UBB.threads PHP Forum Software Community Forums Resources and Customizing How Do I? Guys please forgive me if this in the wrong forum

I am new to all of this forum stuff, so please bear with me. A few of my buddies and I are interested in starting our own forum. I have purchased a domain name and have used freeforum.org to set up a temporary site for users to post. It is fine for now, but I was thinking why not go ahead and do the ubb thing and it will not be a hassle later on down the road. I am thinking about purchasing the 199.00 ubb, with 1 year of upgrades. My question is, how hard is it gonna be for me to swap all of the threads I have now over to the new ubb board? Would it be better if I purchased the 199.00 install as well? How long will I be down, is this a simple matter of me telling the installers what I want and the presto it is done? I am sorry for the lack of knowledge here guys, any help would be greatly appreciated.........Blake

The install fee is only applicable should you not want to install the forum by yourself, it's not that difficult. An alternative would be to hire a 'dev guy (such as me, allen ayres, etc) to install it for you as well.

As for the turnaround, I'm unsure with groupee's side of things, I believe it'd likely be a couple of days to roll it out.

As for your current data, I'd love to see if you're running the only supporter forum we allow imports from (phpbb) however I don't read chinese and thus cannot decypher your site...

Thanks for the info, I am sure that I could get it transfered with the help of my IT guys at work. I am not sure what you mean about groupee's side of things, nor do I understand your last paragraph, but I appreciate the help.........Blake

You said you run your current forum through freeforum.org, their site is in chinese, I do not read chinese.

The only "working" importer that's out *right now* is from PHPBB, so if you want to import what you currently have to the UBB, you'd have to be running that. As i cannot read chinese, and i don't have your url, i tried the best I could to identify what forum solution you're using right now, which isn't possible since again I don't read chinese.

As for the "groupee side of things" comment, Groupee is the owner of the UBB, if you pay for installation from them, they'd be the ones to do it; as I'm not employed by Groupee, I can only make assumptions on their turnaround time, hence me referencing any work they'd do as "the groupee side of things".

The link you provided was to lots of chinese, so we can't really have a look at what forum you are running, and if an import 'out of the box' is possible.

Do you have a link to your current forum?

Here is the link........

http://asrealasitgets.freeforums.org/index.php

Personally, I would start a new UBB and use your current forum as an archive/read only forum and put a link to your new UBB in the header of each page. You currently have 46 registered members and 78 topics so you're in a good position to ask your existing members to re-register on the new UBB and then start building your community on there.
It is phpbb but as it's hosted can it be imported?

That would be cool, you could always ask the current host if he could send you an sql backup. He might ask a fee, but that's the only way to get the current data transfered over.

PHPBB is what is running at that site, as long as you have access to the database then yes, you can import all data (users and posts) from PHPBB to UBB.Threads7

If you don't have phpMyAdmin or simlilar...

I'm sure there's a MySQL backup facility in the admin panel. But I know that it only backs up the original phpbb tables.

If you've added any mods with tables - you'll have to add another mod to backup everything, and you'll find it at http://www.phpbbhacks.com/

Well, if he has access to the server itself I'm sure theres a whole array of things he could do to back up the database...

Thanks guys for the info, I am gonna go ahead and do the ubb thing and install it myself. I do have access to the server but I have no idea where to begin on the backup. I will play with it and see what happens. Again I appreciate all of your help.....Blake

Well guys I got the ubb on my server, that was a lot of fun. Now I need to transfer my old forum to the new one, I need to find out how to telnet (or equivelant) into the server to manipulate files. The web host is Lunar pages, anybody got any ideas.......Blake

well, if you have lunar. you will have a cpanel.

the address is http://yourdomain.com/cpanel .. then it redirects to a login and finally to https session where you can do all you want

This where I am at on the ubb.threads, but I am to dumb to figure out what and where my database server is. Any help would be appreciated.....Blake


This next step consists of gathering the database information. You will need to know the server the mysql engine is running on, the database name, the username, and the password if necessary.
Database server
Database name
Database user
Database password
Tablename prefix (no spaces)

well, when you received a signup, they must have given you information on how to login to your cpanel.

that is important to know, so you can then go to creating a blank DB that the installer will fill up for you

I am on the cpanel, so I need to create a blank database? Again I really appreciate your help on this.

yes, you do. in your cpanel, you will have a "Mysql" option. it could be an icon and/or text link.

there you create the new db. you will then also have to create a new user and then assign it to that db as having login privs.

so remember the db info. normally, if you create a new db called 'muhaha', the actual db name will be yourloginname_muhaha and the user will likewise be yourloginname_username.

'yourloginname' is the login you use to get into your cpanel.

the password is as you type.. nothing added there..

then lunar also probably gave you info on signup for where the mysql server is. most likely you will be able to get by with 'localhost' (no quotes) for your database server.

give it a whirl

Okay all of that worked thanks so much, I did run into a problem on step 8. I do not know how to fix this.

UBB Error We encountered a problem. The reason reported was
Script:
Line#:
SQL Error: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '-BARRY-MP:001FORUMS ( FORUM_TITLE text, FORUM_DESCRIPTION text, FORUM_ID int(' at line 1
SQL Error #: 1064
Query: create table ubbt_2007111608-BARRY-MP:001FORUMS ( FORUM_TITLE text, FORUM_DESCRIPTION text, FORUM_ID int(9) unsigned auto_increment primary key, FORUM_PARENT int(9) unsigned, FORUM_POSTS int(9) unsigned default '0', FORUM_LAST_POST_TIME int(11) unsigned, FORUM_ALLOW_HTML tinyint(1) default '0' not null, FORUM_ALLOW_MARKUP tinyint(1) default '1' not null, FORUM_CREATED_ON int(11) unsigned, FORUM_IS_MODERATED tinyint(1) unsigned default '0', CATEGORY_ID int(4) unsigned default '1' not null, FORUM_TOPICS int(9) unsigned default '0', FORUM_SORT_ORDER int(4) unsigned, FORUM_DEFAULT_TOPIC_AGE int(4) unsigned, FORUM_CUSTOM_HEADER int(1) unsigned, FORUM_STYLE mediumint(4) not null default '0', FORUM_LAST_POST_ID int(9) unsigned default '0', FORUM_LAST_TOPIC_ID int(9) unsigned, FORUM_LAST_POSTER_ID int(9) default '1', FORUM_LAST_POSTER_NAME varchar(64), FORUM_LAST_POST_SUBJECT text, FORUM_LAST_POST_ICON varchar(30), FORUM_IMAGE varchar(255), FORUM_IS_ACTIVE tinyint(1) default '1' not null, FORUM_ALLOW_ATTACHMENTS tinyint(1) not null default '0', FORUM_ALLOW_POLLS tinyint(1) not null default '0', FORUM_POLLS_ANYWHERE tinyint(1) not null default '0', FORUM_ISLAND_INSERT mediumint(5) not null default '0', FORUM_IS_RSS tinyint(1) not null default '0', FORUM_RSS_TITLE varchar(255), FORUM_SHOW_INTRO tinyint(1) not null default '0', FORUM_INTRO_TITLE varchar(255), FORUM_GUEST_CAPTCHA varchar(2), FORUM_IS_TEASER tinyint(1) not null default '0', FORUM_IS_GALLERY tinyint(1) not null default '0', INDEX CAT_NDX (CATEGORY_ID), INDEX ACTIVE_NDX (FORUM_IS_ACTIVE) ) TYPE=MyISAM

guys how do I find my phbb database name and all that stuff so that I can import my forum to the new ubb.threads......Blake

should have a configuration file

phpbb should have a config file that holds that information. It's been awhile since I've looked at a phpbb install so I can't remember if it's in the root directory or subdirectory, but just scour around for a file named config.something. That should hold the database information.

config.php, should be in the root directory.

10-4 thanks guys........Blake