Question [Resolved] "There are no categories in the section!" after migration j1.5 > j2.5 Kunena 1.7.2

I could not find any info about migrating a kunena 1.7.2 from a j1.5 to a j2.5 site.

On the j1.5 site is 1.7.2 installed. So I installed 1.7.2 on the j2.5 site and copy-pasted the database tables to the other database.

When viewing the frontend I get this message:

There are no categories in the section!

In the admin all the categories are right there. At the frontend under 'recent topics' is nothing.

What does that mean and how to get the forum back?

Exporting from J! 1.5 and importing to J! 2.5 is only part of the problem. Check the table name prefixes. J! 1.5 tables usually have the prefix jos_; J! 2.5 tables could have any prefix (but often they might be called j17_. You may need to change your database table names in your J! 2.5 website.

For a fee I could probably do this for you.

carsten888 wrote:

I could not find any info about migrating a kunena 1.7.2 from a j1.5 to a j2.5 site.

I suggest you look at

• Import Kunena forum data to other Kunena forum ; or
• [Merged topic] How to move my Kunena forum from one site to another

Just two examples of topics that are related to your question.

Check the table name prefixes.

I did change the prefixes. As mentioned, in the backend Kunena can see all the categories, but not at the frontend.

I did exactly this:
www.kunena.org/forum/191-Kunena-Forum-Im...-Kunena-forum#119200

Go to phpMyAdmin -> database of your live site
Export all J17_ kunena tables from your Joomla 1.5 database.
Replace prefix from all SQL statements using your favorite text editor to the prefix of your new Joomla 1.7 website e.g. "vupca_"
Go to your phpMyAdmin -> database of your new Joomla 1.7 website
Delete all the J17_ kunena tables.
Click on Import and use the SQL dump file to import all data into your new website's database
Now copy below folder from your Joomla 1.5 or 1.6 site to the same folder of your new Joomla 1.7 site:
ROOT/media/kunena
Congratulations, Now you have a fully upgraded Kunena from Joomla 1.5 or 1.6 to Joomla 1.7!

Can any minor differences between one version of 1.7.2 (downloaded a few months ago) and another version of 1.7.2 (downloaded a few days ago) have anything to do with this issue? Or is there any difference in tables when used on 1.5 or 2.5?

carsten888 wrote: Can any minor differences between one version of 1.7.2 (downloaded a few months ago) and another version of 1.7.2 (downloaded a few days ago) have anything to do with this issue? Or is there any difference in tables when used on 1.5 or 2.5?

The answers to these two questions are, respectively, no and no.

No doubt, there will be success stories and stories of failure but, at the conclusion, your issues are about Joomla migration. This is a massive subject in its own right and it's one that a self-help forum context, like this one here, does not really help. We can provide all the theory but, at the end of the day, it's your job to apply that theory. However, I am sure there must be many people in this community who would be willing to assist you but you may need to be patient for that help.

In my own case, I have done this Joomla migration thing and I was successful. It took many hours and I had to do a lot of fiddling. If you know what you're doing then you can succeed. If you don't really know all the "ins and outs" then maybe it's time to call in professional help.

If you don't really know all the "ins and outs" then maybe it's time to call in professional help.

:laugh:
I am a professional with 22 extensions in the JED. I know about migrations, I have done about 15, from 1.0 to 1.5 and 2.5.

All I need to know is:
what does that message about sections mean? And how to solve it.

What it means is that your table kunena_categories is defective on your installation of Kunena or that you do not have permissions to view any categories in the frontend. So, it's difficult for me to advise you, without getting into your administration site and spending time looking at what you've done.

not have permissions to view any categories in the frontend.

yes, that was it.

here is a script that anyone updateing from 1.5 to 2.5 can run to solve this issue.

feel free to add this to Kunena tools.

greetings to Matias

hi, carsten888,

I met exactly the same problem as yours. You are right, this is really a Problem ! (Why the other users just don't believe this?)

Thank you for working out this solution. However, I don't know how to run your script.

Could you please make that script into a simple PHP file, or give the correct script that can be run directly via phpMyAdmin to update the DB tables?

Thanks.

Kunena cannot be manually migrated from Joomla! 1.5 to Joomla! 2.5 -- category permissions need to be mapped between different versions of Joomla. All the extensions face the same issue if they store either access levels or user groups into database.

jUpgrade does this for you. If you just copy Kunena over, you need to do it manually for all the categories.

Those who can read some code, you should check administrator/components/com_kunena/install/j25upgrade.php on how to make the conversion.