Old board temporarily restored with a few caveats

[Eric]

The import process is proving quite cumbersome. Previously Jelsoft released the import software and admins could import their own bulletin boards at their leisure. In a recent change of policy Jelsoft now requires that they perform the import. This means we are at their mercy as far as scheduling. I shut the board down this weekend so we could submit the board data to be imported and now we just wait... and wait... for them to finish the conversion and return a new database for the new software. Who knows how long this is going to take because as one would expect they are overwhelmed with requests for imports.

So what do we do now? Not much I can do really, but rather than leave the lights off for days on end I decided to reopen the "old" board with a few caveats:</font> The most notable is that new registrations are suspended. This is because the snapshot has already been taken and the new board will pick up where we left it yesterday afternoon. Any new registrations during this period between boards would be lost in the eventul transition. So to avoid confusion it's best just to shut down registrations for now.</font> Similarly, all new posts, starting with this one, will be "lost" when we eventually switch to the new board.</font>
This new import policy is immensely inconvenient but in the end I believe it will be worth it.

graemlins/rasta.gif graemlins/beer.gif

[Tiffany]

Interesting Eric. They were tauting a 15 minute turn around for imports. :rolleyes:

I can see why they are doing this, but it is a major PITA fr regular users with big boards or more than one client running software wanting to convert.

I had to tell 3 clients that their conversions would have to wait due to this new process.

[Rhyas]

Ok. I'm not up to date, and there may be other threads with explanations, but why are they requiring that you submit all your data for them to import? This seems bad policy to me, if they want to keep their customers. There are litterally hundreds of different BBS packages on the market, why risk alienating your existing customers that want to pay money for yours??

-= Jay =-

[Tiffany]

Initial thought is they want to combat piracy of their software.

It seems to be a major PITA to me.

[Eric]

Originally posted by Tiffster:
Interesting Eric. They were tauting a 15 minute turn around for imports. :rolleyes: I've been following the discussions on their page when I can, I saw one import took 84 minutes. That's just the database import time, not the time from initial request to completion of the conversion. For reference, I submitted my request on the 26th and started talking to Jerry on the 27th. If you start the clock with Jerry's first reply then "our" conversion has so far taken 4 days and counting. That's a loooooong time to shut down someone's board graemlins/thumbsdown.gif

Fwiw they appear to have seen the errors of this new policy and are now working on downloadable (albeit encrypted) importers so users can do it themselves. From what I can gather they appear more concerned about piracy of their importer code than of the vBulletin script itself.

Talk about giving themselves a huge black eye, vB3 was in the works for over a year and then drop the ball regarding importers when vB3 is finally released :rolleyes: Either someone wasn't thinking ahead or they had some serious miscommunication on their end. Eventually they'll get things sorted out, it's just a shame to have to continue waiting to use the software after already waiting so long...

[Tiffany]

I hear ya Eric. Fortunately for me, my upgrade would be a straight install, but the new policy is insane and not very well thought out at all.

Good luck to you, I hope the wait isn't much longer

[Rhyas]

So what's the scoop on the new stuff? Didn't see any news anywhere, so I thought I'd just reply to this thread.

Also, being secretive about an import? Come on, it's a Database. You can look at the tables before, and the tables after, and infer pretty much what the entire process is/was with a little reverse engineering.

At some point, you really have to trust the people who buy your product to support you and it, and not worry about people pirating it instead of making the anti-piracy poortions so complex and annoying that NOBODY wants to buy or support your product.

-= Jay =-

[Tiffany]

I can't beleive it has been this long. This sure does not make me want to recommend to any of my clients that they switch.

[Eric]

They claim to have encountered a few bugs in their import process while trying to convert our board. Dunno when it'll be finished, all I know is that they are trying to fix the bugs first. I'll post here when I have more information. This has now taken over a week :rolleyes:

[Blake Shepherd]

Originally posted by Eric:
They claim to have encountered a few bugs in their import process while trying to convert our board. Dunno when it'll be finished, all I know is that they are trying to fix the bugs first. I'll post here when I have more information. This has now taken over a week :rolleyes: Are you planning on giving them a new "snapshot" of the database? It would suck to lose the last week's worth of new posts.

As a DBA, it seems logical that once they get the bugs worked out of their import process, the actual import should only take a few minutes.

[Eric]

Originally posted by Blake Shepherd:
Are you planning on giving them a new "snapshot" of the database? It would suck to lose the last week's worth of new posts.If they can wrap this up in the next day or so we'll probably stick to the original plan. If this drags on much longer then yes, I will request that we import a new snapshot.

As a DBA, it seems logical that once they get the bugs worked out of their import process, the actual import should only take a few minutes. That's what they've been claiming from the start, but so far I haven't seen it.

[Tiffany]

Hey Eric, I thought of something....if things do drag on much longer....maybe you could import the bord into vB 2.3.4 and then upgrade. I have the import scripts and all that and could give you a hand.

Had I been thinking I could have offered you this a while back.

If you want to give it a try let me know, we could do a test import on my server to make sure it works.

[Eric]

I thought of that before, unfortunately those scripts only cover UBB up to version 6.2 or 6.3. We're running 6.5 :( We'll get there eventually...

Btw I still need to get together with you to pick up my t-shirts graemlins/beer.gif

[Tiffany]

Yeah ya do, I have them in a box in the corner...and my husband like every month or so yells at me that I forgot to mail someones shirts.

Maybe next month I can head down that direction!! Got some money for you too tongue.gif

[Big Dave]

Any word on when this will happen? They sure are dragging ass on this!

[79CJLongmont]

Eric,

Any word on when this import will happen? I have a buddy wanting to sign-up on the board and he has been waiting since March 28th. No rush, I am just curious as to what to tell him to expect.

Thanks for your help!
--Cory

[Eric]

Supposedly the importer is to be released today. I'll believe it when I see it and I'll be impressed if the sucker actually works. If that actually happens then it's a matter of my own schedule and finding the time to work on this. Hopefully next week we'll finally have this behind us :rolleyes:

[Tom_H]

Eric,

Any particular reason you're moving to vBulletin and not just upgrading the UBB stuff??

Just curious.

Tom

[Eric]

Primarily for user groups, collapsible sub-catagories, automated maintenance tasks, etc.