Problem with new database

[cragtay]

My forum has been online for 1 year. In that period, I installed some mods, hacks, plugins, etc. and edited the style (not default style of vbulletin, and I can't remember all changed things).

Now I want to change to another style and don't want to use some mods any more. In general, I want to make a new, fresh forum but keep the users, forums, threads and posts which have been in my current forum.

I can uninstall some mods which I don't want, and install a new style to current forum. However, it is like when you uninstall a software from Windows: the uninstall process is not completely remove all things. There will have some files, settings, etc. left in the OS.

I think that I will install VBB again, install a new style and import some necessary tables of the current database to the new database, and I will have a new interface for the forum while keeping users, forums, threads and posts. Is it possible? If yes, what are the necessary tables?

I need your help.

[Dismounted]

You can use ImpEx to perform vBulletin to vBulletin imports.

[cragtay]

Thank you for your suggestion. Actually, it is really excellent tool. It can solve my problem. And I have lost one day with it to transfer "clear" data from the current database to new database. The problem is that my forum has over 320.000 threads and 1.4 million posts (the size of my .sql file is 2.5 GB). When I used the import script, it made my server high load and the import process was interrupted several times (some Internal Error messages appeared). When I clicked to Import link again, it resumed the process, but when it finished, there were some failed cases. Importing posts and threads took the most time. I’d not like to wait for one day more with carefully supervision every minute and click Import again whenever the script dies. I have shell access to the server, and I think that PHP script is not a good choice for large database. Is there any way of using shell instead of PHP script?

[Marco van Herwaarden]

See the manual on Medium / Large imports (http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/med_large_import)

[cragtay]

Edited. I will update here when I finish the import following the manual.

[cragtay]

Oh my god, it is a terrible nightmare :(

I increased the settings about memory in php.ini and my.cnf and I reduce the number of import items per cycle. At last, I finished all the modules successfully after 20 hours, even though there are some crashes. When I log in to AdminCP to do some Final Import Steps as said in the manual, I can't access
Admin CP -> Forums & Moderators -> Show All Moderators -> Edit
and
Admin CP -> Forums & Moderators -> Forum Permissions

I click to Forum manager and see only 2 default ones: Main Category and Main Forum.

And the nightmare happens when I go to my current forum, and there is some errors. Some posts and threads are displayed normally, and some ones disappeared. What's happened? What's wrong? How to fix it?

Please help me :(

[Marco van Herwaarden]

You are not supposed to click on the Forum Manager. ;)

[cragtay]

Permissions

Always check the permissions of moderators and forums after an import as there may not be a one to one mapping from the source boards permissions to vBulletin's permissions system.

Admin CP -> Forums & Moderators -> Show All Moderators -> Edit

Admin CP -> Forums & Moderators -> Forum Permissions

Forum cache

To rebuild the forum cache so your imported forums appear, go to your forum manager and save the display.

After the first 2 steps, Forum manager is the third step.

[Marco van Herwaarden]

Sorry you are already a step further then i thought. And what happens after you click on save in the Forum Manager?

[cragtay]

Nothing happens. It is same. Main Forum and Main Category.

The usergroup system is also strange. All usergroups from the old database have the prefix ImpEx - at the beginning after import.

[Marco van Herwaarden]

And forums have been imported?

I think it might be faster to open a support ticket so someone can actually have a look at your system to see what is wrong.