XF 1.3 importing from vb3.8

tsak76

Active member
Just did this and i see that while pms seems to have been imported all convertations show 1 message and 0 reply which is useless for me and my members. its like having lost all previous pms
 
The PMs have to be inserted into separate conversations (which is really how they are displayed in the source system), so this is expected.
 
The PMs have to be inserted into separate conversations (which is really how they are displayed in the source system), so this is expected.

my vb is running for 8 years and pms are many and critical for my site. purchasing a new system and spending weeks and months to migrate to an upgraded improved system only to be told that vb pms are actually useless and meaningless and this is to be "expected" is totally unacceptable.

its embarrasing to say at least to migrate if my users cant have their pms understandable
 
Last edited:
The PMs are transferred in the exact same format as they were on vBulletin, how can that be considered useless? vBulletin 3.8 doesn't have the concept of "conversations", just private messages. There is no reliable way to link together responses from on PM to the next. As such, the logical transport method is to keep them as they are: separate "conversations" or replies.
 
The PMs are transferred in the exact same format as they were on vBulletin, how can that be considered useless? vBulletin 3.8 doesn't have the concept of "conversations", just private messages. There is no reliable way to link together responses from on PM to the next. As such, the logical transport method is to keep them as they are: separate "conversations" or replies.
lets say we had a pm together with me having posted 5 messages and u another 5. well now it shows 1 msg. if this isnt useless then describe how it is usefull ..
 
That is exactly the structure of vBulletin. You send a message to me, I access it individual like I would a user. I send you a message, you do the same. You send me a message, its still the individual message. There was no concept of "number of replies" or "conversations." You haven't lost a single PM, and they can be found just like they were on vBulletin, except there is no concept of a sent / inbox folder in XenForo.

Are you saying that PMs on vBulletin were useless?
 
That is exactly the structure of vBulletin. You send a message to me, I access it individual like I would a user. I send you a message, you do the same. You send me a message, its still the individual message. There was no concept of "number of replies" or "conversations." You haven't lost a single PM, and they can be found just like they were on vBulletin, except there is no concept of a sent / inbox folder in XenForo.

Are you saying that PMs on vBulletin were useless?
what i am saying this that the pm with my 5 msgs and ur 5 msgs can not be accessed as it used to be. probably it is divided into 10 seperate convertations, however if on xf i start a new convertation with u and i post 5 msgs and u another 5 they are all visible into a single page. it is crucial for me to solve this in order to make the site live.
 
There is a fundamental difference between vBulletin and XenForo.

vBulletin doesn't have conversations, just individual messages viewed as individual pages. There is no data to associate messages with each other. There is no programmatic way to associate messages with each other reliably.

XenForo has conversations. There is data to associate messages with each other, hence why all the replies are together as one page view.

When writing an importer you strive to keep data integrity. If you do not have a place to put data, don't shoe horn it into another area 'so its imported'. If data is stored as individual messages (as is PMs on vBulletin), you don't change the structure if there is no reliable and consistent way to associate data (as with PMs on vBulletin). This is how XenForo's importers are written, and frankly, how any importer should be written.

There isn't a solution to this problem, it is frankly impossible to solve reliably with any sort of confidence as to what your importer is doing.
 
For emphasis, Jeremy is correct.

I have had some people suggest trying to build associations by PM title. But informal relations like this are unreliable.

Without a formal relation in vB (which there isn't) there is no good way to combine multiple vB PMs into single XF conversations.

Basically just live with it. All new PMs moving forward will be proper conversations.
 
as far as i can understand the meaning of convertations is to have more than 2 people participating.

however if i invite a 3rd person in the convertation, the 2nd person isnt notified of this in order to approve that invitation for the 3rd person.
so apart from dissallowing invitation for usergroups perms, how i can i assure that convertation invitations should be somehow be welcomed from all pre existing members of the convertation ?
 
Top Bottom