Importing data from one vanilla install to another etc..

blizeH

Long story short: Hosting went down for a bit, I got some new hosting thinking we'd lost everything on the old server, created a new Vanilla board with posts etc, but since then we've retreieved the database from the old forum, is there anyway to import all of the posts, users etc into the new one so we don't lose any posts etc?

I know it'd be messy but I don't know what else to do.

Also, we've now got two boards running but I'd ideally like to keep the old one there but inactive if possible, can I do this? Just a line of code that'll mean people can't see topics etc?

Ta

blizeH

Bump, please guys? Anyway to import the threads, users etc?

hutstein

I think you need to look who of the old users have already registered at the new board and import the users from the old board. Now every user has a new UserID and you have to import all the things from the comments and discussions and replace the UserID's manually by search and replace.

blizeH

Ah I see, so there's no way of doing it so the old stuff won't overwrite the new stuff then? Short of doing it manually of course (which would no doubt take weeks to transfer countless comments, discussions and users)

jsanders

for keeping the older board active but not, just set the permissions on the user roles so that no one can edit (or see) the categories on the board.

blizeH

But then can't people who aren't signed in still see stuff?

jsanders

people who aren't logged in inherit the permissions of one of the other roles. it's either guest or banned, i can't remember off the top of my head. but you can edit those permissions as well, and restrict them down to whatever.

jakob_r

I'm sure you could merge the database tables without having to copy post for post but it'd still be a manual affair. New and old, are they different versions of Vanilla? If the new forum is brand new, you may find it less work to simply sacrifice the new threads, or to copy the handful of new threads and reenter them.

BTW: the title you gave the thread is a little misleading – it looks to the outside world like a big problem with vanilla, but it's a problem you're having with your particular setup.

blizeH

Okay I'm completely confused now ;-)

I've got that sorted now though I think jsanders, as soon as I've sorted this I'll get onto changing the permissions..

But how exactly would I go about merging them then? I've got the database here as an sql file,would I just have to copy and paste the entries into the new one or...?

The old board was 0.9.2, the new one is the 1.0 pre-release thing.

Apologies for the topic, I've edited it now.

blizeH

Please?

Mark

I haven't read the whole thread - just the first post - My answer is that the easiest way to "archive" your old forum would be to take the old forum and database and install them on your server in a folder called "archive" or something like that. Then, assuming that you are the only one in an admin role, remove sign-in permissions on all other roles besides your admin role. Then make it open to the public. Your users won't be able to interact with the old posts in any way, and their old statistics still will not reflect in the new database either, but at least they'll be able to browse it. You will also want to make sure that the cookie names are different on the old forum as opposed to the new one, or they will be signed out when trying to browse the old archived version. The preferred method, I'm sure, would be to import all of the old posts into the new database (or vice versa), but that is a big task since all of the identifiers on all tables would have to change, and therefore there would be a big process involved in making sure that references to those ids from other tables get updated as well.

blizeH

Ahh many thanks for the comprehensive reply Mark, the archive thing sounded fantastic and would of required minimal work, luckily though minisweeper went through it with me last night and he's done a great job of getting the old threads back and onto the new board, we lost a lot of the new stuff but it's not too important anyway, it's better to lose two days than it is to lose six months :) Thanks again