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highinfidelity 
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 Topic: Planning migration from Snitz Forums
Posted: 02 March 2007 at 10:17am |
Good morning to all. As title said, I'm planning to convert from Snitz to WebWiz and would like to discuss some things BEFORE taking the step.
I am moving because my current hoster complains about database corruption causing server shutoff, but on the other hand doesn't offer any database maintenance facility nor a decent remote file manager. I've had enough of this situation. I would then like to know if WebWiz hosting offer decent facilities for database maintenance in remote mode, or even better if DB maintenance is not considered a problem here as the forum software is considered PERFECT and ERRORLESS.
Second thing: the conversion of the database. I found that some fellow users did an amazing job here:
The fact that this converting software is left to good people's will and has not been supported by the hosting administration is actually a very, very, very bad sign to me. Is there any specific reason why the hosting administration doesn't help new users in converting their previous databases? One (= I, myself) would think that it could be a good commercial move to attract people from competing softwares and hosters, and that the process should be helped.
Moreover, as far as I could understand, the conversion needs to already have a working .asp space here. Is there a way to TRY the conversion here WITHOUT MOVING THE DOMAIN (and perhaps then see that the conversion didn't work and thus moving here was pointless)?
Other eventual well known quirks and knocks out? We're a small/medium community (15 Mb DB), and all I'd like to have is a nice little forum without being always under risk of being shut off because Access sucks.
Thank you very much for your insight. Your help and comments are appreciated.
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WebWiz-Bruce
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Posted: 02 March 2007 at 10:33am |
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These types of question would require that you contact the hosting support directly.
Use the contact us pages on www.webwiz.net to contact hosting support staff who can answer your questions.
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highinfidelity
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Posted: 02 March 2007 at 11:40am |
Thanks, will certainly do, as I previously did with my current hoster who said it was PERFECTLY FINE to open a forum on their accounts. 
In the meanwhile, as a potential customer who - as you see - is well ahead in documenting himself on how to move here, I would like to read something "less official". I have learned at my expense that direct experience tells much more than figures on contract sheets.
Unless asking these things was against this forum's rules, of course. Which, useless to say, would probably make me turn toward another provider as getting other user's support is EXTREMELY important (see what a gem of software they wrote for DB conversion  ).
Edited by highinfidelity - 02 March 2007 at 11:58am
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MortiOli
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Posted: 04 March 2007 at 8:41am |
Hi highinfidelity.
I was the user who started the above mentioned topic regarding the forum conversion, and eventually, with the help of a lot of members, managed to convert my Snitz DB (Access) to WebWizForums (SQL).
It's been a long time since I converted my forum, so not sure if I'd be able to do it again without sitting down with a clear head (it was also an upgrade from an old version of Snitz, to version 7 of WWF), but it might be worthwhile asking dj air if he'd be able to help. I know he offers a service to upgrade WWF databases from Access to SQL (for £40), so he might be willing to help convert from Snitz for a small price, which, in my opinion, would be well worth it.
WebWiz Hosts also provide a 30 day money back guarantee, so you can always action the conversion within that time period, then decide whether to stay with them etc.
I agree that if WebWiz was able to create a conversion tool from other forums to WWF, then a lot more people would move over to here. Lets keep our fingers crossed that -boRg- feels the same 
Good luck!
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highinfidelity
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Posted: 05 March 2007 at 3:38pm |
Hello MortiOli, I remember your contribution to that thread.
Thanks for the information. The fact that you actually DID the conversion from Access sounds like a very good new. Thanks for the hint about dj air, I'm writing to him as we talk, just to see if he can help in case everything else fails. Somebody else wrote a sort of tutorial after your last post, perhaps with the help of those messages I can manage to work it out.
Very interesting forum! We're on black background as well...
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MrMellie
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Posted: 05 March 2007 at 4:27pm |
I've done a trial run of converting my Snitz forum and even with those instructions it took many hours. The script relies on you having a "perfect" Snitz db to start with and it having good integrity. Mine wasn't - the Snitz code had allowed several users to duplicate their ID's!! This of course caused issues when trying to write the duplicate ID's into the WWF db. There were a couple of other problems too that I can't recall now. One I think was that all users came imported as inactive and I had to reset the "active" flag in the table. I know there's still some work for me to do before I'm totally happy with the conversion. Then you have the issue that the script uses a v7 db which subsequently requires upgrading to v8 and then to the db platform of your choice. Here lies another potential problem. I've seen Bruce comment that you can't convert from v7 Access to v8 and then to mySQL. He's not quantified why, but it's a bit of a worry that there could be such incompatabilites. I'll be looking at it again soon to work out a direct route into v8 without having to do the v7 -> v8 jig. I totally agree that WWF are missing a trick here. An official conversion tool could bring many more users over. I've seen many a disgruntled user complaining of lack of progress with certain other forum software who are crying out for a forum with features such as are contained in WWF. 
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MortiOli
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Posted: 05 March 2007 at 8:25pm |
Hopefully after the big jump to v9, WWF might start looking at conversions for all major forums (quite a number of them do it to bring people to theirs).
I agree that it isn't a fail safe solution, and took me many hours to complete the conversion for my forum (mostly due to creating the script with dj air as we went along). Saying that, I can see that someone with the right skills in ASP, could make a conversion tool which irons out the niggles as it goes along.
Best thing I can suggest is create a backup of your forum, and take it offline whilst you try and convert - that way, you won't end up converting a backup, only to find users have posted new topics etc on your live forum. Obviously do some test runs beforehand, so you know what to expect - if there's going to be any problems, it'll be with user IDs and topics / posts. Once they're sorted and you know how to rectify them, you'll be able to convert the live forum with ease.
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MrMellie
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Posted: 06 March 2007 at 9:32am |
 MortiOli wrote:
I agree that it isn't a fail safe solution, and took me many hours to complete the conversion for my forum (mostly due to creating the script with dj air as we went along). Saying that, I can see that someone with the right skills in ASP, could make a conversion tool which irons out the niggles as it goes along. |
I think for most people the script should work, it's when you get oddball situations in Snitz like mine, where duplicates that were not supposed to be possible had happened that it gets tricky. Predicting stuff that shouldn't be there would be a task and a half! It would've taken me a helluva lot longer had it not been for the work you and DJ Air had done, so you have my deepest thanks for that. 
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