Migrating from phpBB to vBulletin 5

[helladamnleet]

Will going from phpBB to nulled vB4 to licensed vB5 get me banned?



I'm not even trying to use the unlicensed vB4 for anything at all beyond a means to migrate to vB5. I cannot stress that enough, I simply want to use Impex, and it won't let me until I figure out having vB4

[glennrocksvb]

You can install a vB4 forum using a vB5 license.

[helladamnleet]

Really? But I can't download it from the member area. That would make this all soooooo much easier

[glennrocksvb]

helladamnleet, when I log in to vBulletin Members Area, this is what I see:



Brad Padgett look at here too.

[glennrocksvb]

Of course, you can't have both vB5 and vB4 running publicly at the same time. But if you are just using it to temporarily install vB4 as a bridge to upgrade to vB5, then it should be fine.

[Brad Padgett]

glennrocksvb that options not available for me. It only says vBulletin 5 since they removed the ability to download it but using impex there's no possible way. Do you think this is a bug? It said in a forum post they don't provide the download anymore so I don't think it is. But if it's not against their policy and my customer number will still work is what I want to know because I need to transfer my site. If so maybe you could provide me with a download to it.

[glennrocksvb]

When did vB say they removed the ability to download vB4 when you have a vB5 license? Can you post a link to it? I must have missed it.

[helladamnleet]

When did vB say they removed the ability to download vB4 when you have a vB5 license? Can you post a link to it? I must have missed it.

https://forum.vbulletin.com/forum/vbulletin-sales-and-feedback/vbulletin-pre-sales-questions/4433239-vbulletin-3-and-4-are-no-longer-available-to-new-licenses

2 years ago.

[helladamnleet]

glennrocksvb that options not available for me. It only says vBulletin 5 since they removed the ability to download it but using impex there's no possible way. Do you think this is a bug? It said in a forum post they don't provide the download anymore so I don't think it is. But if it's not against their policy and my customer number will still work is what I want to know because I need to transfer my site. If so maybe you could provide me with a download to it.

Exactly the issue I'm having. There's no free software to do the migration from literally anything else to vBulletin. Even their official guide says to go to 4.2.2 then upgrade from there to 5 using Impex, which they haven't officially supported for over a decade, so the only option I can really see is to pirate 4.2.5, migrate to that, then migrate to 5.

The problem though is I really don't know if that will get my license revoked, even though at this point they've pretty much forced our hands.

[glennrocksvb]

https://forum.vbulletin.com/forum/vbulletin-sales-and-feedback/vbulletin-pre-sales-questions/4433239-vbulletin-3-and-4-are-no-longer-available-to-new-licenses

2 years ago.

Thanks for the link.

So you purchased your vB5 license after Jan 1, 2020?

Another option is to buy a second hand license that was originally purchased before that date.

[helladamnleet]

I just bought my license like 4 days ago and have been trying every possible avenue to migrate without getting in trouble.

Digging around with impex for a while though I'm wondering if I even need vBulletin 4, or if I can't just trick it into populating a database then migrating that over somehow. I wish I knew just a little bit more about coding because a lot of it seems like the only reasons Impex doesn't work is because
1) It hasn't been updated to newer versions of php and
2) vB5 changed a few phrases around

TL/DR: I don't think I actually need vBulletin 4, just a database to populate. I'll keep an eye on this thread and post anything I figure out

[glennrocksvb]

vB4 and vB5 have different database structure. Impex as it is now will never work with vB5.

[helladamnleet]

Right, but they must translate somehow because vBulletin itself can upgrade from earlier versions.

I'm not saying I'm going to run out and update Impex to work with vB5, but I think someone with enough interest in the idea could pull it off

[twistsol]

Right, but they must translate somehow because vBulletin itself can upgrade from earlier versions.

I'm not saying I'm going to run out and update Impex to work with vB5, but I think someone with enough interest in the idea could pull it off

I've never looked at Impex, to make the code useful it would depend on how it is coded. If it simply reads in data, formats to vbulletin 4 standards and stuffs it into VB4 tables, then making it work wouldn't be monumental, but would still be a ton of work. If it calls vb4 function function modules, to massage the and store the data, then you would need to replicate all of those in the theoretically updated Impex code as well.

In both cases you would need code to extract data from whichever of the various other systems from which you want to convert.

Then you'd need to trick VB5 into thinking it was upgrading a complete vb4 database.

All this with a global market of probably < 100 one time users, and assuming none of those users have installed extensions that makes the data in the source system look different than you are expecting.

The people that have done all this charge $1000 + for a one time conversion and they hope they get enough business to cover their costs. I do data conversions of financial data for large corporations for a living and I wouldn't touch this. Starting from scratch may actually be somewhat easier.

[helladamnleet]

I've never looked at Impex, to make the code useful it would depend on how it is coded. If it simply reads in data, formats to vbulletin 4 standards and stuffs it into VB4 tables, then making it work wouldn't be monumental, but would still be a ton of work. If it calls vb4 function function modules, to massage the and store the data, then you would need to replicate all of those in the theoretically updated Impex code as well.

In both cases you would need code to extract data from whichever of the various other systems from which you want to convert.

Then you'd need to trick VB5 into thinking it was upgrading a complete vb4 database.

All this with a global market of probably < 100 one time users, and assuming none of those users have installed extensions that makes the data in the source system look different than you are expecting.

The people that have done all this charge $1000 + for a one time conversion and they hope they get enough business to cover their costs. I do data conversions of financial data for large corporations for a living and I wouldn't touch this. Starting from scratch may actually be somewhat easier.

Just seems really odd that you can go from vBulletin to phpBB hassle free, but to go the other way you're pretty much fucked.


I gave up on it. If I could get a refund I would have because I was lead to believe this was something I should have been easily able to do, and the vBulletin devs are obviously in bed with these companies charging insane amounts to run a simple script.

[glennrocksvb]

I just bought my license like 4 days ago

So I assume the second hand license you bought was originally bought by the previous license holder after the cutoff Jan 2020 date?

I was lead to believe this was something I should have been easily able to do

Whoever told you this might be referring to converting to vB4 and not vB5?

[helladamnleet]

I bought the license directly from vBulletin for full price.


No, when you ask in the pre-sales part of the vBulletin forums they tell you with a straight face "Yeah, sure, it can be done no problem!"