Want to move from vbulletin questions

[bobs409]

Hello all,

I am in the middle of a nightmare with my current vbulletin forum. Please bear with me, I have to start at the beginning so this makes sense to those reading.

I hung onto version 3.7 since letting my subscription run out about '08. Everything ran great until about a month ago when some of my users reported their Norton virus protection was giving them warnings. I too experienced some odd pop ups asking me to install things from microsoft which of course wasn't from them.

Being a car mechanic and NOT a computer expert, I couldn't find anything wrong so figured perhaps the old version was the culprit and it was time to bite the bullet and upgrade to the latest 4.1.3 version. I forked out the $175 and for the first day, it ran good and all seemed like it was fixed. The next day, the virus warnings came back and the occasional pop ups too even while logging into the admin area.

I was back and forth with vbulletins ticket system who couldn't find the problem. I was also back and forth with my webhosts ticket system who also couldn't help.
Bad as that was, a few days later, I started getting page errors on all the forum pages making many features stop working.

Vbulletin & my webhost could not help fix this problem either.

Could it get worse? Yep! 2 days ago, my forum stopped working all together. All I get is a white screen on ALL pages! See it here: http://www.348-409.com/forum/index.php?

There are no page errors but it only loads 4 lines of html as shown in the view page source.
Since this, vbulletin directed me to a page from their faq about white screens and has not offered any other help saying those are the only causes. I went through each the best I could with no success. My webhost is out of ideas as well.

Now, needless to say, I NEED to get my forum back in operation so here I am looking at purchasing new forum software in hopes
that I can get back to business as usual on my site. I have a few "pre-sales" questions:

1) Do you think switching over to your forum software will work given the current situation mentioned above?
2) If yes to question #1, and it ends up not working, do you offer a full refund in this case? I'm still angry about the $175 I just wasted, I would hate to add another $140 to that loss.
3) It's very important to me that ALL the information & posts with attachments from my old forum stay intact. Is that possible with this changeover and if yes, does it create the individual forums and sections my old board had so this info can be found? (I hope that makes sense)
4) Will the member names/passwords all stay intact?
5) Being a car guy and not a computer wiz, will Xen help me and stick with me until this is up and running. There is nothing
more intimidating & frustrating than getting replies from support with techno mumbo jumbo thrown at me that I am somehow supposed to understand. Would I expect them to know how to rebuild a carburetor for a 58 Chevy? LOL

While I do have many years of vbulletin under my belt (from '03-current) I know a little but I'm far from an expert in these matters. In simple terms, will Xen be gentle? LOL

Thank you for reading my novel. I'm at the end of my rope with these problems and just want some peace in my life!

Bob

 

[Lawrence]

Ok I checked the database. I found these but most were just myself and the users talking about the malware and virus warnings:

5 matches inside table post (4 are post of us talking about the malware, other post was not discussing the malware???)
7 matches inside table postithistory (these were just of us talking about the malware)
4 matches inside table searchcore_text (just posts of us talking about the malware)

Bob

Replace the complete IP numbers with "xx.xx.xxx.xxx" in all 16 instances. The one post where you were not discussing it, what else is included in the post? You should be able to get the poster id, and check their user info (in the DB). Once you replace the IP numbers in the posts, connect the forum back to that DB to see what happens. Hopefully that will eliminate part of the problem, and then we can work on the blank forum pages.

EDIT: Just a note, I just checked your forum with the new DB, and no issues or warnings detected,

why are we troubleshooting a vBulletin problem?

Because the Topic Starter asked if switching from vB to XF would help resolve his current issue with his forum. That question can not be answered with certainty until we determine the cause. Right now it appears to be DB related, and if it is, hopefully not in a table that will be imported over.

 

[bobs409]

Ok Lawrence, for a moment I thought you lost me but I figured out what you were saying.

I figured out what was wrong with that one post. 65.75 is part of that members IP. (since I was only searching for 65.75, it showed up)

I made the changes to the other 15 threads and pointed the config file back to the original database. You should only see a white screen now, I do.

Whenever you give me the green light, I'm ready to purchase Xenforo. Just don't want anyone to think I'm going to walk if you get my forum going.

The fact that you guys have been going out of your way helping somone you don't know who hasn't even bought your product yet says ALOT to me! I will be a Xen customer as soon as you say it's safe.

Thanks,

Bob

 

[Lawrence]

Bob,

I been "experimenting" a bit with your site, well as much as I can do without asking for CPanel access. I think the white page problem is within one of the header templates, or a plugin (even when disabled plugins are pre-fetched from the database). The reason I think that is I can access your forum/threads/posts by going to: forum/archive/index.php Also, when in the "Archive" I can click PDA, and then Login and a simple login screen appears. Don't click the "Use Full Version" link, it'll switch you back to the normal forum view.

One difference between the archive and normal view is that the archive uses it's own global.php file, and the archive does not preload a bunch of templates, or other files. I'm not sure if viewing the forum in archive mode uses gzip or not (it's an option in the adminCP, and sometimes this causes white pages)

I really can not see a vB file being corrupted as IMO you would have still received a white screen with the new DB, however; that doesn't mean there isn't a JS file, or another file belonging to a product that is there that just wasn't accessed (no 3rd party plugins available to be loaded with a freshly installed DB).

I'll get back to you about importing into XF shortly,

 

[bobs409]

It's crazy! Your leaps and bounds ahead of the help I was getting with VB though.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Did you get any malware warnings now that I removed the IP numbers?

Bob

 

[Lawrence]

My last post originally advised that if you were ready to take the step to switch to XenForo that IMO you should not encounter any problems during the import, as templates, and plugins do not get imported. I edited that out because as I was going through the archive listing, topic 2304 & topic id 7440 caused a white page. The rest of the topics I went through displayed as normal. Did you delete those topics or modify them in any way with the exception of replacing the IP with x's? If not, then there may still be an issue with them, and although that may be unrelated to the white pages you are now receiving, I would rather not take the chance at this point.

If you do not mind, could you give me access to your CPanel (PC me the log-in details)? I don't think there is much more I can do or advise you on without first going through some files and the DB first. If you do not feel comfortable with doing that, then maybe the best step is to try an import into XF, and we will go from there if required. My gut feeling is that no additional steps will be required after the import.

 

[James]

Admin CP -> Plugins & Products -> Manage Products -> Disable
Admin CP -> Plugins & Products -> Plugin Manager (uncheck all plugins to make inactive)

Just for future reference (you probably already know) but there's an option in the vBulletin Options to allow it. I think it's the first option group - Plugin/Hook System.

There's also the $config['misc']['debug'] = true; method.

 

[bobs409]

My last post originally advised that if you were ready to take the step to switch to XenForo that IMO you should not encounter any problems during the import, as templates, and plugins do not get imported. I edited that out because as I was going through the archive listing, topic 2304 & topic id 7440 caused a white page. The rest of the topics I went through displayed as normal. Did you delete those topics or modify them in any way with the exception of replacing the IP with x's? If not, then there may still be an issue with them, and although that may be unrelated to the white pages you are now receiving, I would rather not take the chance at this point.

If you do not mind, could you give me access to your CPanel (PC me the log-in details)? I don't think there is much more I can do or advise you on without first going through some files and the DB first. If you do not feel comfortable with doing that, then maybe the best step is to try an import into XF, and we will go from there if required. My gut feeling is that no additional steps will be required after the import.

Yes, those are the 2 posts I deleted earlier when I first looked in the database. (I regret it now, I should have checked them further) I will send you the log in info you need. Sounds like I may have a "working" forum soon!

Thanks.

 

[Lawrence]

Hi Bob,

I went through your DB and found a couple more links to the Downloader in the post table and the search table. I removed all references to them. It looks like your data is now clean.

WRT the white pages: I checked the error log and on April 22, did you re-upload your vB files on that date (or upgraded to 4.x)? A lot of errors began on that date, and then no more were reported since. It looks to me like the files were not uploaded correctly and when you updated your site, your styles became corrupted. When you switched to the new DB and performed a fresh install, the forum worked, and also all your other non vB php-based scripts in the forum directory executes correctly. So it looks to be corrupted styles, or templates in the DB.

There is also a (unrelated) bug in the 4.1.3 version of functions.php that I discovered. The bug will only appear in certain situations. A call to an undefined function (fetch_phrase). functions_misc.php needs to be loaded for the function fetch_phrase, but when the conditions are not right the functions_misc.php does not get loaded prior the the call to fetch_phrase. I fixed it with adding this directly above the call:

    if (!function_exists('fetch_phrase'))
    {
        require_once(DIR . '/includes/functions_misc.php');
    }

You have 2 options you can do to restore your forum:

First one, is to re-upload your vB files (ensure your FTP program is set for auto detection), and try to run the upgrade script to fix the style issue that may have resulted from a corrupted upload. It may fix it. If not, then you may have to create a new DB, re-install vB and run impex to import your forums/posts/users into the new DB (I'm not sure if impex will import from the latest version of vB into the latest version of vB, you will need to ask on their forum).

Second one, would be to try another forum solution. If you decide on this I do hope you consider XenForo . In case you do decide on XenForo as your forum solution (now, or later down the road), I did run the requirements test and your server meets all the requirements.

 

[Panupat]

From what Lawrence discover, sounds like your forum contents (posts, threads, attachments) are mostly intact. So.... it's there ready for you to convert over

 

[bobs409]

Wow, you've been busy Lawrence!

Some of that goes over my head but as long as you know what it all means.

I did upgrade to VB4 on April 22nd. I think the error messages you saw make sense. When I first uploaded the files, some did not make it and I didn't realize it at the time. I tried to install it and ran into some trouble. I contacted VB support and they told me some files were not uploaded correctly and got me past that part.

Once I reuploaded all the files again, I was able to do the upgrade and it all worked good. Only problem is I still had the malware warnings being reported to me by my users. Can't remember exactly what happened to cause the white pages.

I'm ready to make a forum change. During all of this, I've read alot about VB and didn't care for what I learned. Mostly I did not like how I was left alone with these white screens and NO help other than a referral to thier standard white page faq section. They sure didn't go out of their way like you and the Xen folks did.

I liked VB prior to this but all good things must come to an end they say.

I'm going to purchase Xen now and see what kind of trouble I can get into installing it.

Thanks for all you've done. When someone asks me how support is on Xen, they better be ready for the long version!

Bob

 

[Steve10]

Once you've got Xenforo I'm pretty sure even more people here will start to help you. The technical expertise here is immense and I think from what I've seen people leave this forum a lot more content then when they joined.

 

[bobs409]

Well, it's official. I'm now a Xen customer.

I've already installed it and right now I'm backing up my entire site before using the vb4 importer.

Not sure how long that will take but I suspect a good while. I'll update this when I know more.

Bob

 

[borbole]

Well, it's official. I'm now a Xen customer.

I've already installed it and right now I'm backing up my entire site before using the vb4 importer.

Not sure how long that will take but I suspect a good while. I'll update this when I know more.

Bob

Welcome to xenforo Bob

When you perform an import, the source forum, i.e. vb in this case, won't be affected at all btw. But it pays to be prudent and do a backup before any major change.

 

[Paul B]

Welcome aboard Bob.

Here's the relevant section of the Help Manual in case you weren't already aware: http://xenforo.com/help/importing/

 

[Nasr]

wow

This thread brought tears to my eyes. lol

 

[Fufu]

You truly are amazing Lawrence. 謝謝！

Well, it's official. I'm now a Xen customer.

I've already installed it and right now I'm backing up my entire site before using the vb4 importer.

Not sure how long that will take but I suspect a good while. I'll update this when I know more.

Bob

歡迎！

wow

This thread brought tears to my eyes. lol

I happy Lawrence fixed bobs409's nightmare and bobs409 is now a xenFan.

 

[James]

It's nice to not see people assuming the only solution is to move software. People here have a genuine interest in helping people across any platform, it's good to see.

Well done Lawrence

 

[Lawrence]

Well, it's official. I'm now a Xen customer.

I've already installed it and right now I'm backing up my entire site before using the vb4 importer.

Not sure how long that will take but I suspect a good while. I'll update this when I know more.

Bob

Congrats, Bob! I'm very happy by your choice and I am sure you will be as well.

If you do not mind, I would like to hold on to your CPanel log-in details until your import is completed. Once your forum has been imported and you are happy I'll delete the log-in details.

 

[bobs409]

That's fine Lawrence and a good idea! I may need you in there again!

I'm better than 1/2 way through the database backup. File is 1324 MB's!

Bob

 

[Lawrence]

I just checked your site and see you have XenForo up and running with your DB imported, excellent job!

You will need to go through your forum list (in AdminCP) and remove the redundant Categories (the blank category headings), and then set the view permissions for attachments if you want guests to view them.

Again, great job, Bob. If you have any questions, or need assistance, I am just a PC away,