Questions regarding migration from UBB.Threads 6.4.1 to vBulletin 4.0.6
 

Dear all,

Yesterday I tried a sample import of a rather large board running UBB.Threads 6.4.1 into a fresh vBulletin 4.0.6 installation. This step will give me confidence whether this migratin effectively makes sense. So far it does for 80% :)

First of all, I am happy to see that ImpEx is able to retrieve quite some information from the current board, which is very good.

Here are a couple findings, recommendations and questions I want to share:

0. You cannot import users, posts and threads while preserving their IDs. This is a pity since it means there's no simple redirect script that can be written to direct people to the same content in vBulletin. As far as I know, the key publicly identified data are: User ID, Thread ID and Post ID. In UBB.Threads a thread starts with a post having (B_Number = B_Main) AND B_Topic = 1. In vBulletin I believe thread counters and post counters live independent lives.

The code in the ImpEx module for UBB.Threads explicitly mentions that the UBB.Threads IDs cannot be used as import ID.

Question 1: why can't the UBB.Threads post/thread/user IDs be used in the vBulletin DB?

1. You need to rename the Calendar table (UBB.Threads 6.4.1) to Events to get ImpExp do its work on UBB.Threads 6.4.1. Also, table names are case sensitive, which may require additional renames to set the case accordingly.

2. Importing users takes most of the time. I managed to import 17,000 users per hour, but extrapolating my figures, in the same hour I could import 140,000 posts.

Recommendation: select the maximum allowed avatar size for the user import, and stay at max 100 user imports per run. This way you will avoid most rejects due to oversized avatar image or due to excess file descriptors in use (!).

3. If there are banned users on your UBB.Threads board (SELECT u.U_Number, u.U_LoginName, u.U_Username, u.U_Email, b.B_Reason FROM Users u LEFT JOIN Banned b ON u.U_Number = b.B_Uid WHERE u.U_Banned = 1), they do not appear as banned in vBulletin 4. However all members are permabanned by default.

Question 2: What do I have to do to correct the "banned" status of my imported members? I.e., unban all members except if they were banned in UBB.Threads.

4. Importing file attachments to the file system does not work. Apparently this is a known restriction, and only database imports are supported.

Question 3: can I do the import to DB and move the attachments to the file system afterwards? What will break if I do so?

5. When your import session ends, you will notice that your forums do not appear anywhere, not even in the admin panel.

Workaround: create a forum (or forum category - see below) after the import to see all your forums.

6. ImpEx cannot recover forum categories from UBB.Threads 6.4.1. You would retrieve the forum categories via the following SQL query:

SELECT Cat_Title, Cat_Number, Cat_Description FROM Category WHERE Cat_Type = 'forum' ORDER BY Cat_Number ASC

The forums and their category hierarchy can be retrieved from UBB.Threads with:

SELECT Bo_Cat, Bo_Sorter, Bo_Number, Bo_Title , Bo_Description FROM Boards ORDER BY Bo_Cat, Bo_Sorter;

You have to manually recreate them after importing the forums. This, in combination with assigning the order of the sub forums in the categories (and setting the forum display options), took me about 1 hour for 50 boards and 8 categories.

Question 4: is there an easier way to assign the lost forum hierarchy?

7. The default forum display options are odd: sort per thread title instead of newest thread first. Every single forum had to have its display options updated. Best is to do this while recreating the forum hierarchy in the categories.

Question 5: is there a way to bulk assign the same settings to all forums?

8. vBulletin assumes the login name is the same as the display name, as opposed to UBB.Threads. I see that the display names from UBB.Threads are not imported, not even in custom profile fields.

Question 6: how can I import the display name to vBulletin? Can we prevent members from editing this field?

9. You must recreate the counters and stats after an import. This can take a while.

Apologies for this lengthy first message, but I believe it gives an idea to other members willing to assess the migration from UBB.Threads 6.4.1 to vBulletin 4.0.x about what to consider.

I am looking forward to read your hints, recommendations and answers :)

Best regards,

Olivier