Your forum migration experience?

[ercule]

From what forum software did you convert to vBulletin to?
PHPnuke with phpBB2

How big is the database in file size? (compressed/uncompressed, database or flatfile)
435MB uncompressed

How many registered members?
2,361

How many threads?
5,788

How many posts?
70,195

How many attachments? (total and file size)
0

How many articles (CMS)?
1482

And do you remember how long it took you to do the actual convert?
Alltogether it took one day and a half though impex job was very quick

I imported from phpnuke+phpbb so I had different steps to do as phpnuke is not supported by impex.
1 - transform my forum into a real phpbb forum (v 2.0.22)
2 - migrate from phpbb to vbulletin (first image) with impex
3 - do differents steps after import (update counters, permissions, etc. )
5 - migrate my phpnuke articles to CMS wordpress (v 2.9.2). I had a script for that.
6 - migrate from wordpress to vbulletin with impex
7 - after import steps
8 - create 301 redirections for search engines. I altered sources tables and script for that.
9 - check that everything was OK

[Loco.M]

From what forum software did you convert to vBulletin to?phpbb, smf, ipb, vb
How big is the database in file size? (compressed/uncompressed, database or flatfile) i don't remember off hand, there have been several imports. one was 200,000 post, so a decent size DB
How many registered members? i think the largest was 4K
How many threads?20K ish
How many posts? 225,000 was the largest
How many attachments? (total and file size) idk again, several
And do you remember how long it took you to do the actual convert? an afternoon, usually within 2 hours from start to finish


I'm imported much larger sites for clients of upwards of a million post as well..

[Hall of Famer]

I technically started my forum from scratch, but it had several merges with other forums to reach its current popularity. We've had one merge with Vbulletin 3.8 forum, one for a Mybb forum and another failed merge that I do not wish to mention here. Its always easy and convenient to merge with VB forums, the only problem I had was with Mybb forum's merge since it disabled users visitor/private messages options by default. I received like tons of requests from these users asking me to edit their visitor/private messages options, lmao.

[Alisa Lindsay]

IPB 1.3 to vB 4.0.5

Sad to say, our import experience was both hideous and a complete and total failure. I am very disappointed in all regards, especially since the board (and new VB customer) will have to remain on InvisionFree.

From what forum software did you convert to vBulletin to? Tried to convert IPB 1.3 to vB 4.0.5, when that failed dismally, tried to convert IPB 1.3 to PHPBB 3.0.5 and then to vB.

How big is the database in file size? (compressed/uncompressed, database or flatfile): Not that large.

How many registered members? < 200

How many threads? Perhaps 2000

How many posts? < 13,000

How many attachments? (total and file size): N/A

And do you remember how long it took you to do the actual convert? We worked on the import for two weeks.

Our support ticket rendered us little to no aid as the questions asked were not answered and the solutions did not work.

As a long standing vB customer who has spent a considerable amount of money with the company, I am truly disappointed. And while I realize that there are issues, obviously, with IPB's provided database, the lack of interest in aiding us to add another paying customer to VB's client list makes me leery in recommending the product in the future...especially to those that have standing forums they would like to move easily to vBulletin.

Regards,

Alisa

[Floris]

From what forum software did you convert to vBulletin to?
vBulletin 3.8.4 PL1

How big is the database in file size? (compressed/uncompressed, database or flatfile)
DB uncompressed = +150MB

How many registered members?
+180

How many threads?
+1,800

How many posts?
+27,000 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 minutes to {

get the .sql, import into new db,
upload 3.8.4pl1 and run upgrade.php
download impex 1.93 and upload to target site
backup target site
setup impexconfig.php
run impex
run update counters
}

it all went smooth and fast,

1 problem: polls show up on the wrong thread.

[Britmovies]

Just to say it works ok for 3.8 to vb4 but doesnt do attachments

http://www.britmovie.net/britforum/forum.php

[designeru]

From what forum software did you convert to vBulletin to?
phpBB 3.0.5

How big is the database in file size? (compressed/uncompressed, database or flatfile)
DB uncompressed: PHPBB => 1.1 GB; VBULLETIN => 1.4 GB

How many registered members?
+165,000

How many threads?
+7,000

How many posts?
+800,000

How many attachments? (total and file size)
+100,000 => +60 GB

And do you remember how long it took you to do the actual convert?
About 6 hours... the posts took more than 4. This is just the IMPEX tasks... the actual transfer time took me more than 2 days.

[tylercruz]

From what forum software did you convert to vBulletin to?

vBulletin v3.7.1 to vBulletin v3.8.4

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

Source: 42megs compressed
Destination: 24megs compressed

How many registered members?

Source: 6,500 Destination: 1,600

How many threads?

Source: 3,000 Destination: 3,100

How many posts?

Source: 70,000 Destination: 55,000

How many attachments? (total and file size)

Unknown

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

It took me about a total of 20-24 concentrated hours to complete the entire merge, but that's including it breaking the first time I tried which took me 3-4 hours to fix, and also includes many hours moving threads, reorganizing the forums, etc.

On my second try, the whole merging process with ImpEx only took around 25-30 minutes.

It's really not too bad, but just be sure you make backups like everyone recommends. I did, and it saved me as I broke things my first time around. I didn't do the "test merge" because I felt that would take far too long and was overkill, especially if you have backups. I would just recommend closing down both your forums and making backups right after you do that so you can go right back to the way they were before you started.

In the end, everything merged fine with no problems, except people's friends lists didn't get transferred over but that's no biggie.

Good luck!

[Floris]

From what forum software did you convert to vBulletin to?
From vBulletin 3.8.4 to vBulletin 3.8.4

How big is the database in file size? (compressed/uncompressed, database or flatfile)
560MB uncompressed .SQL file, including attachments.

How many registered members?
15,000

How many threads?
50,000

How many posts?
145,000

How many attachments? (total and file size)
260MB in the database, not sure how many.

And do you remember how long it took you to do the actual convert?
41 minutes, with 'testing'.

[contentd]

From what forum software did you convert to vBulletin?
PHPBB 3

How many registered members?
600

How many threads?
2900

How many posts?
26000

How many attachments? (total and file size)
Unknown

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

Comments:
The actual conversion worked very well indeed (nice work team) -

The sole issue was that the BBCode inline images displayed as [img] url [/img] links. - This was easily corrected by a custom query (thanks Jake)

Once the new VBulletin forum opened to members it was chaos for the first day as everyone was banned! - This was due to me not being familiar with the Usergroup settings - soon fixed due to excellent VB help system and support forum.

Can`t think of any other issues not relating to unfamiliarity with system by admin or users... except the usual crop of people unable to log in due to out of date email addresses...

Overall it has been a very positive experience and our new VB forum has been very well received by the users.

In conclusion... I can only echo the words in the conversion notes
1. Back Up Your Old Forum
2. Practice an install and import before going for the real thing - that way you won`t get any surprises.

[Spillage]

From what forum software did you convert to vBulletin?
Drupal 5.2

How big is the database in file size?
368MB Uncompressed

How many registered members?
4,135 Active

How many threads?
7,334

How many posts?
61,995

How many attachments? (total and file size)
None imported

And do you remember how long it took you to do the actual convert?
~25mins remotely.

Comments:
The process seemed to go smoothly.
It imported the members, their signatures, the forums, threads, and posts (all the counts seemed to match the source).
Drupal has 'Stories' (Articles), the categories that these where filed under where imported as forums, but they're empty (no content).
When looking at the imported forums, the thread counts are correct as listed on the main page, but when you look at the forum itself, there is only a portion of the threads listed, and the count at the bottom matches the actual listed number of threads, not the summary on the main page, which matches the source.
I'm loving IMPEX, I just have to get it to be a little more thorough.

Additional Comments (update):
The thread count issue was resolved, by expanding the viewing age.
It appears (after closer inspection) that the original post of many (not all) threads did not transfer, only the replies.
One sub-forum (3 deep) did not transfer.

[Mike Greene]

From what forum software did you convert to vBulletin?
UBB.Threads 7.4.0

How big is the database in file size?
661MB Uncompressed
144MB Compressed

How many registered members?
12820

How many threads?
62,000

How many posts?
621,000

How many attachments? (total and file size)
0

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

Impex import process = 115 minutes
Impex cleaner process = 193 minutes

Tidied up the forums, moderators, permissions etc during the PM import process.

Prep, test & tweak process took about 2 weeks total over the span of 3 months.

[Chips]

I moved from YaBB 2.3.1 to VB 3.8.1, the set up and import of Impex is easy, just the manual needs updated to mirror the current version.

All Members moved easy, had issues with the forums, threads, topics until I found the thread from another YaBB importer, the switch in the impexconfig file needs to be set this way:

####
#
# DUPLICATE CHECKING
# Where unique import id's are available ImpEx can check for duplicates with some
# Tier2 systems this will need to be set to false.
#
# yahoo_groups, YaBB 2.1, Ikonboard 3.1.5 (for attachments)
#
####

define('dupe_checking', false);

Once I threw that to "false", the importer chugged along in no time at all.

Old board:

Members: 609
Forums: 60
Threads: 2232
Posts: 11,045
PM's: unknown

vB:

Threads: 2,232, Posts: 11,081, Members: 609,

Members: 609
Forums: 60
Threads: 2232
Posts: 11,045 (lost a few, who cares)
PM's: 44

Kudos team!

One other YaBB user tip, if your current forums are #'s rather than a name, change them prior to the move as they are imported and listed on the index as 1, 2, 3 and the BB Code used on YaBB, like, size=13 will be the 13 size on vb so the text is HUGE!

Signed,

A happy camper!

[Globus]

Converting from IPB 2.3.6 into VB 3.8.1

Please see attachment.
Two days of prepping and testing produced the result of just over 21min. Yes, attachments did not go well, but only due to time limit. Attachments can/will be done manually quite easily with help of PHPMyAdmin and any FTP client.
Memcached was enabled.
Source DB: 95Mb.sql = 24Mb.gz
Server: Intel Q6600 QUAD CORE
Ram: 4Gb

[woffie]

From what forum software did you convert to vBulletin to? IPB 2.3.6
How many registered members? 2192
How many threads? 18755
How many posts? 241,432

I tried it several times on a test board. The memberships came over but were not visible as members. The posts were screwy as far as the formatting. I decided to just have all my members re-register on a clean database. I don't think IPB translates very well with Vbulletin.

By the way, Vbulletin is so far ahead of IPB that they will never catch up. I have run IPB for 6 years. I have run Vbulletin for a week. I LOVE VBULLETIN!

I wish I could import the posts only into an archive section of my forum.