Toad program with a script that you execute where the arrow is

As JFusion is no longer supported the alternative is to buy p8pBB bridge for 60 USD in worst case each year if your want to use phpBB 3. Many thinks this is too expensive, but it is possible to convert the phpBB3 database to a Kunena database in a rather short time and rather simple. With this procedure conversion not only from phpBB 3.0, but also 3.1 and 3.2 has been successful.

My forum:

phpBB 3.0.14

660 000 posts

50 000 topics

2800 members

phpbb_posts table 700 MB

What you need:

Xampp to create a site for conversion on your PC.

Here you find a short description of how to use the script and you can also download the script.

Download Toad for MySQL Freeware and install it on your PC.

Notepad ++ as editor program.

Important: All PM:s are lost by the conversion.

I recommend first a test conversion.

First I changed the script in Notepad ++ 

Before you run this script, you need to do the following modifications correctly:

  • Find and replace the token "phpbb_database_name" according to your own database.

  • Find and replace the token "joomla_database_name" according to your own database.

  • Find and replace the database prefix "jos_" to whatever prefix you have in your joomla installation.

If you have extra smilies you might add them at the end of the script. A little difficult but can be done.

A fix exists here #954 for the script so members without posts shall not be deleted.

In Xampp you must create a database and you can give it any name, but it must be the identical name in the conversion script.

Then you transfer your phpbb database tables from your live site to your site on your PC. I used a program MySQLDumper for this. This took 30 minutes for me.

Then install Joomla on your Xampp: C:\xampp\htdocs\yourlocalsite

After that install Kunena (5.0.13) and Kunena languages.

Then you start Toad and connect it to your database.

When you are connected click Open and load the conversion script.

Look beneath for errors in red because you have to fix them prior running the script.

Now the most difficult is to find the button to execute the script. (See image at top)

Now the script start to convert and after an hour it was ready for me.

However, I had 2800 members, but after conversion only 1600 members were left Joomla users table, because all members with no posts were deleted. Also the members had userid from phpBB-JFusion and not Joomla.

I did not want to change userid in Joomla, so I had to make a script to change userid from phpBB for all kunena messages  to Joomla. This is difficult to automate, so I made it manually for each user. It´s not constant. userid 2 in phpBB3 was  64 in Joomla, whereas 3800 was 3000 respectivly.

Do like this start with latest member in phpBB3 and find out the corresponding Joomla userid like this (but this is the first member not the last)

UPDATE `att_kunena_messages` SET `userid` = '64' WHERE `userid` = '2';

2 is phpBB userid and 64 is the Joomla userid

I did this for all members with posts. What is very important when you change userid is that Joomla userid must be emty of posts. It was not in this case, so first I hade to move the userid at 64 to userid 127 like this:

UPDATE `att_kunena_messages` SET `userid` = '127' WHERE `userid` = '64';

So the script will look like;

UPDATE `att_kunena_messages` SET `userid` = '127' WHERE `userid` = '64';

UPDATE `att_kunena_messages` SET `userid` = '64' WHERE `userid` = '2';

I got 50 pages with these queries in OpenOffice writer. I pasted all pages in Notepad ++ and saved it as a SQL-file.

I loaded the file in Toad and had to fix some errors.

Then I run this script also and it took 5 hours, because I had 660 000 posts.

But another script is needed to fix the userid for topics. It is easy to fix.

Make a copy of previous script and load it in Notepad ++

UPDATE `att_kunena_messages` SET `userid` = '64' WHERE `userid` = '2';

Substitute `att_kunena_messages` with `att_kunena_topics`.

Then `userid` with `last_post_userid`. Then it looks like.

UPDATE `att_kunena_topics` SET `last_post_userid` = '64' WHERE `last_post_userid` = '2';

When the earlier scripts finished you run this script. It took 1 hour with 50 000 topics.

Then log in in administration with username: mixerp and password secret.

Then with phpmyadmin I deleted (dropped) Joomla usertable and imported the usertable from live site. Then I made the original super admin superadmin in his user settings in Joomla. Very easy.

Copy your attachments from phpBB to:

media/kunena/attachments/migrated/

They have no image extension, so from a command window in that folder make the command:

ren *.* *.jpg

Then they all become jpg-files.

Copy avatars from phpBB3 to

media/kunena/gallery

I copied members personal avatars to:

media/kunena/gallery/members

I did that as avatars settings are lost in the conversion and personal avatars, must be possible to choose for members. 

Then copy your rank images from phpBB3 to Kunena.

media/kunena/ranks

Then copy smilies from phpBB3 to Kunena:

media/kunena/emoticons 

In Kunena administration check ranks and smilies. If you are going to use phpBB 3 smilies you have to add them in smilies administration. 

Now add Categories of your forum. You must do that, so they become visible. You have to change settings for each category of the forum. I had only a top section and all other categories under it.

Then fix the configuration for Kunena. I fixed the Configuration during the time I run the last two scripts. 

If you have special ranks or moderators You have to fix that in kunena users in administration.

As I had changed user table for Joomla I emptied kunena_users table Then in Kunena administration Syncronize users choose  Add userprofiles to all. Then you can add ranks to certain users and add Moderators. 

To get a good look of the forum go to Kunena templates choose Crypsis change General settings Boostrap Yes.

Now go to Kunena admin Tools and Recalculate statistics.

Its ready now and you can add Kunena to the menu and look at it.

It was perfect for me. 

You must export ranks, emoticons and kunena users tables in phpmyadmin to use when you make the real conversion, so you dont have to redo this a second time. 

When you do the real conversion inactivate phpBB3, so it can't be used. Then backup the phpBB3 tables. For me the real conversion took 8 hours, but the site except for the forum was open. To add kunena tables to my site I used MySQLDumper and it took 30 minut to do that. 

For redirects to the new forum is this to put in your .htaccess. Most important I put Disallow: phpBB3 and Disallow: forum  in the robots.txt and added a hidden menu-item for both phpBB3 and forum with nofollow, so search engines don't check URLs for old forum posts of phpBB3. I gave my forum a new alias kunena. The htaccess redirect does not redirect to 100 %, but forumposts are often directed to right category, but not right thread, but they save a lot of 404 errors.

In Kunena admin you can go to Tools and Diagnostics and fix errors that is detected for Kunena.

Kunena does not have PM, but you can install UDDEIM for that. 

Everybody was satisfied and after PHP 7.1 the forum was much faster and loaded in 0,2 seconds for members. As Kunena belongs to Joomla, the extension Jotcache cachees Kunena pages making them fast for guests. Some people did not manage to add their avatars but I installed Easy User plugin and logged in to their account at frontend and changed avatar for them.

You can change the look of Crypsis and make it look like Blue Eagle by putting this in custom.css. 

Good Luck!