Import phpBB - incomplete due to user invalid email address (trailing space)

Migration
1

Post-import, numerous users are in Suspended state in Discourse because their phpBB email address has a trailing space. The user summary pages have this message:

This user is suspended.
Reason: Invalid email on import

While it would have been nice for phpBB to prevent this, it’s too late now.

A potential simple solution is for Import to trim whitespace from the start and end of email addresses during import.

If the import code is common to other originating platforms, the misbehaviour could also be common.

2

True. In import_scripts/phpbb3/importers/user_importer.rb around line 27 add .strip like this:

        email: row[:user_email].strip,

That’s not wrong, but since this code has existed almost a decade and it hasn’t been fixed yet, it’s also not clear that you’re right. It was easier to tell you how to fix it in the phpbb3 code rather than in base.rb (which I agree would be better).

3

A quick check to determine if you have this as a potential issue. Run this SQL query in your phpbb database:

SELECT `user_email` FROM `phpbb_users` where CHAR_LENGTH(`user_email`) != CHAR_LENGTH(TRIM(`user_email`)) ORDER BY `user_id` ASC
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