# Some questions on vbulletin import script (groups, likes, attachments)
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/some-questions-on-vbulletin-import-script-groups-likes-attachments/37990
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [15 Gennaio 2016, 8:17am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/some-questions-on-vbulletin-import-script-groups-likes-attachments/37990 "2016-01-15T08:17:08Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@lrossouw](https://meta.discourse.org/u/lrossouw)
#### Post date: [15 Gennaio 2016, 8:17am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/some-questions-on-vbulletin-import-script-groups-likes-attachments/37990/1 "2016-01-15T08:17:08Z")
I’m importing a community forum from vbulletin. And I can’t wait to get it done, because I want to start using discourse pronto.
I’ve managed to get the script running and it can import: users, groups, categories, topics (i.e. first posts) and then failed. Because I gave it only read access to my vb db (to be safe). The backup / restore feature is also invaluable in testing this stuff because it’s so easy to go back to an empty forum.
At this stage, before I run it again I have some questions on this:
- How should I do the user ↔ group mappings? I see it takes the primary group in some way but I don’t see this on the imported forum anywhere. Plus other groups? I guess I’d be able to do the SQL from the mysql side, but how do I add the groups on discourse from the script? Thinking about it the easiest would be to do it “by hand” after import using bulk add user to group funciton.
- Our forum uses the DragonByte Tech: Advanced Post Thanks / Like plugin. I guess I’d be able to figure out who liked/thanked which post from the MySQL database, but again, how do I import said like to discourse. Probably after posts have been imported I need to loop through all the likes/thanks in my database and like the corresponding post on discourse? (Can’t wait for the dislike button to disappear…).
- I haven’t got to attachments yet, but our forum uses attachments that are stored in the DB it seems. Will this be handled by the script or do I need to make changes?
- I see posts with vb code are not being formatted at present. I need to run something after import I believe?
Thanks!
---
### Author:  [@riking](https://meta.discourse.org/u/riking)
#### Post date: [16 Gennaio 2016, 1:15am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/some-questions-on-vbulletin-import-script-groups-likes-attachments/37990/2 "2016-01-16T01:15:06Z")
> [@lrossouw](#):
>
> but again, how do I import said like to discourse. Probably after posts have been imported I need to loop through all the likes/thanks in my database and like the corresponding post on discourse? (Can’t wait for the dislike button to disappear…).
You’ll need to create records in the post\_actions table.
Here’s the columns you need to know:
```plaintext
id serial primary key
post_id integer fkey posts
user_id integer fkey users
post_action_type_id integer ; like = 2
deleted_at timestamp null
created_at timestamp
updated_at timestamp
deleted_by_id integer null, fkey users
```
---
### Author:  [@lrossouw](https://meta.discourse.org/u/lrossouw)
#### Post date: [16 Gennaio 2016, 9:50pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/some-questions-on-vbulletin-import-script-groups-likes-attachments/37990/3 "2016-01-16T21:50:41Z")
> [@lrossouw](#):
>
> I haven’t got to attachments yet, but our forum uses attachments that are stored in the DB it seems. Will this be handled by the script or do I need to make changes?
I figured out a neat way to fix this. On the vb forum go to the attachment and switch storage to file based. It will ask for a folder and export all the attachments to that folder. When it is done, it will ask you to finalise this. At this point if you say no you have a folder with all the attachments but the forum is left untouched with attachments in the db.
---
### Author:  [@lrossouw](https://meta.discourse.org/u/lrossouw)
#### Post date: [18 Gennaio 2016, 10:01am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/some-questions-on-vbulletin-import-script-groups-likes-attachments/37990/4 "2016-01-18T10:01:20Z")
I see the following remaining formatting issues on my transferred forum. That is after the post clean-up scripts ran:
**Lists tags aren’t fixed**
```
[LIST]
[*]item 1
[*]item 2
[*]item 3
[/LIST]
```
I guess I should just remove the tags and the brackets round the \* and add a space and it should be formatted right. Any ideas how? I can update the import script regex I guess? Looking for some regex genius help.
**COLOR tags**
```
[COLOR=#212121][FONT=Helvetica Neue]blah blah[/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#212121][FONT=Helvetica Neue]blah blah[/FONT][/COLOR]
```
This seems to come from posts that were made on the old forum by posting formatted text into them.
I guess best would be to just remove the tags? Again need a regex expert I guess?
Is this a bug because this is BBCode? Should this not be picked up? I didn’t for example need to use backtick to quote the above.
---
### Author:  [@lrossouw](https://meta.discourse.org/u/lrossouw)
#### Post date: [18 Gennaio 2016, 10:45am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/some-questions-on-vbulletin-import-script-groups-likes-attachments/37990/5 "2016-01-18T10:45:46Z")
Found a bug & PR on phpBB importer. This seems to also apply to vBulletin also.
[https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/2927](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/2927)
---
### Author:  [@lrossouw](https://meta.discourse.org/u/lrossouw)
#### Post date: [21 Gennaio 2016, 10:41pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/some-questions-on-vbulletin-import-script-groups-likes-attachments/37990/6 "2016-01-21T22:41:58Z")
I´ve updated the post\_action table and imported our old likes. These are shown in queries, but not in the interface.
How do I refresh the interface?
Answer: `rake user_actions:rebuild`
---
### Author:  [@riking](https://meta.discourse.org/u/riking)
#### Post date: [22 Gennaio 2016, 1:24am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/some-questions-on-vbulletin-import-script-groups-likes-attachments/37990/7 "2016-01-22T01:24:15Z")
Oh right, the importer should have been calling `PostAction.act` I think instead of inserting rows.
My bad!
---
### Author:  [@lrossouw](https://meta.discourse.org/u/lrossouw)
#### Post date: [22 Gennaio 2016, 3:54pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/some-questions-on-vbulletin-import-script-groups-likes-attachments/37990/8 "2016-01-22T15:54:34Z")
Yes I wasn’t going to write the import code. Just did it manually from database to database. Then ran the rake. My ruby is bad.
---
### Author:  [@Haddoq](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Haddoq)
#### Post date: [30 Aprile 2022, 9:48am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/some-questions-on-vbulletin-import-script-groups-likes-attachments/37990/9 "2022-04-30T09:48:54Z")
Risposta molto tardiva… ma mi trovo nella stessa situazione, potresti spiegare come hai trasferito i “mi piace”?
---
### Author:  [@JammyDodger](https://meta.discourse.org/u/JammyDodger)
#### Post date: [8 Giugno 2024, 12:36pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/some-questions-on-vbulletin-import-script-groups-likes-attachments/37990/10 "2024-06-08T12:36:47Z")
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