Importing Multiple vBulletin 3.8 Forums to One XenForo Installation

[DeltaHF]

I have two vBulletin 3.8 forums. I'd like to convert and merge both of them into one XenForo installation. Presumably, I would simply import one and then import the other, merge duplicate accounts (of which there would be many), and be on my way.

From my understanding of the import documentation, this is supported, but after searching I haven't been able to find much discussion about it.

Has anyone tried it in a production environment, and did you have any success?

 

[Carlos]

I don't think you'll have a problem doing this.

In fact, I think the import system works [ahem, behaves] the same way as the vB3 importers.

 

[Slavik]

Yup, you can do that just fine. Just make sure to save your import logs under differnt table names for the redirects.

 

[DeltaHF]

Thanks for the comments, guys. I'm trying to decide if I should merge them first using vBulletin's ImpEx tool before converting to XenForo, so this is good to know (but considering how well that is going, I may have no other choice but to merge them using XenForo...).

One question: does the XF importer automatically merge user accounts which have the same email address, or does each account have to be processed manually?

 

[steven s]

Don't merge your vB forums together.
I had asked about that recently of vB. It can get messy.
It's been a long time since I did an import but I believe you are prompted when you have a matching email address.

 

[AWS]

It will automatically merge users with the same email and also with the same username if you choose to do it that way.

 

[Carlos]

Protip: Merge based on e-mail address.

Sometimes, duplicate usernames are actually different IP's/people.

 

[Mike Edge]

Protip: Merge based on e-mail address.

Sometimes, duplicate usernames are actually different IP's/people.

Excellent point.

 

[Khaleal]

Technically you can do that. But I think you will not be able to redirect the old threads from the old forums to the new threads in the new forum.
Of course, a custom trick can be applied but that's needs a custom importer.

 

[Slavik]

Technically you can do that. But I think you will not be able to redirect the old threads from the old forums to the new threads in the new forum.
Of course, a custom trick can be applied but that's needs a custom importer.

It can be done fine with the standard importers.

 

[AWS]

Technically you can do that. But I think you will not be able to redirect the old threads from the old forums to the new threads in the new forum.
Of course, a custom trick can be applied but that's needs a custom importer.

I merged several users when I converted my site to xenforo and all redirects work correctly.

 

[vigorian908]

Sometimes, duplicate usernames are actually different IP's/people.

 

[Khaleal]

I merged several users when I converted my site to xenforo and all redirects work correctly.

That's correct if you convert ONE forum to xenForo.. But I think that's not correct when you are merging multiple forums and then converting.. at least, when you merge two forums you do lose the old threads' ids.

 

[Slavik]

That's correct if you convert ONE forum to xenForo.. But I think that's not correct when you are merging multiple forums and then converting.. at least, when you merge two forums you do lose the old threads' ids.

Khaleal, you seem to be giving a advice on XenForo, but I don't see any customer data linked to your account? Do you own a XenForo license?

To ammend your statement above, importing multiple forums into XenForo is fine, that is why you can save the import log tables under different names, so the relevent redirects are maintained correctly. However if you were to merge the forums before hand, in theory the redirects could also be maintained as long as they were set up correctly for the original merger to point to the relevent thread which would then be picked up by the XenForo redirects.

However, the best way is to let XenForo handle the merge and use 2 import log tables.

 

[DeltaHF]

Could there be any performance implications with two import tables?

The largest of the two forums contains 7.8 million posts, the smaller around 54k.

 

[Slavik]

Could there be any performance implications with two import tables?

The largest of the two forums contains 7.8 million posts, the smaller around 54k.

Not particularly, the tables just contain 3 columns, the old id, the new id, and the content type.

 

[Khaleal]

Khaleal, you seem to be giving a advice on XenForo, but I don't see any customer data linked to your account? Do you own a XenForo license?

To ammend your statement above, importing multiple forums into XenForo is fine, that is why you can save the import log tables under different names, so the relevent redirects are maintained correctly. However if you were to merge the forums before hand, in theory the redirects could also be maintained as long as they were set up correctly for the original merger to point to the relevent thread which would then be picked up by the XenForo redirects.

However, the best way is to let XenForo handle the merge and use 2 import log tables.

I don't own a xenForo license yet. I am waiting for the lawsuit to end so I can convert my own forum. I've helped some people converting their forums to xenForo so I have a not bad experience with the importers. I will happily stop giving advices on xenForo if it's not allowed for "unlicensed yet" members.
For the merge issue, This is what I am thinking of:
1st forum has a thread with the id 4567
2nd forum has a thread with the id 4567 (the same id)
So when we merge the forums it's impossible that both threads will have the same id. Let's say that the first thread will keep the same id, and the second thread will get a new id. So as I think there is no way to redirect the old URLs to the new URLs for the both forums without customizing the importer to remember the ids for both forums.
Please note that this is my intuitive thoughts and I don't know if xenForo works the same way indeed.

 

[Slavik]

I don't own a xenForo license yet. I am waiting for the lawsuit to end so I can convert my own forum. I've helped some people converting their forums to xenForo so I have a not bad experience with the importers. I will happily stop giving advices on xenForo if it's not allowed for "unlicensed yet" members.
For the merge issue, This is what I am thinking of:
1st forum has a thread with the id 4567
2nd forum has a thread with the id 4567 (the same id)
So when we merge the forums it's impossible that both threads will have the same id. Let's say that the first thread will keep the same id, and the second thread will get a new id. So as I think there is no way to redirect the old URLs to the new URLs for the both forums without customizing the importer to remember the ids for both forums.
Please note that this is my intuitive thoughts and I don't know if xenForo works the same way indeed.

It's fine, it just stiked me as odd someone without a license could be giving such advise (and usually means they arnt using a legitimate version of XF)

In simple terms, when doing a merge, lets say 2 forums with 5000 posts each.

The first forum would take thread ids 1-5000, the second forum would then take 5001-10000.

The key point being the redirect scripts left in place will point to different tables, so even if each forum had matching thread id's, each redirect script would pick up the correct one.

 

[Khaleal]

It's fine, it just stiked me as odd someone without a license could be giving such advise (and usually means they arnt using a legitimate version of XF)

In simple terms, when doing a merge, lets say 2 forums with 5000 posts each.

The first forum would take thread ids 1-5000, the second forum would then take 5001-10000.

The key point being the redirect scripts left in place will point to different tables, so even if each forum had matching thread id's, each redirect script would pick up the correct one.

Ah! that's because of the logs saved when the conversation is done. As I know that these logs are handled internally by xenForo. So the webmaster have to install a redirection add-on to his xenForo setup and this can't be done by regular htaccess 301 redirect.
Anyway, It was nice to know that xenForo has the ability to merge forums that way
That motivated me to consider converting some of my forums to xenForo.. All I need is to see signs of development

 

[Mike Fara]

Oh no! What if I merge both log tables? One was created for each forum!