What doesn't get converted from phpBB to vBulletin

[Tomzl]

Development of phpBB 3.0 is taking forever so I am seriously considering switching to vBulletin. Before I purchase vBulletin, I'd like to know how much of the setttings from phpBB will be carried over to vBulletin. I already searched through a few threads about this conversion on this forum. I'd like to get some feedback from the administrators who have converted their forums and find out what kind of problems they encountered.

As far as I understand links that point to other topics in the old forum stay the same after the conversion which essentially means they become dead links. Are there any other minor or major problems with converting from phpBB to vBulletin?

I'd appreciate if anyone could give me a list of things that get lost with converting.

My phpBB is not 100% vanillla but all the mods I have have no effect on the database itself so basically the database is no different as with a vanilla installation of phpBB.

Thank you for your help.

[feldon23]

Attachments come over. But none of the other add-ons/mods.

[BlueFlame]

I've done a few phpBB convertions with out problems

[Tomzl]

Do the hidden subforums also get carried over to the new forum?

[ManagerJosh]

hidden subforums should still be considered as forums, so yes it does get carried over. However I may be wrong, but permissions don't get carried over so you'll need to redo those. So if permissions doesn't get carried over, this means you need to redo the "hidden" attribute of that particular forum.

[derekivey]

Well, the subforums aren't standard in phpBB, its a mod, so it might not be carried over, depends on how the mod stores the subforums in the database.

[feldon23]

Just to be sure, you should turn all forums into regular forums and be prepared for all users to revert to Registered. Of course if you do an import and you are not happy with the results, you can try again -- the phpbb database isn't affected.

[Tomzl]

With subforum I meant different sections of my board. My installation of phpBB doesn't have the mentioned mod.

Well, the subforums aren't standard in phpBB, its a mod, so it might not be carried over, depends on how the mod stores the subforums in the database.

[Tomzl]

Just to be sure, you should turn all forums into regular forums and be prepared for all users to revert to Registered. Of course if you do an import and you are not happy with the results, you can try again -- the phpbb database isn't affected.

You mean, I have to make all my forums visible before making the transfer?

Does the converter in any way affect the phpBB database or the files? Can I test the converter on my live board or should I make a duplicate of my existing forum and use it to get acquainted with the converter?

[feldon23]

You can absolutely set up a password-protected test copy of vBulletin and import your phpBB into it and see how it looks. Importing phpBB into vBulletin does not affect the original forum/database in any way. It just reads it.