Your forum migration experience?

[lknmedia]

From what forum software did you convert to vBulletin to?
phpBB 2.0.21

How big is the database in file size? (compressed/uncompressed, database or flatfile)
DB uncompressed = +700MB

How many registered members?
+7000

How many threads?
+67,000

How many posts?
+1.27 million

How many attachments? (total and file size)
None

And do you remember how long it took you to do the actual convert?
about 30 hours ... importing posts ... about 3 hours doing everything else.

Overall it went very well. Post import would have been faster but we have a single processor celeron. I only upped the mem limit to 64 and should have gone to 512+ I think.

Make sure you get the default user profile's setup correctly. Biggest issue is the advanced features of vB and getting users educated on their use.

Thumbs up! Great script!

[Floris]

Great feedback everybody. And welcome to vBulletin of course. Dont' forget to report any bug if you run into them while doing impex.

[Endurer]

From what forum software did you convert to vBulletin to?

PhpBBFM (phpBB 2.019)

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

86 MB compressed

How many registered members?

9200+

How many threads?

9110+

How many posts?

187,709

How many attachments? (total and file size)

0 - Deleted all before import since they were no longer required.

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

I did run a test import on my personal computer from an old backup of phpbb database to touch base with impex in order to see what works and what does not. Everything went perfect there and it only took 2 minutes and some seconds. I created a temp directory on my 512 VPS and closed the original phpBB board by simply changing the values in config file. Import took 8 minutes or so and not even a single member or post was missed during the whole process. One 404 page appeared while I was importing posts.. but fortunately pressing the back button on the internet explorer resumed the import right where from it left it. I would like to thank the vBulletin staff for providing such an excellent import tool. The product (vBulletin) itself is by far the best bulletin board software available today. My site is coming up blazingly fast & members are just as excited as I am. I would also like to thank the members here on this board for their posted tips and how to's. I never really posted a single message to get answers for the import or installation processes because everything was already available here at the vBulletin board.

Accept my gratitude

Happy administrating all!

[Viper007Bond]

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

How big is the database in file size? (compressed/uncompressed, database or flatfile) According to phpMyAdmin -- Before: 418.5 MB, After: 306.0 MB (yay for no more 5.8 million rows each of search tables!)

How many registered members? 14,666

How many threads? 14,228

How many posts? 341,970

How many attachments? (total and file size) None

And do you remember how long it took you to do the actual convert? Actual import took 34 minutes (gotta love having seperate DB and webserver boxes and 4 gigs of RAM on the DB server), but it took me forever to setup permissions, config to how I wanted, and especially to get the avatars to import correctly. Total time was about 6 hours probably, but then again, I took my time somewhat.

http://forums.finalgear.com/

[hawork]

From what forum software did you convert to vBulletin to?
Invisionfree (IF)

How big is the database in file size? (compressed/uncompressed, database or flatfile)
uncompressed flatfile 3Mb

How many registered members?
211

How many threads?
511

How many posts?
2,241

How many attachments? (total and file size)
None

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


Comments: It tooked me 2 days because I didn't know anything about databases but with a simple two-line-post form Jerry and the impex manual I finally managed to do it (including spanish character problems).

[Saintless]

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

How big is the database in file size? (compressed/uncompressed, database or flatfile)
uncompressed flatfile 3Mb

How many registered members?
33952

How many threads?
7452

How many posts?
107,566
How many attachments? (total and file size)
None

And do you remember how long it took you to do the actual convert?
Roughly 4 hours.

Just wanted to say thanks . Dident really run into any problems with the conversion software preformed flawlesly

[Assim]

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

How big is the database in file size? (compressed/uncompressed, database or flatfile)
About 600 kb

How many registered members?
Over 30

How many threads?
100

How many posts?
700

How many attachments? (total and file size)
None and 1 mb now

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


I got more users and posts with vB.

[Marco van Herwaarden]

Maybe time to change your signature.

[TheWebCo]

Import from Cutecast v2.0

From what forum software did you convert to vBulletin to?
Cutecast v2.0 beta

How big is the database in file size? (compressed/uncompressed, database or flatfile)
6mb flatfile

How many registered members?
200

How many threads?
2000

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?

Took me two days in total to st up, import and then configure the new forum with all the correct permissions etc.

Very happy with the result.

The impex is great !

[The Itchy One]

From: PHPBB2 (Plus just having extensions, so phpbb at heart)
Size Dump from phpbb : 170mb
Size Dump from vb after : 202mb
Number of members: ~60
Threads: 387
Posts: 1130
Time: >1Hour

Everyone was banned but using sql to move their user groups was the right way to go

[danield]

From what forum software did you convert to vBulletin to?
IPB
How big is the database in file size? (compressed/uncompressed, database or flatfile)
98.2 Mb -> 86.2
How many registered members?
3329
How many threads?
4547
How many posts?
102,013
How many attachments? (total and file size)
none
And do you remember how long it took you to do the actual convert?
impex calculated 16 minutes for the actual import + a few hours to configure the new board

[gmoran]

Migrated 4 Different Project Forums

Migrated From: phpBB, Simpleboard, Javaforge and Sourceforge
Threads: 8,800 total
Posts: 30,000 total
Users: 12,000 total
Attachments: None, but we converted the URLs so that they pointed to the files on the file system
Time to migrate: around 4 hours, with running custom scripts in between imports


We had to do a bit of coding to get the data we wanted in the right format for the import, but then vBulletin took over and it was a piece of cake! This has been a really fun piece of software to work with, we enjoyed the migration work immensely. While that may sound wierd, it was just so nice to work with a third party piece of software and not hit brick walls every time you turn around. vBulletin was flexible enough, and the staff helpful enough that we were able to carve right through the extreme circumstances in our project.

Check it out: http://forums.pentaho.org

Thanks Jerry!

[Jerry]

Good to know ImpEx helped on that one

[JuliaSet]

I am running phpBB 2.0.20. > VB 3.6 (the importer only listed v 21, which was close enough in build notes to v20)

How many registered members: 300
How many threads: 825
How many posts: 12892
How many attachments: none
Database size, 11.59m uncompressed

And do you remember how long it took you to do the actual convert?
First Try:
Everything went well enough and probably imported fine (the first 30 mins), but when I went to the Forum Manager the first listed, my main forum was missing. There was a "private" forum listed, which was empty.

Second Try:
I deleted all the forums and started over. I re-imported the forums and threads! The problem replicated
I'd also used the update counters after importing each time.

I fixed it by playing in the forum manager, setting the visibility and "act as forum" settings. The import found a "private" forum, which was NOT in the source phpBB forum! I've done it after three hours!

[taffy056]

I just imported my old VB 3.5.4 to VB 3.6.4 after a problem with an upgrade, all went very well with no problems of note, except the subforums were messed up a little, very painless and very quick

From what forum software did you convert to vBulletin to? vBulletin 3.5.4
How big is the database in file size? (compressed/uncompressed, database or flatfile) unknown
How many registered members? 2302
How many threads? 2159
How many posts? 15622
How many attachments? (total and file size) 322 (unknown)
And do you remember how long it took you to do the actual convert? 20 mins (hacks took about another 2 hours)