Residual vb3.8 permissions issue

Dean

in memoriam
I have some reasonably convoluted permissions settings on my vb3.8 forum.

Now on my xf B5 test forum the node permissions settings for 2 forums are listed in bold indicating there is something different about the node permissions.
  1. 1 forum had access by members of a special_user_group, and that group was long ago deleted & forum was placed in a private area only I (admin) had access to.
  2. another forum had administrator & super_special_user_group viewing all threads, but all other groups could not see each others threads (only the ones the threads they started)
Ideas? I'm a bit stumped.

edit: the other forums seem to be operating normally.. (there are many).
 
I've seen similar issues reported with other vB imports.
It seems to be related to phantom data hanging around in the vB database after deleting usergroups, etc.

From what I can gather, fully optimising the vB database prior to import seems to be be the solution in most cases.
 
This is driving me crazy. I have several forums with some type of special permissions associated with them from my vb3.8 database. I have attempted to revert those to 'normal' forums by setting everything to the default settings (the xf test forum directory is password protected so private information is not shown).. and about 1/3 of the forums cannot be reverted, they always show up in bold in the node permission settings.

I've been comparing the original vb3.8 forums permissions for many hours, and do not see a pattern at all.
 
I saw this on another person's forum recently, where the forum titles were bold but there were no custom permissions inside. I didn't look into it.

It seems to be related to phantom data hanging around in the vB database after deleting usergroups, etc.

Yeah. It could be something similar to this bug. I am going to spend some time testing this when I get a chance.
 
I saw this on another person's forum recently, where the forum titles were bold but there were no custom permissions inside. I didn't look into it.

Yeah. It could be something similar to this bug. I am going to spend some time testing this when I get a chance.

I'm not terribly sure what the next course of action should be. Thing is, as forums age moderators & user groups are created and deleted. This would not be an issue at all if there was a 'revert' or 'reset' node permissions to a known default state, but there is no way to do that.

On my live vb3.8 forum I have 'reset' then 'deny all' then set the proper permissions for all of the problematic forums, and several more beyond that. The only possible thing I can think of is to start all over with a new forum and re-import to see if that helped.

In addition I believe that the Super moderator issue in the B5 import may also be causing issues, supermods are not being imported except as another usergroup 'super moderators'.
 
Ok I played with this for a while. I was unable to find a way to reproduce the problem.

I suspect it's a problem with the source data. If you want to give me a copy of your vB database then I can play with it. If there is a problem with the data then I can probably find it.
 
I trust you implicitly Jake, but for a variety of other reasons completely unrelated to trust it would best if I keep plodding along.

Regarding the original problem:
  • As forums age forums/subforums/user groups are created/deleted/recycled for a variety of reasons.
  • Non-Super Moderators are added to forums, then removed, for a wide variety of reasons. For instance someone needs to be a moderator for a special event in a specific forum, and the event is long past.
  • I did indeed go back to the live vb forum, reset &/or deny for each category/forum for each usergroup - then set the forum permissions for each of them properly. Then start completely over with a fresh xf install and a fresh backup of the live site. Presumably that removed any orphaned permissions which I believe was the issue.
  • That seemed to have fixed the problem. The node permissions act predictably now.
But I strongly believe that a way to set node permissions to inherit for the entire node is necessary. An 'inherit all' near the 'private node' button which would set every usergroup to inherit for that node. A sure fire way of getting rid of any ghost permissions, and setting all user groups permissions to inherit for a node.
  1. We have a very small forum and not that many user groups - even then it took 1-2 additional hours because there was no 'inherit all' near the 'private node' button. That is time that will need to be spent while the live forum is offline when we migrate. I am sure it will take larger more complicated forums many hours to set permissions.
  2. Even if the import bugs are completely squashed for the vb3.8 import there are many many other forums that may want to migrate to xf (ipb, phpbb, etc). If that feature existed it would be a quick way to fix things if needed. That would mean it would be far easier to live with a less than perfect importer.
  3. If there is not going to be an 'inherit all' for a node, it would be nice to at least know the sql query so it could be run manually.
Other observations:
Regarding normal (not super) moderators: After a vb3.8 import the people with an additional vb user group "Moderators" have the additional xf "Moderating" group (there is no xf "Moderators" group).... but after the xf import, while they indeed are listed as moderators for specific forums, and under admincp->users->moderators they are listed as 'Content Moderators'... when I view their profile I have the option to make them a Moderator (global, or non-global), or even an administrator. Very strange. xf seems to consider them moderators and also not moderators at the same time.

There is also the bug regarding the vb Supermoderators wherein they are ignored completely i.e. if someone is in the vb Registered Users group with an additional Super Moderators user group after the import nothing happens - It treats the Super Moderators user group like all the other custom usergroups I have... and I need to add the Super Moderators manually.
 
This had me scratching my head and almost begging for help for weeks.. I wasn't aware of the issue before i ported from vB4 had i known about this beforehand it may have been a show stopper for the short term.. Even after i figured out what was happening and worked towards solving the problem i had to put in several hours in correcting the issue one user at a time.. Im sure there are still members that haven't visited my forums in awhile that i will still have to manually fix, but this is a huge chore..
 
This had me scratching my head and almost begging for help for weeks.. I wasn't aware of the issue before i ported from vB4 had i known about this beforehand it may have been a show stopper for the short term.. Even after i figured out what was happening and worked towards solving the problem i had to put in several hours in correcting the issue one user at a time.. Im sure there are still members that haven't visited my forums in awhile that i will still have to manually fix, but this is a huge chore..

What did you have to do to fix the problem exactly?
 
I have come across this issue to importing from VB4, would be nice to know of a work around/fix
If it is node permission related, and you are not yet live, you could do as I've done and reset/deny forum/category permissions then do another import. Alternatively I believe xf admins are going into specific peoples accounts and clicking 'Save User', even if changes were not made.
 
on my old vB4 forum i had several premium usergroups, these subscribing members were listed in secondary usergroups (Bronze, Silver and Gold Supporters, Etc, Etc) I had to move these users out of the secondary groups to the primary groups manually.

Now for some of the other members that where in the registered group (with no secondary usergroups), i had to move them to another group save then move them back and save again.. Probably not the correct way to go about this and im still experiencing issues with members that have secondary usergroup permissions.

Also im slowly in the process of deleting many of my custom usergroups, just to simply things. Im fixing to delete the Bronze, Silver and Gold groups and replace them with a single VIP group.. Ive already deleted my Banned group and let XF handle that as a "Banned State" opposed to a banned Group.. I also deleted the Super Moderators and Moderators groups and am now using the "Moderating" group as XF intended..

The whole thing was a giant headache and a huge undertaking.. Really getting everything straightened out was just alot of hours of trial and error.
 
If it is node permission related, and you are not yet live, you could do as I've done and reset/deny forum/category permissions then do another import. Alternatively I believe xf admins are going into specific peoples accounts and clicking 'Save User', even if changes were not made.
That didnt work for me, I had to move them out of the group save and move them back to the original usergroup then save again, for the changes to take effect.. Really in essence the same, just had to take that extra step of moving them out just to move them right back in..
 
If it is node permission related, and you are not yet live, you could do as I've done and reset/deny forum/category permissions then do another import. Alternatively I believe xf admins are going into specific peoples accounts and clicking 'Save User', even if changes were not made.

I am just running a test site at the moment with data imported from a live VB4 forum..

Sorry, just to make sure im understanding you correctly , so your saying to reset the forum permissions on the VB4 site first then import again?
 
That didnt work for me, I had to move them out of the group save and move them back to the original usergroup then save again, for the changes to take effect.. Really in essence the same, just had to take that extra step of moving them out just to move them right back in..

Again just to confirm this has to be done on VB4 before importing to xenforo? is that correct?
 
Again just to confirm this has to be done on VB4 before importing to xenforo? is that correct?
No i wasnt aware of this issue when i imported my test installation, so when we imported the vB4 db to XF i had to do this manually from the XF ACP after the fact.. I didnt discover this problem until my XF forum was already live.
 
Sorry, just to make sure im understanding you correctly , so your saying to reset the forum permissions on the VB4 site first then import again?
Yes. On my vb3.8 live forum, I reset or deny all each node for each user group - for each node that had issues after the vb->xf import. Some nodes were still displayed in bold in xf after the import no matter how the permissions were set before I did that.

Of course... I needed to move the forums around so that the private forums were not visible even with the permissions set to allow all. Example:
private forumA
private forumB
private forumC
private catagory!

was changed to this temporarily - putting the private forums behind private category, then dealing with those specific forums permissions, so people could not view our private forums while I was doing that. Then I moved them back:
private category!
---private forumA
---private forumB
---private forumC
 
Yes. On my vb3.8 live forum, I reset or deny all each node for each user group - for each node that had issues after the vb->xf import. Some nodes were still displayed in bold in xf after the import no matter how the permissions were set before I did that.
I personally didn't have a chance to do this prior to porting to XF (wasnt aware of the issue at the time) But weather you make the changes before or after, the whole process is a massive PITA.. I hope this gets sorted out sooner then later.. Even though i only have one forum left to port over.. Im not touching it until some concrete fixes are implemented.. I dont have any problems starting a new community on XF, But i wont port my last vB site over to XF unless something is done to solve this..
 
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