Your forum migration experience?

[Floris]

Unmerge is not a feature. You can always restore admin access using tools.php

[Rukbat]

From what forum software did you convert to vBulletin to?
phpBB2 ver. 2.0.17

How big is the database in file size? (compressed/uncompressed, database or flatfile)
80 MB compressed

How many registered members?
45

How many threads?
can't remember

How many posts?
approx. 6,000

How many attachments? (total and file size)
none

And do you remember how long it took you to do the actual convert?
less than an hour

Was a breeze

[Moiraine]

From what forum software did you convert to vBulletin to?
phpBB 2.0.19
How big is the database in file size? (compressed/uncompressed, database or flatfile)
5.17 uncompressed database
How many registered members?
43
How many threads?
200+
How many posts?
8000+
How many attachments? (total and file size)
none
And do you remember how long it took you to do the actual convert?
The convert itself was less than 30 minutes. Add in testing and it was about an hour.

[Floris]

I lost the specs because of winupdate forcing a reboot - but I could hold it off until I had the import completed (thankfully) But I imported the users, threads, etc from vb353 to vb354 using impex on a 300mb sql with over 10,000 members and over 100,000 posts in 15 minutes - everything went smooth. (all done localhost in test envirenment)

[legar]

From what forum software did you convert to vBulletin to?
SMF 1.1 Beta 3
How big is the database in file size? (compressed/uncompressed, database or flatfile)
5 mb
How many registered members?
90
How many threads?
200+
How many posts?
8000+
How many attachments? (total and file size)
none
And do you remember how long it took you to do the actual convert?
The convert itself was less than 30 minutes. Add in testing and it was about an hour.

[vuser12]

From what forum software did you convert to vBulletin to?
phpBB2 ver. 2.0.19

How big is the database in file size? (compressed/uncompressed, database or flatfile)
25MB compressed

How many registered members?
13500+

How many threads?
6000+

How many posts?
25000+

How many attachments? (total and file size)
none

And do you remember how long it took you to do the actual convert?
After reading all the instructions and downloading, etc, it took about 2 hrs (indexing took a while).

[Chris!]

From what forum software did you convert to vBulletin to?

Groupee(Eve) 4.03

How big is the database in file size? (compressed/uncompressed, database or flatfile)

60 MB Compressed.

How many registered members?

2800

How many threads?

5300

How many posts?

55,000 +

How many attachments? (total and file size)

None

And do you remember how long it took you to do the actual convert?

Awhile! But mostly because of me!

I just wanted to make these comments about my experience.

I've been with Infopop for about four years. Eve is a hosted forum and Infopop do their software updates automatically. They also are constantly changing around the schema of the eve database, and as a Infopop customer there really isn't alot you do about it. Many times you don't even know the updates are coming. Enough about them though!

Originally I purchased vBulletin about a year ago. And to be honest, I bought it to see what it was like from an administrators point of view. I knew the software as a user and loved it but I was a little worried about having the skill to do all of the updating and the like myself.

So on the basis of giving vBulletin a try I bought a license. And, to my delight, I found the setup to be a breeze, very simple. And I'm not a programmer type, so if you're the same as me, don't worry you'll be fine with vBulletin.

Next up, was obviously importing my existing board into vBulletin. At the time, vBulletin was just getting ready to move to 3.0. so they actually were looking to update impex for the new version. I was hooked up with Jerry and I supplied a dump of our database. Soon thereafter, Jerry emailed me with a link to a dummy board he had setup using out database. He had me go through the board and point out all the bugs I could find, which he did his best to address. Some he admitted just couldn't be resolved. But most he was able to address. Now it was my turn to perform the import on my own, and on my board. And it worked great. So now that I knew I could make a go of it, I decided to start on the graphics. I worked on them for a good month or two, mostly because I'm busy, and again, I'm not a programmer, so I have to basically teach myself as I go along. SO, I get the graphics to a reasonable point and decide to reimport again. Unfortunately, things don't go so well. So to be honest, I'm pretty busy at this point, so I decide to just leave things as they are for the time being. Then from time to time, I try the importer to see how things go. Keep in mind there are automatic updates being done to my Eve board. Finally last December I decide with time over the holidays, I'm going to put a push on things and see if I can get it done. So I decide to install a CMS first and then work on completeing the graphics. I get that done and on to the importer I go. Well things don't go so well, so again I hook up with Jerry and to my surprise he remembers me. I explain to him why I haven't been able to convert and he sympathizes, gives me some good tips and tells me to get back to him when I've completed what he's suggested. So back to the importer we go. And it's a challenge let me tell you. Not because of Jerry, but because of my existing board. What Jerry discovers is that depending on the age of the Eve board, there are all different schemas used. So while one user might have one table for a parameter other original members have four or five! Yikes! Not pretty I tell you.

Well the result is that Jerry works tirelessly with me to get this import done. And I'm not exagerating here. TIRELESSLY! Do you know anyone that will give you help on Saturday Night at 11:00 PM? Jerry did exactly that. One Saturday night I posted to my lengthy support thread thinking I'd get a reply Sunday if I was lucky but more likely Monday. Well, what pops up, but a reply from Jerry somewhere around 11:00 PM ish. How's that for exceeding your customers expectations!

And keep in mind while Jerry and myself work through this complicated import together, we are both holding our breath wondering if another upgrade will waste all his and my efforts.

Well needless to say I'm now a very happy vBulletin webbie. And I can't say enough about the entire crew here. The crew being the community of fellow board owners, the vBulletin people and of course Jerry.

So what I would say to anyone contemplating a switch to vBulletin is this....whatever support you need to make the switch you'll get. And that's 24/7.

What did I learn?

Follow Jerry's import "how to" and like he says, give things a try multiple times. In my mind, if you have an existing board, taking your time works to your advantage. Taking your time gives you a chance to perform some software upgrades and gets you used to working with vBulletin before you're under pressure. And don't do what I did and concentrate on the import so much as concentrating on getting your board all set up. Because in life, things change. Once you have your board to a point where you can live with it graphically, that's the time to get going at the import portion. Give it a few practice tries first and see what happens. If things aren't right, work on getting them as fixed up as they can be. Then once you get things as good as can be, temporarily shut down your board and do the final import and reopen as a happy new vBulletin owner.

And be rest assured the entire time, if you need help, Jerry will be there looking over your shoulder offering a helping hand.

Thanks Jerry and everyone at vBulletin.

[djscene]

ABSOLUTE NIGHTMARE

but jerry was a great help

[Protoss]

From what forum software did you convert to vBulletin to? phpBB 2.0.19
How big is the database in file size? (compressed/uncompressed, database or flatfile) 69 mb uncompressed
How many registered members? 3984
How many threads? 7109
How many posts? 54786
How many attachments? (total and file size) None
And do you remember how long it took you to do the actual convert? 10 mins (5hrs to get the Board configured)

No problems at all

Thanks to all involved with Impex

[ohbahsan]

From what forum software did you convert to vBulletin to? phpbb2
How big is the database in file size? 80mb uncompressed sql-backup
How many registered members? 2k
How many threads? 3k
How many posts? 90k
How many attachments? none
And do you remember how long it took you to do the actual convert? about 5 hours. re-doing the user/forum permissions took the most time. importing avatars didn't work, ended up running a manual sql query to generate a shell script to copy the images to the correct directory. custom user titles had to be done manually via a sql query. otherwise, everything seems to be working great!

[UnderEstimated]

From what forum software did you convert to vBulletin to?
phpbb2.0.20
How big is the database in file size?
13mb uncompressed
How many registered members?
100
How many threads?
700
How many posts?
7500
How many attachments?
none
And do you remember how long it took you to do the actual convert?
10 min to convert and then half an hour for permissions and everything else in one hour forum was up and running

[Topmedic]

From what forum software did you convert to vBulletin to?
phpbb 2.0.20

How big is the database in file size? (compressed/uncompressed, database or flatfile)
19.63 MB uncompressed

How many registered members?
306

How many threads?
918

How many posts?
8805

How many attachments? (total and file size)
350-something, size-??

And do you remember how long it took you to do the actual convert?
about an hour (with short breaks in-between modules, I was at work )

Note:About 80 attachments did not convert but I can live with that. Overall, smooth convert.

[gfuchs]

Made the big leap to vB yesterday.

From what forum software did you convert to vBulletin to?
Ubbthreads

How big is the database in file size? (compressed/uncompressed, database or flatfile)
25 meg compressed
How many registered members?
3500
How many threads?
9500
How many posts?
76,000
How many attachments? (total and file size)
0
And do you remember how long it took you to do the actual convert?
less than 15 minutes

It all went very well.
Good job on Impex

[al7bar-]

From what forum software did you convert to vBulletin to?
How big is the database in file size? (compressed/uncompressed, database or flatfile)
How many registered members?
How many threads?
How many posts?
How many attachments? (total and file size)
And do you remember how long it took you to do the actual convert?

ipb 2.1
5-10 mb
18000
1100
2200
10- 20 mb
4 days

Most miserable time of my life, if your going to start a forum I highly suggest going with vB first. I imported users 5 times, so now I get emails more then usual this was horrible because the passwords dont work. So they got 5 emails then asked me questions. Just horrible

Just go with vB you'll end up doing it anyways

[EDIT Jerry]

This is why I advise testing.

[briansol]

From what forum software did you convert to vBulletin to?
ipb 2.1.6
How big is the database in file size? (compressed/uncompressed, database or flatfile)
450MB uncompressed database
How many registered members?
20,000
How many threads?
80,000+
How many posts?
667,000+
How many attachments? (total and file size)
nominal
And do you remember how long it took you to do the actual convert?
6 days.


View my problem thread....

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=188141