Hi.

We are moving jmonkeyengine.com from SMF 1.1x to BuddyPress and so I created a SMF import plugin for BuddyPress I thought I should share Its based on a modified phpbb import PHP script for bbpress 0.7.3 that I found on the web.
It should work with WP 2.9.2 to current and BP 1.2.3 to current. It uses its own version of bbpress to convert from the initial 0.7.3 bbpress db format. Not very elegant, but it was the only way I could get it to work properly for our forum.

Features:
– Import boards and users from SMF 1.1x forums to BuddyPress (forums) / WordPress (users)
– Preserves current WordPress users if name exists
– Create groups for forums after import (optional)
– Main plugin adds admin panel for all functions
– Separate plugin successively converts the sha1 encoded passwords from SMF on user login
– Includes php script that can be put into old forum directory for redirection to new topic locations

Known issues:
– Only intended for initial forum imports, it clears all current forums before importing due to the initial 0.7.3 db format requirement (users/groups etc. are kept intact)
– Depending on forum size, the PHP memory and exec time requirements can be a bit high
– Tags are not imported
– Only tested with UTF-8 databases

Plugin link

Cheers,
Normen

Edit: updated link

[@gpo1 Participant 14 years, 6 months ago]

That sounds good, Are you going to sort out the issues in time?
Can you write guidelines on how to use it?

[@normen Member 14 years, 6 months ago]

The guideline is available in the admin panel and frankly, I will probably only fix issue #3 (importing of tags) as this is the result of something we will hopefully only have to do once
However, I could probably maintain it in a way that I fix bugs or add contributed code etc.

Cheers,
Normen

Edit:
mem requirements I have to check really, I already optimized it after the the original script needed 760MB for our forum ^^ I think its ok now.

[@normen Member 14 years, 6 months ago]

Aand the first bugix release v0.8.2 , just re-download. User capabilities were imported with a wrong prefix in wp_usermeta.

[@r-a-y Keymaster 14 years, 6 months ago]

Cool! This will definitely help those coming from SMF.

Thanks for contributing, normen.

[@paulhastings0 Participant 14 years, 6 months ago]

You should upload it to the BP Plugin repository so that others will be able to find it in the future by searching the repository. Just make sure to include “Buddypress” in the tags.

[@normen Member 14 years, 6 months ago]

Uh, got a manual for that? How do I apply, where do I get svn credentials? Sure would do that.

Edit: OK, I think I found it

[@normen Member 14 years, 6 months ago]

I added it to the repository, its called buddypress-smf-import, I also added tag support, now use the WP database charset all the way and fixed some minor bugs, get version to 0.8.4 here: https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/buddypress-smf-import/

[@flamepulse Member 14 years, 6 months ago]

when i try to do the import it tells me it cannot import tags at step 12 and then stops. is their a way around this?

[@normen Member 14 years, 6 months ago]

Hm. What exactly is the error? It seems to work fine for me. However if its really only the tags you should be able to upgrade your database afterwards and then import it, just the tags will be missing

[@normen Member 14 years, 6 months ago]

I uploaded version 0.9, its got checks for non-existing users or topics referenced in tags and skips those tags on import. Also the redirect script was updated and should work properly now.
Cheers,
Normen

[@snaky Participant 14 years, 5 months ago]

Hi Norman, first thank you for your script – I am trying to convert an smf installation to buddypress with it, but I have no success – hopefully anybody can give some hints? I have a few questions:
– How exactly do I have to proceed? I installed wp-mu, then via the plugin menu buddypress and smf-importer. The import seems to finish without errors, BUT I do not see any groups or forums at all! The link to /grous or /forum siple give a 404.
– I do not understand, if I need to install any forum separately? Do I need to install bbpress in another folder? Or does your import script generate some forum, but why is it not there?
– I do see however that there IS some data in the database that has been imported. But no way to see it on the side.
– Also many strings are beeing cut off, so title of groups and forums is corrupted.
– How can I debug this process? Is there any option to get some debug output?
– I s there a command line version of your importer or will it only run in WP context?
– Is there some technical documentation what exactly are you doing (yes, I know, use the source, Luke – but some hints will be helpful
– What exactly does this message mean and what can i do about it:
“Skipped 941 topics and 5075 posts due to missing users, boards or topics.”
How can I make it not to skip? or get some more infos which boards or users are missing? I do not think any users or boards are missing, btw…
– What if I want to use some more powerful forum? Which forum can I use and STILL have groups functionality?
THANK YOU very much for your attention!
Snaky

[@normen Member 14 years, 5 months ago]

Its all explained on the plugin main page. You first import the data, then convert it and then activate the internal forums of buddypress using the config file in the plugin directory. You have to follow at least step 1) and 2) of the description in the page and then you either have to “create groups” for the forums (step 4) or you install “buddypress forum extras” which shows you the forums without them being in groups. Also, dont forget to do the bbpress update after importing!

The skipped topics are situations where the data cannot be assembled, that is a post links to a non-existant topic or creator id. We had some of those but it seems its only posts from deleted boards or something. I have commented out the output of the post content (the only hint at where it belongs as there are no numbers) in buddypress-smf-functions.php, line 651 for example. You can uncomment that to see the skipped posts content.

Cheers,
Normen

[@normen Member 14 years, 5 months ago]

Gotta love these lengthy help requests with private posting nagging even and then theres not even a “thanks” or “got it working” reply xD

[@snaky Participant 14 years, 4 months ago]

I did not want to nag you personally – I just was not sure, where to post – seems like the group is not private I posted to. SORRY if you feel offended. I did not have time to check back on this, after a few days of no answer I gave up. Also I did not get notification emails. Maybe I will test your import script this week one more time, but to be honest, I would rather like to spend the time creating my own import script, so I do not have to spend additional time with debugging yours Anyway, I thank you very much for your effort.

[@exit Member 14 years, 4 months ago]

So… this import the users and the forums, but not the posts and topics?

[@normen Member 14 years, 3 months ago]

Of course it does.

[@divauno Participant 14 years, 2 months ago]

Does this only work if your SMF installation is at the same location as your Buddypress installation? Because I am setting up with a different hosting service and I’d really hate to have to install SMF on the new host and upload the tables just to deleted everything.

[@t34 Member 14 years, 2 months ago]

I received this error when I try to import:
SELECT ID_BOARD, name, description, boardOrder, numTopics, numPosts FROM smf_boards

Unknown column ‘boardOrder’ in ‘field list’

How do I fix this? I am not a programmer, so please keep your reply very simple. Thanks.

[@gevv Participant 14 years, 1 month ago]

hello

smf 2 rc3 importer ??

thanks

[@tsktom Member 14 years, 1 month ago]

Great plugin; I need something like this for my migration. Thank you for creating it ! I’ll have to view the source to see if it migrates all that I need, as there are some mods that I installed which have an equivalent in wordpress, but since they are mods, they will probably not work without some coding. Also I am going to migrated from 1 db (MySQL 4) to another (MySQL 5), so that will require a bit of code also.

[@tsktom Member 14 years, 1 month ago]

I just installed BuddyPress 1.2.6, and the plugin states that it is compatible to 1.2.4. Will it still work, and if not, what must I modify ? Also, do I need to have bbpress plugin installed also ? That is not mentioned in the readme.

[@stigmartyr Member 13 years, 6 months ago]

Hello – I just installed this plugin but I’m using WPMU and after network activating it I cannot see it in my Network Admin > Buddypress > *anywhere*

Nor can I see it in Site Admin. Is this not intended to work with Multisite? It doesn’t need to, I just wanted to get users imported..

[@stigmartyr Member 13 years, 6 months ago]

Answer to my own question is: /wp-admin/admin.php?page=bpsmf_admin_settings

[@waloetz Member 13 years ago]

very nice…