb3_";
?>

And to my surprise, this actually worked!  I'm looking at the forum post conversion, and everything seems to be there.

[bluprojekt]

I've run into a similar situation for a client who was running vbulletin and all I have is the SQL dump via phpmyadmin.

I don't quite understand what you did so could you elaborate a step by step procedure for getting the vBulletin data into SMF?  Do I need to create a database in MySQL and do a dump into that first or can the data be imported in via the raw SQL data file?

[otsian]

ok, first, you need to restore the dump into mysql.  you can do that in phpmyadmin. 

then, create the file as I indicated above.  create a directory called fakevb, then inside that, create one called includes.  inside there is where you put the config.php file.  look at the database you restored to find out the prefix needed.  it's probably vb3_

then, install the converter script you find here > http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=152837.0

when you run the script, enter the info for your fakevb folder.

let it run.

I found I had an issue with the pm counts not being right.  i followed advice I found in this forum, but I don't think they are quite right yet.