User Upgrades Question | vBulletin 4 Redirect URLs Question

[faeronsayn]

Hello guys, I have another few questions that are really bothering me now, so please if anyone has any type of answer, it would be appreciated.

Questions:

User Upgrades
1. First of all, for some reason my user upgrades are not working correctly. I mean I have it all setup correctly, I actually had it working a while a go before, but now when users subscribe through paypal and all, an email comes to my paypal email with everything, like the person's username on the forum and what he subscribed for an all. But he doesn't get the actual upgrade. I am wondering whats up with that, if you guys have any way to troubleshoot this problem please let me know!

2. Are there any other payment systems that we can use instead of just paypal for User Upgrades. I am sorry to say this, but paypal is extremely "stingy" they charge so many fees, and its so easy for users to make chargebacks, as well as they have their own currency rates :O ! Anyways I was wondering if we could use Alertpay or something with User Upgrades. How easy / hard is it to make Alertpay APIs work with xenForo's user upgrade system. If there is already a mod or something that can do this please if you could, provide a link.

vBulletin 4 Redirection Urls

I know there are scripts out there for vBulletin 4 urls redirection. But how do they work? Do they use the database / table made in the database when they redirect urls to the their new url counterpart.

Here is a little story of my forum.

I was first using vBulletin and vBSEO, I was quite happy with it, until vBseo suddenly stopped working. So now all my vBseo urls stopped working, I didn't do anything about it back then and I left it as is. Then I started using vBulletin friendly urls with mod rewrite, and then these urls got indexed quickly. Then I decided to switch to IPB (invision power board), I tried to redirect my vBulletin friendly URLS with mod rewrite, but with no success, so now my vBulletin friendly urls with Mod Rewrite stopped working, after around 1 - 2 weeks I decided to go with xenForo, but before purchasing it or even start using it, I looked at the redirection scripts, it had the IPB redirection script, it looked fine, so I bought xenForo and everything went fine, my old IPB urls were being redirected to the new xenForo urls.

Here comes the problem, google's webmaster tools started displaying a lot of not found urls around 5 thousand, I decided to ignore it, thinking that it will eventually go down, but it started increasing. As of right now there are over 30 thousand not found urls on my website. So now I am wondering, if I am able to somehow redirect those previous vbulletin 4 mod rewrite urls to my xenForo installation or if I could redirect both vbulletin 4 mod rewrite urls and the VBSEO urls. If its possible please please, tell me how. Since I did not directly import from vBulletin to xeNForo, I was not able to make a "table" so not sure how the redirection works, but if it some how is still possible! PLEASE, tell me how.

 

[faeronsayn]

Bumping before I go to sleep.

I might have written a little too much, which may be turning off a lot of people who might want to answer my questions, sorry about that

 

[Jake Bunce]

1. First of all, for some reason my user upgrades are not working correctly. I mean I have it all setup correctly, I actually had it working a while a go before, but now when users subscribe through paypal and all, an email comes to my paypal email with everything, like the person's username on the forum and what he subscribed for an all. But he doesn't get the actual upgrade. I am wondering whats up with that, if you guys have any way to troubleshoot this problem please let me know!

It sounds like the callback is failing. Here are some things to check:

1) Make sure your board URL is correct:

Admin CP -> Home -> Options -> Basic Board Information -> Board URL

2) Note that the paypal callbacks don't work if your forum is behind a htaccess login.

3) Login to your paypal account and make sure the payment in question is listed as completed.

For the existing payments you can manually upgrade the users:

Admin CP -> Users -> List User Upgrades -> Controls -> Manually Upgrade User

2. Are there any other payment systems that we can use instead of just paypal for User Upgrades. I am sorry to say this, but paypal is extremely "stingy" they charge so many fees, and its so easy for users to make chargebacks, as well as they have their own currency rates :O ! Anyways I was wondering if we could use Alertpay or something with User Upgrades. How easy / hard is it to make Alertpay APIs work with xenForo's user upgrade system. If there is already a mod or something that can do this please if you could, provide a link.

Paypal is the only supported payment processor right now.

I know there are scripts out there for vBulletin 4 urls redirection. But how do they work? Do they use the database / table made in the database when they redirect urls to the their new url counterpart.

Here is a little story of my forum.

I was first using vBulletin and vBSEO, I was quite happy with it, until vBseo suddenly stopped working. So now all my vBseo urls stopped working, I didn't do anything about it back then and I left it as is. Then I started using vBulletin friendly urls with mod rewrite, and then these urls got indexed quickly. Then I decided to switch to IPB (invision power board), I tried to redirect my vBulletin friendly URLS with mod rewrite, but with no success, so now my vBulletin friendly urls with Mod Rewrite stopped working, after around 1 - 2 weeks I decided to go with xenForo, but before purchasing it or even start using it, I looked at the redirection scripts, it had the IPB redirection script, it looked fine, so I bought xenForo and everything went fine, my old IPB urls were being redirected to the new xenForo urls.

Here comes the problem, google's webmaster tools started displaying a lot of not found urls around 5 thousand, I decided to ignore it, thinking that it will eventually go down, but it started increasing. As of right now there are over 30 thousand not found urls on my website. So now I am wondering, if I am able to somehow redirect those previous vbulletin 4 mod rewrite urls to my xenForo installation or if I could redirect both vbulletin 4 mod rewrite urls and the VBSEO urls. If its possible please please, tell me how. Since I did not directly import from vBulletin to xeNForo, I was not able to make a "table" so not sure how the redirection works, but if it some how is still possible! PLEASE, tell me how.

When you do a vB -> IPB -> XenForo import you lose the associations for the old vB URLs. XenForo only preserves the IPB associations. And since you never got the vB -> IPB redirects working that means all of your Google links are lost.

You may still be able to salvage the old links if you can get the vB -> IPB redirects working. That may work in conjunction with the IPB -> XenForo redirects. But this gets a little messy.

 

[faeronsayn]

When you do a vB -> IPB -> XenForo import you lose the associations for the old vB URLs. XenForo only preserves the IPB associations. And since you never got the vB -> IPB redirects working that means all of your Google links are lost.

You may still be able to salvage the old links if you can get the vB -> IPB redirects working. That may work in conjunction with the IPB -> XenForo redirects. But this gets a little messy.

As for the payment and all that, they were listed completed from the time they were sent, but xenForo could not / did not upgrade the user. I have checked my board url, and it remains the same I am sure the www. and non www wouldn't change anything, even so I am sure i have not changed my url. My page is not behind .htaccess login or anything, anyone of the guests can access my forums. I have already upgraded my users through the manual upgrade.

As for the VB - IPB thing, first of all, I got the converter package and all from IPB, and it has showthread.php, config.php, and all those things, I am wondering where I would need to put these files? As in right in the root directory? For vB - xenforo do we put these scripts in the root as well ? Also in the config file it asks for a conversion ID, and I actually don't know that x.x, is there anyway to find that out through maybe going to your mysql tables and all ?

Thanks for the help by the way.

 

[Jake Bunce]

As for the payment and all that, they were listed completed from the time they were sent, but xenForo could not / did not upgrade the user. I have checked my board url, and it remains the same I am sure the www. and non www wouldn't change anything, even so I am sure i have not changed my url. My page is not behind .htaccess login or anything, anyone of the guests can access my forums. I have already upgraded my users through the manual upgrade.

You can try specifying the IPN in your Paypal account, though this shouldn't be required. Here is a guide:

https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=developer/e_howto_admin_IPNSetup

This is the IPN you need to specify (using your own forum URL of course):

http://xenforo.com/community/payment_callback.php

As for the VB - IPB thing, first of all, I got the converter package and all from IPB, and it has showthread.php, config.php, and all those things, I am wondering where I would need to put these files? As in right in the root directory?

You probably need to put those scripts in the old vB directory. But those are IPB's redirect scripts so you need to ask them.

For vB - xenforo do we put these scripts in the root as well ?

You mean "IPB - xenforo." See this thread for instructions. The scripts need to go into the old IPB directory.

Also in the config file it asks for a conversion ID, and I actually don't know that x.x, is there anyway to find that out through maybe going to your mysql tables and all ?

Which config file? I don't see anything about a conversion ID.

 

[faeronsayn]

You can try specifying the IPN in your Paypal account, though this shouldn't be required. Here is a guide:

https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=developer/e_howto_admin_IPNSetup

This is the IPN you need to specify (using your own forum URL of course):

http://xenforo.com/community/payment_callback.php

Your second link says request not valid.

Do I just need to put my forum url meaning "www.domainname.com" in the IPN ?

Since the second url doesn't work, i am not sure what IPN I need to specify or what not.

You probably need to put those scripts in the old vB directory. But those are IPB's redirect scripts so you need to ask them.

You mean "IPB - xenforo." See this thread for instructions. The scripts need to go into the old IPB directory.

My old vBulletin Directory ? I am not sure what you mean by this, do you mean where my vBulletin installation was when I had it installed? Since I do not have my vBulletin installed anymore since I don't use it. But it resided in my root directory, so if you mean that just place it where my vBulletin directory was, I would just place all the files in the root directory ?

As for the "You Mean IPB - xenForo" i actually meant "vB - xenForo" since vB to xenForo has similar files like showthread.php to vB - IPB, I thought they would be placed in the same directory as in the files.

Which config file? I don't see anything about a conversion ID.

This config.php is the one from IPB, the IPB redirection script for vBulletin which has config.php, showthread.php and other files. In the config.php it has something called the "conversion ID" , this I am assuming is similar to what xenForo has in most of its redirection script which is a table you specify, like the following:

So assuming its similar I guess I can find the Conversion ID, in my database, since when I imported from vBulletin to IPB, it would have left the table there, and when I imported from IPB to xenForo, i am assuming the table would have still stayed there.

All I was wondering is how i could find this table.

 

[Jake Bunce]

Your second link says request not valid.

That is normal.

Do I just need to put my forum url meaning "www.domainname.com" in the IPN ?

Your forum URL plus "/payment_callback.php".

My old vBulletin Directory ? I am not sure what you mean by this, do you mean where my vBulletin installation was when I had it installed? Since I do not have my vBulletin installed anymore since I don't use it. But it resided in my root directory, so if you mean that just place it where my vBulletin directory was, I would just place all the files in the root directory ?

Yes. If your vB forum was in the web root then that is likely where you would place IPB's redirect scripts. But again, you need to ask IPB support about this since those are their redirect scripts.

As for the "You Mean IPB - xenForo" i actually meant "vB - xenForo" since vB to xenForo has similar files like showthread.php to vB - IPB, I thought they would be placed in the same directory as in the files.

You imported from IPB to XenForo, not from vB to XenForo. So you cannot use the vB -> XenForo redirect scripts. You have to use the IPB -> XenForo redirects.

This config.php is the one from IPB, the IPB redirection script for vBulletin which has config.php, showthread.php and other files. In the config.php it has something called the "conversion ID" , this I am assuming is similar to what xenForo has in most of its redirection script which is a table you specify, like the following:

So assuming its similar I guess I can find the Conversion ID, in my database, since when I imported from vBulletin to IPB, it would have left the table there, and when I imported from IPB to xenForo, i am assuming the table would have still stayed there.

All I was wondering is how i could find this table.

That is IPB's redirect script. You would have to ask their support. But yes, one would assume the vB -> IPB associations are stored somewhere.