Please note: This conversion script upgrades to Version 2.5.5 Unicode. To upgrade to the latest version 3, you will need to upgrade from 2.5.5 Unicode.

The following is the readme file of the Snitz conversion script. The conversion script is written by Gene from Ovusoft.com.

---

BACKGROUND
----------
convertSnitz.exe will convert Snitz topics/replies to ASPPlayground format and
update member profiles converted from Snitz to ASPPlayground pgd_members table
using Chris Kaminski' s (HomeNetHelp.com) .SQL script so that they work with
the client-side message parsing used by ASPPlayground. I took Chris' ASP-based
message conversion script and modified it to work within an EXE file so that
timeouts were not an issue when converting larger Snitz Forum' s to ASPPlayground.
I converted over 48,000 posts and updated over 18,000 members profiles using this
tool, so it does work.


DEPENDENCIES
------------
convertSnitz.exe has the following dependencies and they must be already present
on your system (no install file here, dudes):

- MSVBVM60.DLL
- MS ADO 2.6 or later (get it at http://www.microsoft.com/data)
- MS VBScript Regular Expressions 5.5 or later (get it at
http://www.microsoft.com/scripting)

Additionally, you MUST convert your FORUM_MEMBERS and FORUM_FORUMS tables to
ASP-PGD using Chris' sql script from snitz2play_v13.zip (included in the zip).
Note that this is the original script from Chris and will need modification
to support your database versions. *** convertSnitz.exe is designed to
replace Chris' STEP2.ASP program ***


SUPPORT (or lack thereof)
-------------------------
Source code is included, feel free to modify to suit your needs. This project
is unsupported, but if I' m in a good mood, I might be able to help you ;-) You can
e-mail me at gene@ovusoft.com.

HOW TO...
---------
1) Install ASP-PGD on the same server and in the same database as Snitz -- they
use different table names so there is no chance of writing over your data.

2) Shut down your Snitz forum. Delete anything from Snitz FORUM_TOPICS and
FORUM_REPLIES that you don' t want to transfer (by date, perhaps). Eliminate
duplicate member names from FORUM_MEMBERS (they can exist, use an SQL statement
to find them).

3) Modify Chris' STEP1.SQL script to match the current version of ASP-PGD' s
database and to convert any custom fields you may have in Snitz' FORUM_MEMBERS
table that you want to bring over to ASP-PGD.

4) Run the modified STEP1.SQL script (if you don' t know how to do this, you' re
going to have to figger it out on your own... HINT: Try Enterprise Manager!)

5) Run convertSnitz.exe and fill in the blanks with your username, password, etc.
Note that you can run this from any client that has access to the server, even
over a TCP/IP (Internet) connection. If you are using dial-up, though, this
might take FOREVER, as it wasn' t designed with client/server performance in mind.
It' s best to run it directly on the LAN where the server is located.

6) Click the " Convert Msgs" button -- you can pause it as it runs, expect it to
take a while if you have lots of messages. This routine is transferring data
from the Snitz topic & replies tables into the single ASP-PGD " pgd_messages"
table. It' s also converting double-quotes to prevent ASP-PGD from bombing on the
display of messages (ASP-PGD uses client-side Javascript to parse UBB-style code
and double-quotes will bomb it -- trust me on this).

7) Click the " Fix Sigs" button -- this converts double-quotes in signatures for
the same reason as in 6 above.

8) Run Chris' STEP3.SQL script.

That' s it. If you screw up anywhere along the way, simply delete all member records
with " mem > 0" in pgd_Members, all forums with " ForumID > 0" in pgd_Forums, and
everything in pgd_Messages. DO NOT DELETE ANYTHING IN SNITZ. This program doesn' t
edit Snitz data at all.

GOOD LUCK! ASPPlayground ROCKS!

The following is the readme from the original conversion script which is an essential part of the conversion process as well. This script was written by Chris from homenethelp.com

---

----------------------------------------------------------
SNITZ 3.3.x to ASPPLAYGROUND.NET forums conversion routine

written in one day on a LOAD of stimulants
ver 1.3

Chris Kaminski
http://forum.homenethelp.com
chrisk@homenethelp.com
-----------------------------------------------------------


This does not convert the following things
- some user data missing like start date
- moderators are not moved
- forum categories are not moved
- security and groups are not moved
- archived posts
- the ' locked status' on posts

Things that ARE converted
- users & most user info
- forums with names and descriptions
- messages with properly ordered replies!


**** NO SUPPORT PROVIDED ******
**** USE AT YOUR OWN RISK *****

==========
STEPS
==========

1) Install the aspplayground.net SQL into a new database called FORUMS with an owner of dbo

2) Go to your new aspplayground forum default page with a web browser. This will populate
the database with a few default values. If you dont do this, the next script will fail.

3) run the step1.sql in the database that has SNITZ (on the same server)

4) Edit the STEP2.ASP
a) Change the include path to your adovbs.inc
b) change your my_conn.open connect string to your DB with SNITZ
(The login must also have owner priv on the FORUMS database

5) execute STEP2.ASP - pref on the same server as the database
it may time out if you have loads of posts - set timeout if necessary

6) run STEP3.ASP in the forum database

7) PRess the UNLOAD button for the the web application
from in IIS (or reboot the IIS computer). You can' t simply
stop and start the web app.


==========
Edits
==========
You will have to manually edit the SORT column of the pgd_forums.
Sort your forums like this 1,2,3,4,5,etc for each category


==========
NOTES
==========
Posts that are from users that no longer exist get assigned to GUEST (user -1).




=============================
Chris Kaminski
http://HomeNetHelp.com
http://forum.homenethelp.com
chrisk@homenethelp.com

- accept donations through paypal at chrisk@homenethelp.com

If you are a registered customer and wish to migrate your Snitz forum, please kindly send me an e-mail to support@aspplayground.net and I will send you correct version of the software + the conversion script (the conversion script is available in our private forum)

Thank you!

Mike Napurano at http://www.fxol.com reported a problem and provided a solution for Snitz conversion script. Big Thank you to Mike for the info.

The following is the problem and the solution he wrote in an e-mail:

Problem
during the conversion STEP1.SQL, I am getting:

Server: Msg 2601, Level 14, State 3, Line 1
Cannot insert duplicate key row in object ' pgd_Members' with unique index ' Login' .
The statement has been terminated.

Solution
When you delete a member from Snitz... apparently, it simply FLAGS them as deleted. It also
changes their M_NAME (Login name field) to " n/a" . This was the problem. I deleted
those users, and the script worked.

Big thanks to Tom as he wrote a conversion script for users of the latest Snitz version 3.4.05 -> 2.5.5 Unicode and was kind to share his work with us. Here is what he wrote in his email:

Samuel,

Here's the package. It uses most of the stuff available on the forums but repackages it then adds some automation and my own tweaks.

I used osql and batch files to do most of the grunt work. I work off an SQL server with trusted permissions so that is how all my scripts are setup. If different access is needed the scripts can be tweaked accordingly. Also some of them are inefficient as hell but I wanted them to be flexible for deployement reasons. I run tests on a few local systems before moving to my live systems so automation is important, lol.

The readme.txt file walks you through the process and everything is in sql or bat files so it'll be easy enough to check for malicious code.
The only exe is the one I downloaded off the forums (convertSnitz.exe).

Some of the stuff I did was integrating a slightly modified transparent password transfer handler, inserting the admin and guest users, changing ownership of tables (minimizes errors and trouble later on), automating all the conversions up to the latest Unicode release and a bunch of other minor tweaks.

Also, if someone wanted to go 2.5.5 ANSI it would probably be an easy tweak since that would cut out having to build a new database and copy over all the data. The switch to Unicode portion of the conversion is handled in 3.convert.bat, everything before that would remain the same.

Any questions or problems with it let me know. I was tempted to wrap it all in a .net executable but figured this did the job and would allow people to mess with it easier so why bother. :)

Tom

Hello! I'm migrating my old Snitz forum using the above scripts. The members were moved over using the step1.sql script (though I have yet to verify membership provider functionality) and I'm working on moving the messages now.

Unfortunately, the .exe will not recognize my DB server (access denies/server does not exist exception). Could this be a problem with me trying to access the server remotely through my router? Is there a specific trick with  server names? How far off is Chris K's asp script? I understand that the .exe replaces that, but it's looking like that may be more feasible for me to run since I can just drop it on the server.

I'm using Godaddy, the DB server is whsql-v23.prod.mesa1.secureserver.net, and I have verified that the credentials are correct. Any ideas?

Thanks.

You need to ask if Godaddy allows connection remotely. I think it could be a problem with them as they disallow (AFAIK) connection remotely.

For anyone else using godaddy, they do have a server for remote access now. I wound up setting everything up on a local dev box for better control while implementing. Now I can run the .exe but it gives errors saying "ordinal not found" and when I checked the source, there are many fields targeted by the .exe in the pgd_messages table which don't exist. I created some of these to see if that fixes the problem (thinking this might be a version 2 script and I have version 3 of APG) and now I get "multiple setp operation generated errors" exceptions.

These happen for every row of data so I'm very confused. I ran the script this morning for 45 min while it transferred 11000 posts but it eventually tanked my system and only wound up putting posts in the pgd_messages table but nothing showed on the forum, it was empty. Is this an older version and if so, what do I need to change so that it's version 3 compatible? Also, has anyone just made an aspx page to do this? The VB 6.0 code is not updating in visual studio and the original VB Pro studio is long gone so edits to the .exe are looking slimmer and slimmer.

I was banking on this script working and picked this forum over others because of the snitz conversion factor, the features, and the good support I saw here. I've spent days now trying different things and I really hope to be up and running soon.

I see the note about upgrading from 2.5.5 Unicode, but where is the package provided by Tom? And could that be the sole cause of the exceptions I'm seeing? Forgive me if I'm missing something obvious, 12 hours of screen time has me bleary eyed and downtrodden.

The conversion only works for the older version of Asp Playground.  You then go through a bunch of upgrades to bring it to the current generation.  I was able to successfully do it a month ago with a 1/2 million posts and 80,000 user base.

I will add you to the V2 group so that you can download 2.5.5 unicode for conversion purposes.

Thanks guys. I have installed version 2.5.5. Unicode successfully and will begin the migration tonight.

Hotel 96 I have one question/request. Do you recall what steps you had to take from the old version install, through the migration, to the eventual upgrade to V3? I ask because there seem to be a bunch of incremental patches and I don't want to spend any more time reinventing the wheel if I don't have to. If you remember the steps you took I'd be grateful if you posted them.

Thanks again!

I decided to keep working on this,

After installing the V2 forums, I ran the sq. scripts and .exe converter successfully, but nothing was showing up, the forums were empty (the records were in the database however, pgd forums and messagese were populated with the Snitz content). So I reread the instructions and saw that I should run the version 1.7 DB installation script before installing V2. so here's what I did next (to a fresh DB restore of my snitz DB):

1. Run 1.70.17_Full.sql - successful
2. Run STEP1.SQL (members) - successful
3. Run convertSnitz.exe (messages/forums) - successful
4. Run STEP3.SQL (topics) - successful
5. Run all of the following 'Database_Upgrade_After_Conversion' scripts in order:

1) 1.70.17-1.82.20_UPGRADE.sql
2) 1.82.20-1.96.23_UPGRADE.sql
3) 1.96.23-1.99.24_UPGRADE.sql
4) 1.99.24_sp1.sql
5) 1.99.24_sp2.sql
6) 1.99.24_sp3.sql
7) 1.99.24_sp4.sql
8) 1.99.24_sp5.sql
9) 1.99.24SP5_2.0.5_UPGRADE.sql           
10) 2.0.5_2.1.1_UPGRADE.sql   
11) 2.1.1_2.1.5_UPGRADE.sql    
12) 2.1.5_2.2_UPGRADE.sql
13)NOTE: the readme for this prtion referrs to .js files and an 'ini.asp file but none were included in the .zip I downloaded.

All executed successfully. And then I checked the DB and the pgd tables are EMPTY?!?!

Now I saw a final step Samuel referred to upgrading the 2.2 database to the latest, 2.4.5 ANSI - BUT that thread states that an upgrade to version 3 of the forums is not possible. And that's what I need ideally, version 3 with my old posts. That also does not explain why there's no data. do the upgrade scripts from step 5 overwrite everything?

What is the proper road map to get from snitz 3.4 to APG 3? Did I miss something in my procedures above? If somebody can provide me the proper steps I'll do the rest. Right now I'm going in circles with all of the different scripts, upgrades, and instructions.

Like I said the scripts are all executing but something isn't right because there's still no data. And when there is, data, the forum doesn't read in it.

JAF,

The instruction has point 5 to 7 as follows:

5) execute '2.upgrade.bat <databasename>' where <databasename> is the name of the snitz forum database
- This runs the statistics update (step3.sql) file then processes each database upgrade in order bringing the database to v2.4.2 sp3.

--- stop ---

To continue you will need a new database created. All sql files assume the SQL server is running on this computer, that trusted security is enabled and that your login has administrative rights on the SQL server.

--- begin ---

6) execute '3.convert.bat' <olddatabasename> <newdatabasename>' where <olddatabasename> is the name of the snitz forum database and <newdatabasename> is the name of the newly created database
- this creates the new unicode tables, copies all of the data over, finishes building the v2.4.3 Unicode database layout then conerts it to v2.5.5 Unicode. It also cleans up the isMD5 field in the pgd_Members table to handle the transparent password transfer modification and builds the default admin/guest users.

7) download and extract the v2.5.5 Unicode distribution package

So, you will need to convert to 2.4.2 SP3 -> 2.4.3 Unicode -> 2.5.5 Unicode -> V3

Or, you can do this if you download the latest ANSI version (2.4.5 ANSI)

2.4.2 SP3 -> 2.4.5 ANSI -> 2.4.5 Unicode -> V3

The most important thing is that you should get your data converted from Snitz to 1.7 first (make sure data are there), and you will be able to upgrade within our system using our script.

Thanks Samuel. I just spent the last two hours going through that set of conversions. It seems to have gone well except for a few snags. I have posted those in the thread about Tom's script from back in 2005 since it pertains directly to that set of instructions.

http://www.aspplayground.net/forum/tm.aspx?high=&m=389992&mpage=1#400468

Please let me know if you have any input regarding that exception.

Thanks again!