Merged Forum transfer (not a merge): from J! 1.5 to J! 2.5 - SP Upgrade

Database collation check: The collation of your table fields are correct

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Kunena menu details:

Joomla default template details : beez_20 | author: Angie Radtke | version: 2.5.0 | creationdate: 25 November 2009

Kunena default template details : Blue Eagle (default) | author: Kunena Team | version: 1.7.2 | creationdate: 2012-01-31

Kunena version detailled: Installed version: 1.7.2 | Build: 5215 | Version name: Omega | Kunena detailled configuration:

Warning: Spoiler!

[th]Kunena config settings:[/th]

Third-party components: None

Third-party SEF components: None

Plugins: System - Mootools Upgrade: Disabled | System - Mootools12: Disabled

Modules: None

I have been reading threads about this for several days but none seem to deal with exactly this so I am hoping that I have connected the dots correctly and have made clear what I have done and what I believe still needs to be done.

This is part of an upgrade process from Joomla 1.5.26 (which Kunena 1.7.2 installed) to 2.5.4

What I have done so far ...

1. Done a clean install of Joomla 2.5.4 in a subdirectory of public_html called upgrade25 without any included data. This new installation is using a newly created database with a new user which are connected and a different database table prefix (unlike jUpgrade which uses the same database with a different prefix).

2. Migrated from Joomla 1.5.26 to the new Joomla 2.5.4 using SP Upgrade (also unlike Jupgrade this does not migrate Kunena to the new installation). Everything went well (at least for the purposes of this post). All the users were migrated with the same ID numbers.

3. Installed a clean install of Kunena on the Joomla 2.5.4 site (this is the one that the configuration report applies to)

4. Deleted the sample post included with the new Kunena installation and changed all the Kunena menus and forum categories to match the old Kunena site and validated that all the menus are working well. All is OK so far. The forum is working well (although there are no posts), the menu names and categories are the way I want them, and all the users are transferred.

What I believe I need to do next (as a reminder both instances are Kunena 1.7.2) ...

Export the Kunena tables from the old site (there are 23 of them. The 24th that is listed in other threads on this forum which is jos_kunena_attachments_bak is not there at this point)

2. Change all instances of the prefix jos_ in the export file to match the new database table prefix using "replace all" (so that the prefix for the Kunena tables in the new database will match the rest)

3. Delete all the Kunena tables in the new database (also 23 of them)

4. Import the "prefix edited" Kunena tables that I exported from the old site.

5. Copy the contents of ../media/kunena/attachments from the old forum to the corresponding directory in the new one.

If I have understood everything correctly that I have been reading over the last few days ... this should give me a duplicate of the old forum on the new site (subdirectory) with all the posts and other information intact.

Have I missed anything that anyone who has done this knows about?

Thank you for any and all help.

Let me see if I properly understand what you want to do: you started with a working website, running K 1.7.2 and J! 1.5.26 and you want to finish up with your site running J 2.5.4. Is that correct?

Along the way, you want to bring across your Kunena forum but you don't really care too much about any J! 1.5.x extensions that won't work in J! 2.5. Is that correct?

Hi Sozzled,

Yes exactly. My first priority is Kunena (it's the most important part of my site) and if there are any extensions or templates that need changing, or replacing with a 2.5 compatible version (there's only one I know of) I will deal with that after I know that I can effectively transfer the forum contents.

The reason I haven't already done the "what I believe I need to do next" part is because there is a separate glitch with the migration (being followed up with SP Upgrade and in the Joomla forum) which prevents me from logging in to the admin back end once the initial session has timed out after the Joomla migrate so if "what I believe" isn't correct I need to delete everything and start all over again to gain admin back end access until the initial session times out once again (and prevents me from making any further back end changes). None of this has anything to do with Kunena of course and my main priority here is to make sure I know how to transfer the forum.

Thanks for your help

Thank you for clearing these things up in my mind. In my opinion, this is where things went wrong:

Phoenix wrote: 1. Done a clean install of Joomla 2.5.4 in a subdirectory of public_html called upgrade25 without any included data. This new installation is using a newly created database with a new user which are connected and a different database table prefix (unlike jUpgrade which uses the same database with a different prefix).

2. Migrated from Joomla 1.5.26 to the new Joomla 2.5.4 using SP Upgrade (also unlike Jupgrade this does not migrate Kunena to the new installation). Everything went well (at least for the purposes of this post). All the users were migrated with the same ID numbers.

I understand what you mean insofar as jUpgrade does not create a new database but, in effect, what jUpgrade does do is to create new database tables that are fully compatible with J! 2.5 (even if those database tables are stored in the same database as your J! 1.5 site). This is unlikely to be a problem unless your webhosting provider has some restriction on the size of a database (and it's only likely to come into play on really big forums where there are a couple of million messages or more).

The reason that jUpgrade "copies" (in effect) your J! 1.5 tables, converts them and stores them as J! 2.5-compatible tables, is so that you can continue to run your existing J! 1.5 site as well as trial your J! 2.5 site at the same time. When you're ready to pull the plug on your J! 1.5 site, you can then remove those parts that you no longer need (if you want). If I were in your shoes, I would save myself all the agony and use jUpgrade. I've used it and it works (well, not for everything, of course, and that's why I asked you the second of my two questions earlier).

I will be brutally honest with you and say that I know nothing about SP Upgrade except that it's a commercial Joomla extension. If you're having problems with SP Upgrade and Kunena, I would recommend that you contact the SP Upgrade people. I don't know what are the instructions for running SP Upgrade but, looking at your step "1" above, I don't quite understand why you created a fresh installation of J! 2.5 yourself when I would have thought that Joomla migration software should do those things for you?

Hi Sozzled,

Thee reason I wanted to try SP Upgrade is because I had gone through the jUpgrade process a couple of times and there were other issues that SP Upgrade seems to have solved and the whole process was "cleaner" even though it didn't bring across everything as well as jUpgrade. My thinking was I could re-install anything that it didn't migrate.

The process is different from jUpgrade and requires a fresh install of Joomla in either a subdirectory, a subdomain, or a local installation and then the extension is installed on the new Joomla installation (rather than run from the old one) after a new database and user is created and connected. It keeps all the user ID's intact and also keeps all the URL's intact as well and seemed to solve several other issues with jUpgrade. It seemed simpler to use it to create a new Joomla install and then transfer the forum (if that was possible) along with any other extensions I needed than to correct the issues with jUpgrade so the small price seemed to be worth the experiment.

What I will do is to run jUpgrade again (now that I've done several different "migrations" anyway and learned a little more each time) and see if I can itemize the "issues" that I'm having with the jUpgrade and decide which one involves the least extra work and research after the basic migration is done. Either way ... the process may be helpful to others that are in the same boat as I am.

I did contact the SP Upgrade people with my question about what may be preventing me from logging in to the admin backend after the initial session that was active during the migration process timed out but they didn't know and they have no forum to be able to ask others who may have encountered the same issues. Their only suggestion was unhelpful and not to the issue I was having. I emailed them back and have not yet received a reply. I do know that it's not for any obvious (to me) issues (such as the Joomla back end server settings, an encrypted login form, or something in the .htacces file). I've posted about this in the Joomla forum as well in case someone may know what the cause may be but again this is not connected to Kunena and I figured the solution will probably turn out to be relatively simple. If I could transfer the Kunena database in the way I was hoping it may work ... then everything else (except the login issue) would be fairly simple and my pathway to a complete migration would be clear and simple (although still involving some work).

In any case ... I'll try the jUpgrade process again and see if there are simple solutions to the issues I encountered.

I thought too while I was at it and since I would be deleting the database and subdirectory anyway and starting over again with jUpgrade, I would complete steps 1,2,3,and 4, of "what I believe I need to do" to see what happened.

The posts didn't come across to the new forum (it still has no posts) but the stats are showing correct (number of threads, posts, and users) so at least something is being read even though I clearly am missing something as well because it is not reading the database tables where the posts are stored.

I'll report further when the "next" migration with jUpgrade is done.

Thanks a lot for your feedback, Phoenix, and we agree that this topic may be useful for others who follow your footsteps. While it's fair to say that jUpgrade is not a Joomla migration panacea, we also have to remember that Matias (the lead developer of Kunena) worked alongside with Matias Aguirre, the developer of jUpgrade) to ensure that jUpgrade successfully migrates Kunena even if it may not migrate everything else from J! 1.5 to J! 2.5. Again, that was the purpose of my second question to you in msg #2 of this topic.

Therefore this is what we seem to have:

On the one hand, one may use jUpgrade (which is a J! 1.5 extension) to migrate from J! 1.5 to J! 2.5 or, on the other hand, one may use SP Upgrade (which is a J! 2.5 extension) to achieve a similar result. The degree to which either approach works is a matter for testing by each person.

The differences between K 1.7.2 under J! 1.5 or J! 2.5 are negligible. The database tables are identical as, too, are the PHP and CSS source. The big difference is the user table (the Joomla user table, not the Kunena one) and making sure that you map the users from your old J! 1.5 installation correctly in your J! 2.5 installation. Evidently, SP Upgrade does not seem to cater for this major difference.

The essential difference in J! 1.5 is that the user-ids start at 62. In J! 2.5 they start at 42. jUpgrade doesn't change the user-ids. Because you have to install a clean version of J! 2.5 under SP Upgrade, obviously the user-ids start at 42; therefore, the Kunena forum (assuming a "base" id of 62) is going to be out of kilter. It's not just the messages; there are also the attachments, too. Perhaps that's something else for you to ask the SP Upgrade people about.