Edit: apologies for posting in the wrong category. Also, it appears I have been working with the old database somehow so that isn’t surprising it didn’t add anything ;p trying again with new database, hope that works.
My 2 last questions below still stand though
i’m preparing for the transition to discourse for my current community, doing a few test imports so all can go smoothly on D-Day. I use the importer from phpbb3. (I am using a sidestep in converting, because I have a phpbb2 forum. I first convert that to phpbb3 and then convert that one to discourse. )
I have imported a backup of my database (converted from phpbb2 into phpbb3, into discourse) first.
Then I moved the categories around, created new subcategories, made new groups and set permissions for certain forums.
I then tried appending new data. I created a new phpbb3 export database (again, first going through phpbb2) which had more posts/users etc than the first one. I imported it using the import script. That ran without errors. restarted discourse container etc.
However, when I looked into my board I saw it hadn’t imported anything of the posts. Only some top categories of the backup-database (which I had deleted in the new forum because I use a new category setup). No new posts where imported.
So, now my questions:
is it possible to append new data somehow or do I have to do a new import from scratch everytime I use a newer version of the database?
is there a way to preserve current categories and access permissions when I convert a new database?
how can you instruct the importer to do a new import instead of appending?
Thank you for any help in advance!
kind regards and happy holidays,
Q
If you don’t delete anything, the changes you make to categories, users, and posts will persist.
If you want to start anew, it’s best to delete the postgres directories and rebuild. The secret is in custom fields added to categories, users, topics, and posts that record the ID from the old database.
I finally got everything imported ( with the correct database )
And everything was still there after the import, just like you said. That’s a big relief. it means I can fully prepare the new forum before shutting down the old and doing the move for real (Which then also will be faster because I won’t need to import the huge database, only everything that has been posted since I did the last move).
That brings me to a new question - what if people post new stuff in the discourse forum. Will that also stay when I do a new import with a more recent database? That means I could already direct users to the new forum and then move over the rest of the data later?
Yes, but I don’t recommend it. The final import should take less than an hour. If something goes wrong you can restore and start again without worrying about losing data. Also if people post in a topic and then older data are imported, the posts will be out of order.
That’s a good point about posts getting out of order.
I wish it would only take an hour… because I have to do the sidestep through phpbb3, it takes about to 6 to 8 hours to convert, and that’s not counting the conversion to discourse. Hence my testruns, to smoothen all obstacles.
But I can live with a bit of downtime. Thank you for the heads up !
( with the correct 
database )