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Migrate Topics and Replies from One Site Forum to Another
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Michele Bergh
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Jan 3, 2013 - 12:08 pm

I probably did this backwards but here's where I'm at. 

I have a forum on a subdomain.

I'm using WishList on another subdomain and want to move the forum here.

I set up a new forum on the same subdomain as WishList and want to migrate / import / move the topics and comments over from the old site to the new site.  Is there an easy way to do this?  Is there a specific database file where users are stored, a specific one for topics, etc. that I could just import into the new site since I already have it all set up and just need the content? Or can I grab all the database files and have them just override what I just set up, if that would be easier. 

 

I see the database files with "sf" in them but other than that, this is pretty new to me.  I have a very basic understanding of databases and am really worried about screwing this up so as much detail as possible would be appreciated.

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Yellow Swordfish
Glinton, England
SP Master
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Jan 3, 2013 - 2:29 pm

All of the forum tables begin with the prefix 'sf' so they are easy to identify and all should be moved.

However - and this is the problem area - forum users and posts are intrinsically linked to the WordPress Users and Usermeta tables so you really need to move these two tables as well. This is OK if the target domain has the same database WP table prefix as the source and if there are no users already defined in the target.

Assuming then that all of the data can be successfully exported from the source and imported into the target the only thing to then look at will be the forum option records - basically work through all of the forum admin panels to ensure all is well. any references to links/urls relating to the source domain will need to be manually changed but there are not that many of those.

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YELLOW
SWORDFISH
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Michele Bergh
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Jan 4, 2013 - 12:33 pm

And if it doesn't have the same prefix and there are already users in there...is there a way to do it manually?  I don't have a lot of users in what I'm moving but, if possible, there's maybe 2000 posts that I hate to lose simply because it looks better to have activity than to be a brand new forum with nothing in it.

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Yellow Swordfish
Glinton, England
SP Master
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Jan 5, 2013 - 5:55 am

Well the bottom line is that

  • SP has an 'sfmembers' table where there will be a row that corresponds to each user in the WP 'users' table. If that equivalent row is not found in the WP Users table then I am a little unsure what will happen but I believe it will treat the user as a guest poster.
  • Every post made in SP by a registered user has their ID recorded with the post record. The same applies as above in that this record also expects both a row in 'sfmembers' and a row in 'users' to be present. Again - if not it reverts to treat the post as coming from an unregistered user or guest.
    You will understand from this that the ID's in 'sfmembers', 'sfposts' and 'users' need to be the same of course.

I mentioned the table prefix simply because this is used in some rows (WP uses it) to hold access information per user in the 'usermeta' table. Thus if the table prefix had been the same for both domains it would have been possible to also import the whole users/usermeta tables successfully. If the prefix is different and the target tables already have some data in them then this is not going to be possible.

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SWORDFISH
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Michele Bergh
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Jan 6, 2013 - 4:24 pm

one last question.  is it possible for an admin to go in and assign a post to a user as the author of that post?  so if they all come in as guest posts...the ones that matter most, could I manually change the author from guest to a specific member?  if so, how would i do this?

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Mr Papa
Simi Valley, CA
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Jan 6, 2013 - 4:58 pm

you can do it via phpmyadmin or your db tool... or in the forum, you can use the forum tools to reassign a post - but it would have to be post by post...

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Mr Papa
Simi Valley, CA
SP Master
Free Members
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Jan 6, 2013 - 4:58 pm

you can do it via phpmyadmin or your db tool... or in the forum, you can use the forum tools to reassign a post - but it would have to be post by post...

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