XF 1.2 Importing phpBB 3.0.11 DB

[Giverny]

Hi guys, it's me again!

Sorry I keep coming back with all these ridiculous questions.

We're currently trying different ways to import our database from http://www.diabetes.co.uk/diabetes-forum/ to a fresh XF install. First time worked (somewhat) like a charm as we simply merged accounts with duplicate e-mail addresses. The biggest problem with this was that it merged the accounts under the username that was created first. Instead, we wanted them to merge under the username with the most recent activity.

Second time round, we attempted the install without merging duplicates. This threw up a problem during the XF install when it asked us what we wanted to do with the duplicate accounts. Because of the ridiculous amounts of duplicate e-mail addresses in our database, the page was hanging as it tried to load all the duplicates on one page and the browser couldn't cope with it. We left it for ~2hrs to load the page and the browser ended up crashing.

TL;DR - My question is... is there an easier way for us to merge the accounts with duplicate e-mail addresses under the username with the most recent activity?

Thanks in advance for any guidance you can give

 

[Jake Bunce]

I made this change for an import once. I forget exactly what I did. You need to modify the user step of your importer:

library/XenForo/Import

Probably change the select order so users are processed from highest to lowest id. I will take a look at the code when I get home if you are still having trouble with this.

 

[Giverny]

Thanks Jake! I'll pass this on to our tech wizard and see if he can get it done. Thankfully it's been a remarkable wake up call for us that our database could do with some TLC.

Swings and roundabouts, eh.

 

[Giverny]

Just had a word with our tech guy - any pointers on where we can find the lines of code we need to change?

 

[Giverny]

Anyone else have any input on this? Still looking for the lines of code we need to change on the phpBB importer to prioritise merges.

 

[Mike]

I don't think processing them in the other order is trivial. It's possible that a couple changes would need to be made in the user import step as the system is generally written to process oldest first (and a fair amount of testing to ensure that it handles all the cases properly).

Note that processing based on activity (which is different than newest first) would be a whole additional thing. That would need a different approach and custom code I suspect.

 

[Giverny]

I don't think processing them in the other order is trivial. It's possible that a couple changes would need to be made in the user import step as the system is generally written to process oldest first (and a fair amount of testing to ensure that it handles all the cases properly).

Note that processing based on activity (which is different than newest first) would be a whole additional thing. That would need a different approach and custom code I suspect.

Ah okay. If that's the case, is there any way I can paginate the merge step during the installer? I'm happy to sit and go through it manually but it's returning so many entries to be merged that it's crashing Chrome and Firefox.

 

[Mike]

Unfortunately, there isn't a way to paginate that (well, at least not without changing the importers, though I'm not sure how feasible it would be to change them).

 

[Giverny]

Unfortunately, there isn't a way to paginate that (well, at least not without changing the importers, though I'm not sure how feasible it would be to change them).

Ah. That's disappointing. Looks like I'll just have to put in a few extra hours in the office and go through the database manually. Thanks for the help!