Old Forum migration

Had some real fun moving the topics and posts from the old 1.3 version of the IPB software to the latest version.

was well pleased when I actually managed to get it all working.

Anyone thinking of doing the same it is not too bad once you work it all out.

I transferred the members table over, but every member will require to request a new password. Then I found that I could use the old passwords stored in the original database to authenticate. Works a treat

The migrated the topics and posts over. The new IPB doesnt have categories, so I had to do some jiggerypockery with the SQL to create my own parent topics which were based upon the categories

( I wish I had saved all the steps as could write a convertor fairly easily now I have done the task once. )

The structure of the old 1,3 database and the latest database though has not changed that dramatically, therefore it is fairly straightforward.

Once I had all my categories amended so that they were loaded as Topics with a parent = -1 and the topics within each category were amended so the parent = new topic created from the category.

I loaded all the Posts and all seemed to work but profile lists werent showing posts made by the members.

Then found this was related to the last_posted,last_visited dates ( I had neglected to copy these over ). Ran some more sql and copied over and members listings then worked.

Then realised everyone had no post counts, so copied these over, only to find the tool that did the task for me.

Still getting there. - Just need to set a date to switch over the old forum ( ie. Switch it off and make everyone use the new one )