XF 1.1 Importing two phpbb3 databases

[rusty105]

Ok, I have two separate forums and databases that I would like to import into one xenForo forum. Can this be done? Is there a special way to do it?

Thanks
Rusty

 

[Martok]

I doubt it. Each phpBB database will have its own set of user ids and forum post ids. The thing is, you'll have users on one database with the same user ids as other users on the other database. The same will apply to forum post ids. Merging the databases would therefore mean some users and posts are overwritten by others as they'll be seen as duplicates.

I think your only solutions are to buy two copies of Xenforo and keep the forums separate or migrate one forum and close the other, asking users to register on the new site and lose posts from the old one.

 

[Wildcat Media]

Ok, I have two separate forums and databases that I would like to import into one xenForo forum. Can this be done? Is there a special way to do it?

You have to do one forum first, then the other. IMHO, the biggest problem is if you have duplicate users on each forum--they would each then have two accounts. And XF does not yet have a way to merge users. XF can attempt to assign subsequent imported posts to existing user accounts (from your first import) if the email addresses match, though, but there are no guarantees.

XF imports posts and threads by assigning new IDs sequentially, so no posts or threads will ever be overwritten. This is why you have to "close" one import operation before you start another. You can import as many forums as you like into one XF installation though. If you went this route, though, you would not be able to preserve your existing ID numbers for posts and threads, which means any indexed content using these IDs would "break" in terms of being listed on the search engines. Your first import can share numbers, but not subsequent imports.

So, it can be done. It may not be perfect, but you'd have to try it firsthand on a duplicate copy of your data first as a test case.

 

[Slavik]

I doubt it. Each phpBB database will have its own set of user ids and forum post ids. The thing is, you'll have users on one database with the same user ids as other users on the other database. The same will apply to forum post ids. Merging the databases would therefore mean some users and posts are overwritten by others as they'll be seen as duplicates.

I think your only solutions are to buy two copies of Xenforo and keep the forums separate or migrate one forum and close the other, asking users to register on the new site and lose posts from the old one.

Incorrect information here.

Allow me to correct it.

Importing 2 forums into 1 XenForo is easily done. You import the first (usually the biggest (though it doesnt matter in reality)) forum first, and save the import log as import_log_1. Set up the redirection script on your first forum pointing to import_log_1.

Next, import forum 2 and set it to automatically merge users with the same email address. Save the import log as import_log_2. Set up the redirection scripts on the second forum pointing to import_log_2.

Job done

 

[Martok]

Incorrect information here.

Allow me to correct it.

Importing 2 forums into 1 XenForo is easily done. You import the first (usually the biggest (though it doesnt matter in reality)) forum first, and save the import log as import_log_1. Set up the redirection script on your first forum pointing to import_log_1.

Next, import forum 2 and set it to automatically merge users with the same email address. Save the import log as import_log_2. Set up the redirection scripts on the second forum pointing to import_log_2.

Job done

Thank you, I stand corrected. Xenforo is even cleverer with importing than I thought.

 

[rusty105]

Thanks. I thought I read it could resume importing if stopped, but wasn't sure if it could do multiple phpBBs. as far as redirecting, I didn't see a phpBB redirection script. Is there one? I suppose I could export the log to a excel file and whip up some sort of .htaccess redirects.

 

[Wildcat Media]

Thanks. I thought I read it could resume importing if stopped, but wasn't sure if it could do multiple phpBBs. as far as redirecting, I didn't see a phpBB redirection script. Is there one?

I used htaccess directly for our "big board" forum, but the redirection scripts work fine. I do not know if they are available for phpBB, but it probably would not take much to rewrite the URL structures within the script.

The redirect log (I'm pretty sure Slavik could confirm) is what XF uses to do a lookup on your old links and map them to the newly imported links. IOW as an example, if you imported a second forum, the redirect log would tell XF that the incoming link looking for thread "25542" on your old phpBB forum is now thread "83905" after you imported it to XF. This is not something that I think htaccess could do alone, as it requires a lookup to match those IDs (old phpBB ID/new XF ID).

Overall it's a really well thought out importer!