posts in the wrong order after impex

[tony adams]

some background first - it may be relevent

the server was hacked the other week and as a result of that the server people had to put a backup of the datsbase on to get us running again - we lost about 4 weeks of posts

current board is running 3.5.4

am upgrading to 3.8.1 - this is a 3.8 install upgraded to 3.8.1 - new board is still in test stage with a number of mods added - nothing big stuff like who has posted today, how many have visited

did an impex import last night and first problem was that we lost 1000 threads and 11000 posts - cannot rememberthe error message that came up

rest of import went fine - its not a big board 55,000 posts in all over a long time period - has about 25 active members

so after losing the posts and a quick tidy up as i wanted to move a few forums around all looked ok

however when i go to a thread the posts are in alphabetical order on each page - the posts on page 1 cover about a 4 week period - whereas if i click 'last post' for order they are correct and over a few days

i tried making a couple of test posts and whilst they showed as new posts they were not at the top ofthe list when i opened the thread

i tried updating counters again but that did not help

if i click on 'last post' again above the date column - then everything falls into order and my test posts are there

however i leave the settings - if i close the board and re log in then the posts are in alphabetical order

i have learned that many things have changed from 3.5 to 3.8 but i cannot see a setting for this in admin or anywhere else - what am i missing?

EDIT

will leave this as is but would add - having played this morning i am wondering if this is not the import - i have deleted the import and gone back to my installed database and am getting the same problem - will also ask in the troubleshhoting forums

please close and/or delete this if its not an impex problem as i now think

[Jerry]

This isn't an import issue, and ImpEx is not designed to be used as a rescue or upgrade tool (even if some times it can do it).

I would suggest working on fixing the origional and then upgrading.

[tony adams]

thanks for the reply - as i posted in the edit i had thought it was not Impex - that infact worked flawlessly

i had missed the [new] switch in the forum manager

i was using Impex for updating from 3.5 to 3.8 and as i said it did just that - i was not aware of the faults??? in the original database until i used Impex and in fact did fix that and ran Impex again to resolve any issues

again thanks

[Jerry]

i was using Impex for updating from 3.5 to 3.8 and as i said it did just that - i was not aware of the faults??? in the original database until i used Impex and in fact did fix that and ran Impex again to resolve any issues

The upgrade scripts are far more thorough, impex misses out lots of data it dosen't consider mandatory, the official and advised route is always upgrade, not import.

The only time ImpEx gets used for this is usually when the source database is so corrupted, that salvaging anything is a bonus.

[tony adams]

sorry i am not explaining myself well - i have a 3.5 board - i am starting again with 3.8 install - i was using impex to move the data across from the old database to the new one - that i believe is correct

can i ask - whilst doing the import it has not transfered about 6 members - they are all active and in the same group as those it did move correctly - any reason for that - is there anything i can do to force it

[Jerry]

sorry i am not explaining myself well - i have a 3.5 board - i am starting again with 3.8 install - i was using impex to move the data across from the old database to the new one - that i believe is correct

The advised method is to upgrade between 3.5 and 3.8.

[tony adams]

thanks and my question about losing members in the transfer

it would seem that this was because a number of my members have not got registered email addresses with the board - it was all of those that did not transfer - is there a may round this - surely it should be an option

[Jerry]

You can edit their profiles in the source database to give them emails of "[email protected]" just to get them imported.

[tony adams]

thanks again - i wondered that and tried it and that did it - fortunately there was only a few - but on a big board it would have been a long job

well it would the way i did it as i could only do it one at a time

would it not be better to have an option - with or without email address - as members are not required to give an address to join under certain settings

[Jerry]

It was thought about to allow it, or to have a switch, though the email address is a key piece of information within ImpEx, as well as users who don't have an email when imported (and pseudo registered) can't request a new password via email if their passwords can't be imported (from various systems).

So for the few edge cases (i.e. yourself and the 5 of them) it was decided that emails (for the case of an import) are required, as in the bigger picture it really helps.

There have been a few boards that had no user emails, so they used some SQL :

UPDATE user SET email='[email protected]';

etc

[tony adams]

fair points - you have a much bigger picture to look at than me - from vb to vb is all i was meaning

i have no idea how other boards work - but on vb under certain conditions the board admin does not insist on an email address when people sign up - hence my problem [i will now by the way!]

it may be on other board systems that there will be a 100% insistance of giving an email address

your fix of adding any address in the user list obviously works and once i had sorted it was no big deal but how would that be on a vb board with 1000's of members where a good proportion had not given an address

the problem as i see it is if that happens and the board moves - those members cannot be contacted - yes that should have been thought about before the move - but things get missed