# New: 10 Dec: New Forum - action needed by users!



## KevinST (May 6, 2002)

All,

I'm going through the steps at home to prove the conversion process from our current YaBB + text file system to the bew board which will be using a SQL database.
It appears that the conversion deletes _*all*_ your IM's in your outbox, and _* limits your inbox to 30 IM's*_ (not a limitation of the forum, or SQL - just of the conversion process.

So, if you have any IM's in your outbox that you want to keep - save them now.
If you have more than 30 IM's in your inbox that you want to save... save them elsewhere now.

You have been warned - save them now! asking for IM's to be restored after the conversion isn't going to get them back!

We'll also give you all a couple of days notice before the actual upgrade.


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## KevinST (May 6, 2002)

In addition to this - please check your registered email in your profile. There's a small chance that you'll need to request a new password from the new system (because of encrypted passwords) which would need to be emailed out.

The forum used to email out a new password when the email address was changed - this has been turned off now.


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## KevinST (May 6, 2002)

Can you please check your signatures... if there's a single quote (') can you remove it please?? this will ensure that you are imported into the SQL database.
If I get a chance, I'll write an app to remove them myself... maybe.


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## KevinST (May 6, 2002)

(posts deleted - sorry Red916 / wintermute... forgot to lock this thread. Want to keep this for announcements not discussion  )
Red - I'll check on smilies and '
Wintermute - phpBB (as recommended initially by you ;D )


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## KevinST (May 6, 2002)

*Check your correct login name!!*

YaBB doesn't care what case you use when logging in, the new system will!
For example if you registered as "john" then you can currently log in as "John".
With the new system, it is case sensitive, so will only accept username "john".

You can check you correct username by going to your profile and looking at the "Username" field at the top.


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## KevinST (May 6, 2002)

Just to let you all know what's happening...
The conversion process from YaBB to phpBB looks like it's foolproof (well, Kevin and Jae proof anyway  ).
This process (for those that are interested) goes from YaBB using over 55,000 files to hold all the data in, to a YaBBSE install (using mySQL database) to a phpBB install (using a mySQL database) to a phpBB install using a MS-SQL database.
Many of the conversion processes are public domain, but we've had to write several applications and modify a couple of the existing conversion scripts.

So far I've installed / deleted / installed YaBBSE and phpBB so many times I can't remember... but the end is getting close - just need to prove that we can import all the data onto the live system ;D

*IM's* As an update to the IM issue on post 1, this isn't strictly correct. It actually appears that we will loose the forst 3 IM's in your inbox, and the last 2. I have no idea why - I've looked at the script many many times and can't figure out why this is :-/ Accept it please  (but I'll carry on looking).

Initially the search might not work - we have to re-index 210,000 posts so that each unique word is stored in a database - CPU intensive processing, but will be done.

*Usernames*: with YaBB we can all change our usernames and the system uses our original login name as our ID. With phpBB this isn't going to be the case - users will not be able to change their usernames (this is to avoid chaos and confusion if some users decide to change their usernames frequently - there's no way to find out who the user actually is!).
Both myself and Jae will be able to change usernames, so if it really does need to be changed (i.e. you've been using a different screen name fo 995 of your time on the forum - e.g. TTotal, Major Audi Parts Guru etc... it can be done ...for a price  )

So - I'm still working on the conversion system and adding modifications that we will need from day 1, Jae's working on the look and feel of the site.
ETA for the new system going live??? dunno. Soon.


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