XenForo Redirects for vBulletin 1.1.9

[Dragonfruit]

Thanks, it is a benefit because you are no longer dependent on the Redirects plugin. Or, for example, if you want to migrate from Xenforo to some other forum software like Discourse, the old dead links from vbulletin will still be there.
So it would be quite logical to transfer those links to xenforo links, instead of dragging them in the content of the forum.

Sounds like a problem for Discourse to support vBulletin redirects then.

 

[zaja]

Well, sounds like a problem for me, not Discourse.

 

[Dragonfruit]

Well, sounds like a problem for me, not Discourse.

You're free to commission someone like @MySiteGuy to help you fix everything if you really feel it's going to be that much trouble for you.

 

[MySiteGuy]

Thanks, it is a benefit because you are no longer dependent on the Redirects plugin. Or, for example, if you want to migrate from Xenforo to some other forum software like Discourse, the old dead links from vbulletin will still be there.
So it would be quite logical to transfer those links to xenforo links, instead of dragging them in the content of the forum.

It not as simple as the picture you paint.

If a forums has:

a) Any pages in any search engine, one crawl from them with the plugin is not enough. Search engines like Google and Bing will periodically recheck those old URLs. If the redirects are gone, you risk losing page rank and page authority for those pages. I have seen Google recheck old page URLs more than a decade after they've changed URLs

b) Any other sites with links to your forum, without the redirects those links will lead to 404 missing error pages.

Both of those are more important than internal content redirects since they drive traffic to the site. There is zero downside to using the plugin. It has no measurably significant overhead.

I urge you not to remove the plugin whether or not you change internal links.

 

[shqawe]

How can i login to my vbulletin 5 forum after install this addon because when i'm trying to login to vbulletin forum it's redirect it me to xenforo even after i desable this addon.

Any help in this issue.

 

[Martyn]

How can i login to my vbulletin 5 forum after install this addon because when i'm trying to login to vbulletin forum it's redirect it me to xenforo even after i desable this addon.

Any help in this issue.

maybe

https://<domain>/forum/admin.php?setup/ ?

 

[MySiteGuy]

How can i login to my vbulletin 5 forum after install this addon because when i'm trying to login to vbulletin forum it's redirect it me to xenforo even after i desable this addon.

Any help in this issue.

You login where you put vBulletin. You should have moved vB to another directory if you intended to redirect it's directory.

 

[shqawe]

maybe

https://<domain>/forum/admin.php?setup/ ?

Unfortunately it doesn't work

You login where you put vBulletin. You should have moved vB to another directory if you intended to redirect it's directory.

My vB is already in another directory but i think the problem is because xenforo is in public_html and vB in same directory.

So what i think about is to move vB directory in subdomain and give it try.

 

[Dragonfruit]

My vB is already in another directory but i think the problem is because xenforo is in public_html and vB in same directory.

So what i think about is to move vB directory in subdomain and give it try.

Yes, having it in a completely different domain folder, would make the biggest difference. Just name it vbulletin.yourwebsite.com, and password lock the folder so that only you can access it.

 

[Andrus]

Question. I had a coder migrate my site from vB to Xenforo about 6 years ago. I note that there have been updates to Redirects for vBulletin since. Do I need to update to the latest version, or is that unnecessary? I still have v1.1.1 installed in my addons, and when I asked the fellow that handled the migration if I should uninstall it he told me not to.

 

[Mr Lucky]

when I asked the fellow that handled the migration if I should uninstall it he told me not to

I think you need that in place it will be needed to redirect any external links still there but I would keep it up to date.

 

[robmon]

I have inherited the running of a very out of date vB forum and XF seems to be the obvious choice for migration rather than upgrade. I have very limited access to the OS on the vB server but have a recent SQL dump of the forum DB to test with.
I've run a test import from vB3.8 to XF2.2 on a new VPS, and all appears good in terms of content with a 'naked' XF install.

(I would have liked to be able to automatically move the entire old forum into a read-only archive node, since the old forum had been allowed to grow organically into a disorganised mess over a couple of decades and a fresh start is on the cards. I will move all the imported top level nodes to "archive" later, and then create the new planned forum structure/node tree around it.)

Following the import I installed the redirects add-on and pointed it at the import log table.

For now, the old vB installation is still live at www.domainname/forum/ and the new XF installation is currently at test.domainname/forum/
I'm trying to test everything works and test banner manager, styles/theme etc. so that I can plan a set of migration tasks before pulling the plug on the old forum and know what sort of downtime it will incur.

I tried copying a google search link for a post, editing "www" to "test" in a text editor, and pasting into my browser, I get an apache 404 error.

The vB link is for eg.

www.domainname/forum/showthread.php?t=12345

Whereas the post imported to XF eg.

test.domainname/forum/index.php?threads/thread-title.12345

So the import has maintained the numbering of threads but redirection doesn't work.

I tried editing my (local PC) hosts file to point DNS to "test" when I type "www", in case there's something
going on with apache's URL rewrite/XF's index.php I didn't understand but get the same result.

I also tried appending the thead title in the format

www.domainname/forum/showthread.php?t=12345-thread-title

in case this was messing up the redirection, even though I never see thread title in vBulletin URLs, same 404 result.

I realised that the import redirect's index.php uses local directory path rather than URL which is different on the new VPS, so I followed the instructions in import notes to copy htaccess.txt to .htaccess and index.php from XF301VB to install root and edited it to reflect eg.

/var/www/domainname/public_html/forum

rather than eg.

/home/user/public_html/forum

I still got a 404 error, subsequently XF lost all it's formatting and I reverted to the original files. I also got an 'automatic file health check' notification from XF.

I've also checked the member list and vB shows eg

domainname/forum/member.php?u=987

XF shows eg

domainname/forum/index.php?members/name.987

again numbering has been maintained but redirection isn't working and I get 404

Server error log (XF admin panel) shows nothing at all.
Apache error log shows /full_path/forum/showthread.php or member.php not found.
Am I missing something obvious? Where should I be looking next?
Sorry, I'm not a web developer and I'm starting to feel a bit out of my depth here.

vB is v3.8.3
XF is v2.2.15
import add-on is v1.5.3
redirects add-on 1.1.9
Nothing else has been installed on XF
Both old and new Servers are running Apache, although different flavours of Linux and PHP/MySQL versions. mod rewrite is enabled.

New VPS is running Ubuntu Server 22.04 LTS, Apache2.4.52, MariaDB 10.6.16, PHP 8.2.15

 

[avalanch]

I have my xenforo installed to:
www.vgcheat.com
while my old forum (was vb4.2.3) is at
www.vgcheat.com/forum

On this step what is the correct "dir" to input for the xenforo installation since it is a level above it?

Simply replace the value of $dir with the full path to your XenForo directory, so that the script knows where to find your XenForo installation, then save the file.
Also this old vbulletin that I replaced was running dbseo (dragonbyte seo)