I've tried to use the search here, but I can't seem to find all the answers I need. I'm hoping you guys/gals can help a fellow UBB'er (UBB.Classic Gold License Holder) with some input.

Background

I currently run UBB.Classic 6.7.3. The forum has been running UBB since 2002 and I have the following stats:

149,862 Topics
1,111,012 Total Posts
11,112 Total Members
60+ Forums

http://www.ffcobra.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi

I have no software skills. Installing UBB.Classic and doing upgrades is about my limit. Forget getting me to figure out MySQL or setting that up.

My server runs on Apache and it has MySQL and PHP installed. I will try to find out what versions, but I would assume they are the latest since I pay for a dedicated server with a big hosting company.

My Goals:

I have had very little trouble running UBB.Classic over the past 4 years and UBB's customer service has been great. But I have a big concern about the future. I don't want to be running software that is no longer being developed and supported.

The flat files used to cause us trouble and my server has been acting up the past few days. The CPU usage is running at 90-100%, where it normally should run at 20-25%.

I had a friend who would go into the server and delete some files and rebuild the forum and then everything would run fast again. He's not helping anymore, so when the site slows to a crawl, I don't have a clue of what to do.

Switching to a database driven site makes good sense. But I have to be very careful before making big changes. I have been looking at VB and others, but UBB has always been good for me, hence, the questions below.


General Questions:

1.) Does anyone know which files need to be deleted and rebuilt with UBB.Classic starts to tax the server CPU? I seem to remember it had something to do with the files becoming too large.

2.) A few years ago, it looked like UBB was going to die. Infopop changed their name and tried to push the Groupie thing. At that time I talked to several people at Infopop and they indicated they might have a new down-loadable forum soon.

I assume that this didn't happen and instead UBB.threads is the newest and best down-loadable forum from Infopop/Groupie? Is that correct?

3.) Will UBB.threads be developed and have a long life?

4.) For those of you who used to run Classic, how do you like Threads?

5.) What features do you lose by switching from Classic to Threads?

6.) How stable has Threads been so far?

7.) Are there any security issues with Threads?


Installation Questions:

1.) OK, so I'm no software expert. The MySQL things is really the main thing that worries me. So what would it cost to have someone install it for me? And what about the cost for uploading my classic data?

2.) Once installed, how long does it take to export my files from Classic to Threads? I've read some horror stories on this site and I can't afford to be down for more the 4 to 6 hours in the middle of the night.

3.) What's the best way to export without down time?

4.) Can I have Threads look exactly like Classic? My members are used to the "look and feel" of my site and if they detect any changes, it will cause trouble.

5.) I use HTML in the header and footer, can I do the same thing with Threads? You can see my site here: http://www.ffcobra.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi

6.) I don't need a calender, shout box, portal, etc. So do I have to use these things?

7.) I noticed the fonts on this site are hard to read, so can I set the fonts to match my current site?


Post Install Questions

1.) Will my members be logged in when they go to the new site? Or will their cookie not work and have to log in? The reason I ask is because I have 11,000+ members and if they are not automatically logged in, they may not know their passwords and it could be a nightmare for me.

2.) What happens to the linked pages? My site has many cross linked pages. Since Classic would be turned off, would this create a bunch of dead pages?

3.) What happens to the Google pages linked to my Classic pages? Will there search results go to dead pages? Or even closed topics? I would rather they go directly to the new live pages.

4.) What will be the biggest list of complaints from members who have been switched to threads from classic? You know people hate changes, so what will they b**ch about the most?

5.) Are there any limits to Threads? I have a busy forum with hundreds of new posts a day. We average 1 new post every 2 minutes. Will there be any file limits?

6.) Classic had become very stable at the end of its life. It seems like Threads 7 is in the middle of the development cycle, so what teething pains are they having?


Honest Answers Needed

1.) OK, so if you had a forum that generated a pretty good income, would you mess with the formula that has worked well for 4 years and switch to a new platform? Or would you just stick it out with 'ol trusty classic?

2.) If you were me, would you look at any other forum software? I know I'll get biased questions here, but what do you really think?

3.) Do you trust the company will continue to develop threads? I have little trust in UBB because of how they waffled on down-loadable forums. I still don't know if they are committed, so what do you think?

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this long post.

- Bill

Reading this, I know most of the questions were directed at current users and those that have switched from classic. So I'll let some of them answer and then I'll try and fill in any of the holes

I'll take a run at some of these. My answers are in bold, omitting the questions I didn't have a good answer for.


Rember: PHP 4+, MySQL 4+

General Questions:

2.) A few years ago, it looked like UBB was going to die. Infopop changed their name and tried to push the Groupie thing. At that time I talked to several people at Infopop and they indicated they might have a new down-loadable forum soon.

I assume that this didn't happen and instead UBB.threads is the newest and best down-loadable forum from Infopop/Groupie? Is that correct?
UBB.threads 7.0 replaces both UBB.classic and UBB.threads v6. Threads 7 is the ONLY downloadable being developed with Rick at the helm

3.) Will UBB.threads be developed and have a long life?
Unless Rick gets hit by a bus tomorrow....

4.) For those of you who used to run Classic, how do you like Threads?
That depends on the point of view and what features you valued. Personally I'm satisfied, but I just need to tear myself away from my schoolwork and figure out how to do external authentication (Hint Hint Rick - Authentication APIs)

5.) What features do you lose by switching from Classic to Threads?
User Notes for sure. I can't remember the rest right off - I've been using Threads 7 too long

6.) How stable has Threads been so far?
I participated in the Private Alpha and it has been stable

7.) Are there any security issues with Threads?
Currently, there are no security issues that I am aware of. I tried to do stupid stuff during the alpha to break things and get around security


Installation Questions:

1.) OK, so I'm no software expert. The MySQL things is really the main thing that worries me. So what would it cost to have someone install it for me? And what about the cost for uploading my classic data?
The cost depends on whether you have Groupee do it, or if you hire someone from the boards. A few of the moderators here are available for hire

2.) Once installed, how long does it take to export my files from Classic to Threads? I've read some horror stories on this site and I can't afford to be down for more the 4 to 6 hours in the middle of the night.

That depends on the amount of data and the speed of the server

3.) What's the best way to export without down time?
It is not possible to migrate without downtime, unless you are OK with losing some posts in the transition. You could possibly cause a corruption issue on your classic board if you try to import without closing it.

4.) Can I have Threads look exactly like Classic? My members are used to the "look and feel" of my site and if they detect any changes, it will cause trouble.
The sidebars and threaded mode are optional. The top and bottom navigations bars IMO, are better than both classic and threads

5.) I use HTML in the header and footer, can I do the same thing with Threads? You can see my site here: http://www.ffcobra.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi
This is possible


6.) I don't need a calender, shout box, portal, etc. So do I have to use these things?
No, the features are optional

7.) I noticed the fonts on this site are hard to read, so can I set the fonts to match my current site?
This hasn't changed. You can customize colors and fonts using the CP Style Editor


Post Install Questions

1.) Will my members be logged in when they go to the new site? Or will their cookie not work and have to log in? The reason I ask is because I have 11,000+ members and if they are not automatically logged in, they may not know their passwords and it could be a nightmare for me.
New software = new cookies, so yes they will have to login again

2.) What happens to the linked pages? My site has many cross linked pages. Since Classic would be turned off, would this create a bunch of dead pages?
There are redirect scripts provided in the importers

5.) Are there any limits to Threads? I have a busy forum with hundreds of new posts a day. We average 1 new post every 2 minutes. Will there be any file limits?
Threads uses MySQL database, so you are limited by MySQL, not the number of files.

I'm not sure that any files would need to be deleted specifically that would tax the server; I mean sure a popular thread getting indexed may, but purging it is just asking for SE content to go bye bye.

UBB.threads has been here for about as long as UBB.Classic and I expect it to last quite a bit longer (especially with Rick on staff).

I for one enjoy threads, it's got a good solid feature set and runs a hell of a lot faster than my ubb.classic.

Most of the alpha testers where UBB.Classic users, so just about any feature we could think of that we all used was requested to be in UBB.threads.

Threads has been a whole hell of a lot more kind on my server than classic ever was lol...

No, no security issues with UBB.Threads7.

MyQL should already be on your server; and if you're wanting upgrades there are several of us UBBDevers who do such upgrades (myself, allen ayres, ian spence, etc); this includes importing from ubb.c to the new product. Additionally, Infopop also does imports.

They're not so much horror stories as they are truths, keep in mind you're migrating data from one product to another, it'd be no differant if you where doing it with a competing product. The migration takes time, and will take a couple of hours to complete. Your best bet is turning off your .c forums and then beginning the import, sometimes its a couple hours, sometimes its more... pay no attention to my horror story as i'm on a shared system and its constantly b0ged.

There is no way to export without downtime. The processing is live, which simply means it pulls data from your forum while its running; you don't wnat users to make new accounts or adjustments to posts or their profile while you're importing as it would cause the import to not be "up to par".

Through customization you can make threds look like classic; feel free to look at my forum as i got ultra bored one night... http://www.undergroundnews.com

Yes you can use html in your head and footer.

You can disable any feature you don't want, in fact you can ultimately clone your .classic look (as in no sidebars and colors).

You can adjust the fonts and everything on your site, UBB.threads uses CSS for just about everything.

No they will not be logged in at the new site, differant cookies, differant product; they should know their passwords as it won't change from .c to .t.

UBB.Thread's importer comes with a redirector for ubb.c (in fact i and several others required it due to SE rankings)

see above for google linking.

uhmmm they'll bitch that you didn't upgrade sooner because ubb.c is a bloathog lol...

you should be well fine on posting that fast.

Again, UBB.threads has been here almost as long as UBB.C; it's a long long long established product.

I'd move to .threads, I don't make a good income wiht my site ($200/2 months) so i'm always playing around...

I wouldn't look at other software, especailly since you have a gold license (you do know you get FREE access to UBB.threads with current member area access right?)

i think UBB will be here for quite a while, its been here thus far, no reason to see that changing.

Thanks for taking the time to go through these questions. This is great info.

- Bill

One thing about the import time. Unfortunately there is no way around the fact that at the number of posts you have it's going to take quite awhile. I did an import a couple of days ago that had about 700,000 posts and it took around 16 hours to import everything.

Going from classic takes quite some time because it has to read and parse every single flat file, so it can be slow going. It's a symptom of the whole flat file thing.

So that's the $100 answer to my question. Since I have 1.1 million posts, it could take 30+ hours. That answers my question about switching. I can't afford to be off-line for 30-hours. So I need to find another solution.

I'm stuck with UBB.Classic or need to find a way to migrate to software that won't have over a 6 or 7 hour down time to switch.

- Bill

Migrating that amount of posts to anything is going to take awhile since it's limited by how fast it can read and parse the flat files. There is one option you could do if you have the hard drive space. You could close your forums long enough to basically make a copy of them. Reopen them, letting everyone know that anything posted after that point will not be in the new software. Then you can run the import tool on the backup copy. So your users could continue to use the forums while you were importing.

That might be a good option. At least the guys could still use the site and if I did the change over on the weekend, only a few hundred posts per day would be lost.

Thanks,

- Bill

a good thing to keep on mind is that reguardless of the forum software you will be running, it will require the same tpe of import and the times would be nearly identicle

I very much doubt it would take you 30hrs plus - I recently did a test with 950K and it took around 11 or 12 hours. An overnight transfer would be fine, and that was with an active server including the forum being online. (I used a copy database.)

I can understand where some of your questions has come from. I have been running threads for over 5 years, previous to that I was running ubb (which then became ubb classic).

If it is still required I will do a full answer later today

Ian, keep in mind that a UBB.Threads6 -> UBB.Threads7 migration will be much faster than a UBB.Classic6 -> UBB.Threads7 migration due to UBB.threads not using flat files in the first place

Can't you just setup a 2nd database instance and run your conversion from that. You could do things I have in the past and create a 2nd instance of your DB. Copy all the DB files from the current production instance to that 2nd instance. This will allow you to call that 2nd instance (it has it's own user name and pw) completely autonomous from your production site.

You then create a 3rd instance to receive all of the converted database files of which you will make the primary site when completed and tested. You can suspend posting via security for a a while and still allow access browsing of the original production site while all this is going on.

Once things are tested then you can cut over to the new site easily.

Just a thought. Your hands aren't really that tied. I am sure you can get the host to help out with the initial copy of your production DB to the secondary instance. Worst case you can sqldump the production DB and import it into the 2nd instance DB as well. Embrace this change as I know you immediately benefit from it. I wouldn't fear the process.

I guarantee the process will be much more obtrusive using a non UBBThreads software. I can also guarantee you will lose information during that non UBB conversion process.

I would hate to see you move to lesser boards. I get nothing for saying this and I have purchased and have owned the other products. You're with number 1 in my mind right now.

Yes but no one knows this data model conversion better then Rick.

Sure there are, how about the people who sat for weeks testing the importers again, and again, and again, and again.... and again...

LOL Gizmo do you ever sleep

Sleep is for the weak...

I think you guys are great. This is why I love UBB (Infopop, Groupie etc). The community thinks more logical about things and helps each other come up with solutions.

Keep the comments coming... I guess now we're trying to figure out how to get me moved to Threads without much downtime. The solution is not going to be easy and I'm not technical enough to do it, so once a solution has been decided on, who should I hire to make the move?

Thanks,

- Bill

To make you move? I can grab a bamboo rod and ducktape you to a wall if thats all it takes :x...

Though if you're looking for someone to do a migration for you theres plenty of us alpha/private beta testers who've done a ton of migrations (myself, Allen Ayres, IanSpence, etc)).

Point taken

I would like to point out that the UBB.classic -> Threads 7 importer is far superior to any of the others.

Of course.

Duah, its had like 80x more testing :X