XF 2.2 Considering vb5 to xf conversion

[Changes]

Hey,

i have a quite large vb5 forum considered for upgrade to xf. There is unfortunately a problem with the closure db table in vb5, giving random errors in admincp and a few other weirs malfunctions. The forum works like 80%, but posting a new thread sometimes takes up to 60 seconds.

The question is: will this error reflect itself in the new install after an upgrade to xf? Or can i hope for this to be resolved? I understand that this might be difficult to adress, but if the xf converter is depandant upon an error free closurers table, the possibilities seems rather slim. But if the converter builds the new hierarchy independantly from the closure tabe, maybe the chances are better.

Any ideas welcome. Thanx.

 

[Chris D]

Do you happen to know what the errors specifically are? Or whether they're related to reading from that table or is it just limited to writes into that table?

If it's the former I don't particularly see an issue as we'd only be reading from it anyway.

That being said, we don't actually use this table in the conversion at all, in some circumstances.

There is an option when setting up the importer to either "Import blogs and groups" or "Import forums only". The former option will essentially import everything, including content from blogs and social groups, as threads/posts. That may or may not be desirable for your use case, but if selected it doesn't touch the closure table at all during the import. The other option uses the closure table to ensure only content which is a parent of the thread content type is imported.

Honestly, if you're concerned about the closure table, I'd probably just choose the "Import blogs and groups" option either way. If it imports content you don't need, you can just delete it afterwards. If you don't have any of that content, nothing extra will be imported anyway.

 

[Changes]

Hey Chris, thanx for your reply.

The forum was at one time converted from vb4 to xf and then back again to the current state at vb5. (I was not involved in this!)

A few examples are excessive time @posting, unable to delete users, unable to move, merge and delete threads, errors when executing admincp tasks to mention a few.

The setup is forum only, no blogs or cms.
So there is a possibility that the importer makes itself independant from the closures table and thereby bypasses the issues?

 

[Chris D]

So there is a possibility that the importer makes itself independant from the closures table and thereby bypasses the issues?

Yeah. Essentially regardless of the fact that you have no blogs just select the option "Import blogs and groups" (it's on page 3 of the importer configuration, I think) and it will skip using the closure table.

So, all in all, I don't envisage any issues.

 

[Changes]

Yeah. Essentially regardless of the fact that you have no blogs just select the option "Import blogs and groups" (it's on page 3 of the importer configuration, I think) and it will skip using the closure table.

So, all in all, I don't envisage any issues.

Thanx, thats promising. So what is the function of the closures table? If it can be skipped out, what function does it realy have? How can xf build the structure without it?

 

[Chris D]

Its function, from our perspective, is to filter out blog/social groups content. If we don't have to filter out that content, we don't have to use the closure table.

The majority of the parent/child relationships between items of content and its containers is maintained through the node table, as far as I know.

I have to be somewhat vague as I didn't write the importer myself. But I can tell you we've successfully completed a number of VB5 to XF imports , and it is a popular migration path, hence it's well tested.

Everything will come over as you expect.

Of course, you may wish (and we do encourage) doing a test import first to verify that everything comes across as you expect without issue before you do the final live import.