Stopping Spam on phpbb forums questions: Sorry to bring it up again!!

[247h]

That's fine, don't create work unnecessarily, but you might like to try the SMF conversion as a parallel experiment (for as far as I remember it doesn't affect your current install of phpBB at all) — you could invite other experienced users of your forum to test it for a period before making a decision — they should be able to login there as usual (iirc).

Just make sure you explain they don't write anything there they wish to keep permanently as you would typically delete your complete SMF installation and start again with a fresh conversion, if you decide to ditch phpBB after the trial.

[RSVEcosse]

Brilliant stuff mate, I never even gave that a thought.

I'll set up a trial SMF forum on that domain and play around with it a bit.

Thanks.

[247h]

There's one remaining snag that might cause you a problem when you run convert.php — you need to have first added the SMF database user to the phpBB2 database using your cPanel MySQL Utility, as follows:

cPanel > Databases > MySQL Databases > Add User to Database:

In the top box select from the dropdown your SMF User; in the bottom box select your phpBB2 Database and click the Submit button — allow all permissions — you'll see that in the list above the SMF User will have been added.

Run convert.php and enter the directory paths to both forums and the SMF database encrypted password you'll find in the top level SMF directory in Settings.php — during the conversion you may get some errors listed but it shouldn't stop you opening SMF with all the relevant data installed — you'll have to check! Don't forget to delete convert.php ...

[RSVEcosse]

Thanks for the additional info, I would not have known that.

I'm going to try it just now, and if it all goes to plan I will close the phpBB forums and change the link from the clubs website to point at the SMF forums.

Luckily they have a "backup" point of contact via a Google Group so I can inform everyone there of the change just in case some of them have the forums rather than the main site bookmarked.

Gonna give it a whirl now, wish me luck....LOL.

[RSVEcosse]

Thanks for all your assistance guys, especially 247h's.

Just performed the conversion and its all running fine.

I did get at one point, as you said I might 247h, an error message during the conversion that said:-

Fatal error: Call to undefined function copy_dir() in /home/gwlogic/public_html/glasgowkayakclub.com/smfforums/convert.php(665) : eval()'d code on line 20

However it hasn't so far appeared to have caused any problems from what I can see.

Will try these SMF forums out now for a few weeks, add some mods etc and see if it helps any with the spam registrations.

Many thanks once again everyone.

[247h]

RSVEcosse, I've been having an occasional look at your SMF forums (as a guest) — though there are relatively few members so far and not many topics to view, I was wondering how you're finding it in comparison to your bad phpBB2 experiences, particularly with spam registrations?

As for your Coppermine Gallery, before either that or SMF gets too busy, you might like to think about bridging Coppermine into the SMF database in order to have a common login — I forget now how I did mine (over 2 years ago) but it seems that there is now a bridging wizard within Coppermine and you might like to start looking at this forum thread on the subject ...

Anyway, if you're likely to stick with SMF and need any advice then please feel free to send me a PM or email ...

[RSVEcosse]

Hi m8,

Thanks, I had no idea you could bridge a common login between the forums and the Gallery. I will research that, might be a handy option and thanks for the offer of advice.

So far, the SMF forums have been up and running for a few weeks now and I have had absolutely no spam registrations as yet. Really pleased. Compared to the phBB forums previously, where I was having to check it every single day and delete dozens of spambots, SMF is bliss!!!.

There are only a handful of members and very few posts so far as they are a small club but also because although their website is up and running along with full functionality of forums and their Coppermine gallery, they have not actually paid for the finished article as of yet. I think they are a bit reluctant to post or register out of "politeness" as they maybe feel a bit guilty until its purchased??!!!!.

I've still to install Contribute on the club member's PC who will be updating parts of the site and thats the last part of the jigsaw, so to speak. Then I'm looking for them to action upon the invoice I have sent.

The trouble is with business as I'm sure you will appreciate, is that when you mix close friends into the equation, 2 of which are club members, it gets a bit difficult if you know what I mean.

I'm not stupid though, there's going to have to be a time limit set on this for payment to be made for work carried out at which point I may have to consider pulling the entire site down until agreement is reached although I honestly dont envisage it coming anywhere close to that.