Upgrade or Install New?

[chumclub]

This is kind of a strategy issue.

We are running latest VBulletin4.x and vbGallery 3.x

I uploaded and installed Photopost 7.1 and imported vbGallery files but did not disable vbGallery or make Photopost "live" pending fine tuning.

In the interim, Photopost 8 is released and we wish to go to it. But there have been a few dozen pics added to vbGallery.

Q. Would it be best to install PP8 new and re-import data from vbGallery or is there a way to upgrade PP7 and import the last dozen or so pics from vbGallery?

[Chuck S]

I would install PP8 and then do a fresh import and then go live to 8.

[chumclub]

Thanks for the advice. I installed PP8 and imported using vbag and all looks ok.

One thing, I wanted to maintain a separate db for photopost and put that info in the photopost config file. But mistakenly put my vbulletin db in the vbag config file. So it imported ok but the adm-index showed no cats or pics. I figured it out, fixed the vbag config file, and imported again. All is well. Only thing is my vbulletin db now has a bunch a 'pp' tables in it. Can I delete those or are they needed even if using a separate photopost db?

[Chuck S]

that depends where you installed PhotoPost

If Photopost is installed into the vb database you can not delete the pp_ tables unless you want to uninstall the gallery.

If you installed Pro into its own database then you can delete those tables.

[chumclub]

Thanks. I installed in a separate PP db. It was the vbag import that I messed up then corrected. I'll backup the vbulletin db, delete the tables, and see if it works! If not, I know how to restore the db.

[Chuck S]

Okay no problem.

[chumclub]

So I deleted the tables with a SQL command and all seems fine.

Except the vbag import seems to have messed up member albums. Lots of albums not under the right member or owner. Lots of albums don't show in browse but show in Adv. Search. Example I have ReefHound, if I click Member Albums then "r" it says no users found but in Adv Search if I search "reefhound" it shows them. Any simple fix? Or even a tedious manual fix?

[Chuck S]

Well if the userid's are not correct then sure things can get messed up I suppose but can not comment without explicit examples

As far as cleanup's have you done the cleanups in admin scan database like update counts, rebuild members last photo etc?

[chumclub]

Yes did the Scan Database ops and user ids seem correct. Will work up some specific examples. Should I create a user for you with PP Admin rights?

In the general example above I edited several albums and changed them to correctly show under Reefhound but cannot get Reefhound to show under "r" in member albums. Adv Search returns it if I search All Categories but not just Member Albums. I have the reffhound album edited with Member Albums as the parent.

[Chuck S]

Like I said a rescan of cat counts and a rebuild of the members last photo should rebuild a members last photo.

However I understand your reassign an album which may be your issue. It may reassign the album as someone else but that does not mean the photos within it are yours which is probally your problem. You need to have a viewable non private image to show up in the members list.

[chumclub]

I reassigned one album to try to find a way to correct things. Many other albums I did not touch that have the same issue.

I did not know that individual photos can be set as private. I see no way to set that nor in the pp_photos table do I see a private or viewable field. In the pp_category field the private field is 'no' for all categories in the db.

In the pp_users table I did a check of about 20 members and the userid/username is correct.

[Chuck S]

Like I said I can not comment without seeing what your saying but it could be an issue with the import can not say.

[chumclub]

Back to this issue which has kinda been set aside the last few months. My users cannot find their photos and it appears the vbGallery import hosed everything. Too many new things have been added to go back now.

1. The owners of albums were mostly incorrect. I have corrected most of these using Manage Albums, opening the album to see who uploaded the photos and setting the owner. This is nearly resolved presuming changing the owner isn't going to have some unintended consequences.

2. Despite reading several threads on the issue, I still do not get the difference between Member Albums and Member Galleries. More specifically, why there needs to be two types. Seems an album would be a subset of a gallery. Nevertheless, the issue is that my member albums/galleries are mingled. I just want them all one or the other.

Example, if I go to Member Galleries or Member Albums and click a letter:
Reefhound appears under Galleries
Sushi Boy appears under Albums
Smoochy appears under both

How can I move one to the other? I didn't notice any method under Admin or any fields in the database.

3. Finally, we have Categories for public folders where anyone can upload to, and Member albums/galleries intended for just that member. Well somehow some of our public categories got converted into albums. Example:

2008 Events
>2008 CHUM Meeting pics
>2008 Trashfest
2006 Events
>2006 Meeting pics
>Xmas Party 2006 (oops, not here, it's an album)

So in the database, I can tediously change the fields in Xmas Party 2006, change cattype from "a" to "c", check/uncheck the proper fields, assign the parent, and add id to children of 2006 Events. And it works. Takes me 15 minutes each and there are dozens. Is there an administrative way to change an album to a category?

I can PM you more data if needed. Site URL, test user/pwd with Gallery admin rights, host logins if you need to see my database (it's separate from the vbulletin database).

[Chuck S]

Not sure what you want me to do here. There is no real support to switch products. There is this tool to help reset a userid based off of username.

Reassign userid's when switching integrations to VBulletin

That is usually something someone would run after switching a forum type using the vb impex importer which changes userids. etc.

That little tool above will fix photo and comment userid's for Pro if you imported content into pro etc however if you have ran the update usernames thing in admin of pro you hosed your install and can never realign anything without starting over simply because your userid and now username are all incorrect as your updating usernames based off wrong userids.

I hope you follow me here on that. To be able to update a userid the username has to be correct and that is what that script above does is it checks your forum for a userid based off the users username.

If you still have vbgallery you can try redoing the whole import thing again then use that script. Not sure what you can do months later as these are things you correct right away.

PhotoPost handles albums differently than vbgallery which is probally your confusion. If you create some public album using the album admin thing in vbgallery whether its public private its still a personal album and as such displays differently than how Pro does things.

You will definately have to hand change any albums you wish because most definately the import script did its job correctly. Things are only going to be installed as albums if they where albums in the first place.

[chumclub]

There is a thread here with a vbag import script and list of maintenance functions to run after the import. I followed those steps exactly. Twice, at the time.

All the actual photos are assigned to the proper user. It's the albums/categories that are hosed.

I don't think the import script performed correctly because the results are inconsistent. Some of our vbgallery public categories were kept as categories, some were made albums. All public categories were created in AdminCP as categories.

The issue with public categories being converted to personal albums can be resolved with a lot of tedious work. I was just hoping there was an easier way. The issue with album ownership can be resolved as well. But even when that is done, the biggest issue is no one knows where to look for their stuff and the search functions don't seem to help.

What I'm asking specifically is this:

1. Is there an administrative way to move an album from Galleries to Albums or vice-versa. (This lets me fix it with minor effort)

2. What in the database differentiates an album that appears in Member Albums versus Member Galleries? (This lets me fix it with major effort)

3. When a user adds a personal album, how do they make it so it appears in Galleries or Albums? (This prevents it from recurring in the future)

[Chuck S]

ok well like I the import script is written how it is. I think your confusion is how albums and categories work between the products.

vbGallery the only categories which are categories to my knowledge are the ones you create in vbgallery admin. Basically for vbGallery the way I know you tell its an album is the catuserid field is filled out if its owned by a user. This says to me its an album. Now I know in vbgallery albums are displayed different than Pro. In vbgallery an album could be made public and is shown on the category list. This is not true in Pro. Personal albums are only shown when viewing a users members gallery or if the user assigns his album to a category if you allow that permission. If a user assigns an album to a categopry when in pro when you view that category of photos then any albums assigned to it will show there.

1. You can edit any album you wish and assign it to a category or leave it as members gallery.

2. You already know this the a and c flags in cattype.

3. They can assign the album to the members gallery or another album or a category via that option when they create the album. Of course this means you will have to have under edit usergroups in admin personal albums to yes and assign albums to yes as well.