Migrating from vB 3.6 to XF 2

[Fenokoda]

Good day,

I'm looking for an alternative for a very old vB 3.6 board which has to be moved to another (modern) server by the end of the year. The forum contains ~1.3m posts, ~125k threads and hosts ~15k users. The DB is around 3 GB (when I backup).

I already contaced vB about an upgrade, to be fair they were really helpful and fast. But I'm not in the mood to do this work twice, when vB crashes eventually because of its "oldness".
I also contacted XF with those questions already, and their answer was very short, to put it nicely. So I'm a bit sceptical right now.

What I really need the new forum to be:

• German language/options: this is a must! Is there an actual resource for this? (without this, I won't move to another forum at all)
• The forum uses not much Addons/Plugins. Only thing is PhotoPlog, which is important - can I import stuff from there into XF?
• I already read that there is an Importer for vB 3.6 to XF 2 - is it also working with large DBs like mine?
• Has anybody around here moved from a vB 3.6 as mine and has some background information/success or failure messages for me?

I am very tempted to give XF a try, but I can't test it properly, obviously.

Thanks for your help and information!

- Fen

 

[Chris D]

German language/options: this is a must! Is there an actual resource for this? (without this, I won't move to another forum at all)

I believe there are German translations available from here:

XenForo translations [2.x]

xenforo.com

The forum uses not much Addons/Plugins. Only thing is PhotoPlog, which is important - can I import stuff from there into XF?

We do have a media gallery add-on but we don't support importing from PhotoPlog. We can import from vBulletin Albums, Photopost Pro, or vBulletin vBGallery.

I already read that there is an Importer for vB 3.6 to XF 2 - is it also working with large DBs like mine?

It should handle that fine.

Has anybody around here moved from a vB 3.6 as mine and has some background information/success or failure messages for me?

I can tell you that a lot of customers have imported from vBulletin 3.6 and 3.8 over many years successfully.

I am very tempted to give XF a try, but I can't test it properly, obviously.

We maintain a reasonable refund policy. If you want to try it out, we recommend buying a license, performing some tests, including test imports into XenForo and spend a bit of time, perhaps a couple of weeks, to see if it can work for you.

 

[Paul B]

I also contacted XF with those questions already, and their answer was very short, to put it nicely.

I'm not sure what was short about the ticket response.

Every one of the questions you asked was answered, which to clarify were just about the importer and German language.

Thank you for your interest in XF.

There is an importer available for VB 3.x6, which can be run via CLI for large databases: https://xenforo.com/xf2-docs/manual/importing/

You will need access to the server where VB is currently installed, as well as the database connection details, which are in the config file.

XF only ships with the English (US) language.
All other languages are provided via third parties.
You can check here for German: https://xenforo.com/community/resources/categories/translations-2-x.48/

We don't provide import or customisation services but there are third parties who do.
They advertise here: https://xenforo.com/community/forums/third-party-services-offers.42/

 

[Masetrix]

What I really need the new forum to be:

• German language/options: this is a must! Is there an actual resource for this? (without this, I won't move to another forum at all)
• 
  
• The forum uses not much Addons/Plugins. Only thing is PhotoPlog, which is important - can I import stuff from there into XF?
• I already read that there is an Importer for vB 3.6 to XF 2 - is it also working with large DBs like mine?
• Has anybody around here moved from a vB 3.6 as mine and has some background information/success or failure messages for me?

1.) https://www.xendach.de/resources/deutsches-sprachpaket-du-fuer-xenforo.340/ (German language for XenForo 2.1.2 - Free)
2.) Yes, without Problems and very fast.
3.) Migrated from vB 3.8 - XenForo 2.0.10 (1.9M Posts...)

My english is not that god, so its better we talk on https://www.xendach.de/ about things not need XenForoSupport.

 

[beerForo]

You will be happy with XF! I am just finalizing an import myself. I went from 3.8 with no issues, so if 3.6 gives you issues just upgrade your vB (free) to 3.8.

 

[Fenokoda]

I believe there are German translations available from here:

XenForo translations [2.x]

xenforo.com

No, there isn't. Thats why I asked.

We do have a media gallery add-on but we don't support importing from PhotoPlog. We can import from vBulletin Albums, Photopost Pro, or vBulletin vBGallery.

Thats a pity, but thanks for clearing that up.

We maintain a reasonable refund policy. If you want to try it out, we recommend buying a license, performing some tests, including test imports into XenForo and spend a bit of time, perhaps a couple of weeks, to see if it can work for you.

Thats great to hear, thank you!

I'm not sure what was short about the ticket response.
Every one of the questions you asked was answered, which to clarify were just about the importer and German language.

You did. I was just a bit overwhelmed and confused by the german translations for all kinds of add-ons, but not the main XF software, but that's all sorted out now, thanks to Masetrix (see below).

You will be happy with XF! I am just finalizing an import myself. I went from 3.8 with no issues, so if 3.6 gives you issues just upgrade your vB (free) to 3.8.

Thats nice to hear, thank you. I will have an extra server by tomorrow to test things out, so this could be a start.

1.) https://www.xendach.de/resources/deutsches-sprachpaket-du-fuer-xenforo.340/ (German language for XenForo 2.1.2 - Free)
2.) Yes, without Problems and very fast.
3.) Migrated from vB 3.8 - XenForo 2.0.10 (1.9M Posts...)

My english is not that god, so its better we talk on https://www.xendach.de/ about things not need XenForoSupport.

Thanks a lot for this link! Happy to hear there's an actual version and helpful german speaking community!

Thanks to all your answers - I will investigate further!

- Fen

 

[CarpCharacin]

Thats a pity, but thanks for clearing that up.

You could install XF 1.5 with @sonnb's XenGallery, import PhotoPlog into that, and then import XenGallery into XFMG.