Forum module: Discussion thread for converting PHPBB data

Are you looking for convert an entire PHPBB forum or do you just want to import the members?

We want to migrate the whole website (including forums) to the EE framework. We have a PHPBB install with 20k members and 190k posts. I was looking for a solution to migrate the PHPBB forums and got to this forum thread.

The following parts are mission critical:

• forum structure
• user list
• avatars
• posts

Following would be “good to have”:

• private messages
• polls (we don’t have much)

We’re not using file attachments.

Thanks.

Wow, that is a big forum. As you might have noticed this thread is getting a little dated. The code that I started with is gathering dust in the corner of the room. Others have popped into this thread and have talked about their own efforts but they seem to have dropped off as well. There is no way that anyone could say if such a migration tool will ever see the light of day. I asked what you wanted to migrate because a member migration tool is already available in EE.

That said, every person that asks for a PHPBB to EE migration tool keeps the idea alive and might motivate someone to get the project finished. I might dust off the code myself but there are certainly no guarantees.

Seems like a hack job to me then. Where do I find this member migration tool?

Admin -> Utilities -> Import utilities -> Member import utility

This would be quite the hack job. There has been a few people that have expressed interest in putting something like this together but I have yet to see anyone do so with success.

The following parts are mission critical: - forum structure - user list - avatars - posts Following would be “good to have”: - private messages - polls (we don’t have much)

With the solution from “Sam Gentle” a few posts above this one, I was able to migrate most of your things succesfully. Since I’m not ‘live’ yet with the new forum, I’m still looking for some improvements on the instructions from Sam Gentle.

At least your mission critical items can be migrated to EE without a lot of problems. Just don’t forget that EE doesn’t allow “remote avatars”. So if you use only remote avatars (as I do) you will lose them all. But the forum structure, user list, and posts are no problem. And they were critical to me.

There’s just one annoying thing though. If you follow Sam Gentle’s instruction you will end up with each thread starting with two posts from the same author. The first is only used for the title of the thread and the second post will have the body. This is because phpBB stores posts, threads and bodies in 3 different table where EE only uses two.

Nevertheless, I believe it should be possible to integrate these as well. I just don’t know how. Since I’ll be coming to the USofA for a vacation I won’t be able to work a lot on this, but I’ll try to follow this thread and try to help wherever I can. But I’m not a programmer, so I wonder how much I can do…

I don’t think the migration would be worth it unless (A) you know exactly what you are doing or (B) someone comes up with a method that goes to the last mile.

I doubt the issue is as simple as you have explained Ronny, As much of a pain as the posts might be dealing with the thread data strung throughout a bunch of tables I think this is still one of the easier problems to deal with. You still have to deal with differences in BBCode, links that users have posted between threads, and a bunch of other things that I am not thinking of right now. You also have the logistical difficulty of dealing with a forum with 190K forum posts. This is a HUGE set of data. You can’t just open a SQL dump that large into just any editor and start changing things. You will need to write REGEX statements that can go through and do some conversions to the data.

No doubt the migration would be a walk in the park for some people, but you need to know what you are doing and you need to know how to write a series of scripts for the migration. I would rather keep a working PHPBB forum than get a trashed EE forum. The bottom line is you have a complete solution or you have nothing.

We’ve decided on the EE framework, so we must figure out a way to migrate the forum to EE. I was just hoping it will be painless since PHPBB is a major.

If the migration process was simple the developers would have already come up with a solution. The problem is there are many forum packages out there and they are all being upgraded at various times. If you develop a script for one, you have to develop a script for all the other major packages. Keeping up with all the changes on all the major forum scripts and to ensure they are well tested would be extremely difficult. Keep in mind the EE development team is very small. For the longest time the team was just two people, and one of those guys had a business to run (the CEO of pMachine) on top of development. I understand your need to migrate but I just want to shoot down any myths that the process is easy.

Your best bet would be to look through the professional network to hire someone to do this correctly.

No worries, we’re fine as long as there is no nuke coming over. 😉

Is there a documentation of some sort on the EE forum tables?

No worries, we’re fine as long as there is no nuke coming over. 😉 Is there a documentation of some sort on the EE forum tables?

If you are familiar with database software such as MySQL then the layout is pretty straightforward. Try looking at Admin -> Utilities -> Sql Manager -> Manage Database Tables. You are looking for anything that starts out _forum.

Heh, that nuke news is nice to wake up to huh? Crazy stuff going on.

Hey Folks;

I just wanted to poke my head into this. I’ll be the first to say that when someone starts saying “cut and paste in Excell” …. my eyes glaze over. Especially when you’re dealing with about 15,000 users and endless topics and posts.

I am converting an entire web site I have to Expression Engine from PostNuke. It doesn’t look like it will be all that painful - but it will take some time. My version of PostNuke is using a modified phpBB to handle the forum. I am converting to Expression Engine because I use it at my job and I’m becoming quite proficient at understanding it.

This weekend I am going to begin working on a converstion script for my web site. I am willing to share it as I work on it - but understand that I cannot speak as to which exact version of PHPBB I am using since it’s kinda folded into PostNuke.

The web site I am converting is http://www.playmyth.net

The process of converting the entire site is going to take several months - but the forum is a make or break kinda thing.

Anyway, I welcome thoughts, I’ll keep this bookmarked and will be checking back in over time.

Thanks; Michael

Heh, you are right about that. I started it quite some time ago and I have since joined the support staff. I have seen many people come to this thread with the ambition to make the transformation but I have never seen anyone do it right. There are alot of very easy steps with a handful of much more difficult steps. The easy steps seem to lure people in and they get blindsinded by the harder stuff that comes down the pipe.

That said, I now know quite a bit more about MySQL and PHP since I last attempted this so those harder steps may not be that bad now.

Heh, you are right about that. I started it quite some time ago and I have since joined the support staff. I have seen many people come to this thread with the ambition to make the transformation but I have never seen anyone do it right. There are alot of very easy steps with a handful of much more difficult steps. The easy steps seem to lure people in and they get blindsinded by the harder stuff that comes down the pipe. That said, I now know quite a bit more about MySQL and PHP since I last attempted this so those harder steps may not be that bad now.

Well, I’m not saying it will happen today or tomorrow or even in the next week, but I am going to go down this road. I find a measured approach as opposed to an ambitious one means you can adapt to the unexpected without getting as discouraged 😊