Upgraded our forum software today to » YaBB 2.2.1 (released March 5th). This version fixes all the problems associated with the not-yet-ready-for-primetime YaBB 2.2 release (Nov 2007).
I use the term "upgrade," but it's actually more accurate to call it a "fresh/clean installation" of YaBB 2.2.1, followed by importing all the Members and Messages from the old Y2.2 forum.
Last time I did this (on January 22nd) it was a disaster .. as the file-transfer (from old to new directories) choked, and we lost over half our members and 3/4'ers of our posts. I stayed up 'til 4:30, and spent the whole next day restoring files from a back-up.
This time however, everything went without a hitch. I asked the techs who run our new VPS server what they thought would be the best way to transfer such a large number of files (~10,000).
They suggested I log into the root/shell access (using PuTTy) and use the Linux "copy" command from the command line.
It went so freaking fast that I thought something was wrong. But when I looked, all our members, and their posts were there, all accounted for. Boy, was I stoked!
••• today's entry continues below •••
I could've asked the support techs to do this for me, but preferred to do it myself. (Cuz that's how I learn best.) I posted the exact copy command, and a screen shot of the command-line interface in this thread here » Forum software has been upgraded to YaBB v2.2.1 - Any problems?
Feel pretty good about it. Well, actually, I'm feeling *great* about it. =) I installed the new board yesterday morning, and spent the remainder of the day configuring it. Today, all I had left to do was (from my cheat-sheet):
- Place both forums in "Maintenance mode"
- Rename /Members and /Messages directories in new forum (to "_Mem_bers" and "_Mess_ages"). Problem copying from old to new if directories with same names exist in new location.
- Copy 2 directories from old to new forum (/Members, /Messages)
- Rename old forum to "_old_yabb2"
- Rename /yabb221 directory to "yabb2"
- Upload edited file Paths.pl to reflect new home-URL (/yabb2)
- Enter new forum (at old address) & change cookies to same as old forum
- Recount/Rebuild everything
- Take forum out of Maint mode and pray that everything is there (members/posts)
- After new forum verified working properly, delete old forum files (all 10,000)
Like I said, the file transfer is the gnarly part, but that went smoothly (and fast!). The next version of YaBB (Y3) is supposed to come with (2009) support for databases (such as MySQL).
I really like YaBB, especially the YaBB support community. They are not only very helpful, but friendly, too (like the Rad community). Been using their forum script forever.
Test comment, anti-spam feature.