Did you read the FAQ?
Please read the FAQ, also located in the first post of the support topic at phpBB.com. If you still have problems after that, you could try to email me, but I will probably not be able to respond.

A problem with your path defines? Let me try and auto-detect them for you.
Complete the form below and press 'submit'.

Full URL of vBulletin board:
Full URL of phpBB board:

Frequently Asked Questions and Additional Information on the converter

The current version of my converter is: 1.33
Current version of attachment converter is: 1.02

Latest versions known to work: vB 2.3.4, phpBB 2.0.6, mod_attach 2.3.7

Download Link

Limited Email Support via converter (at) matthijs (dot) net

----- CONVERTS ----
- Everything but the themes and features not included in phpBB
- Attachments seperately supported

----- KNOWN ISSUES -----
- version 1.31: polls with id > 1000 not converted
- version 1.32: wordlist generation incompatible with phpBB 2.0.4
- version 1.33: none
- Unable to convert DCForums via vBulletin, due to makeup of DCForums to vBulletin converter. This is not a bug in my converter.

----- FAQ -----
I want to convert forumA.com/vb/ to forumB.com/phpBB/, is that a problem?
If the files for both domains are on the same server, no. Just make sure the path defines are okay. If you have two different servers, it will not work directly. You'll have to install a clean phpBB on the same server as the vB installation and use it to convert. Move this phpBB intallation to the new server afterwards (see numerous topics and Knowlegde Base for details on how to do this).

I get path define errors, what is wrong?
Follow these simple steps:

1. Edit convert.php and change the following variable:
   define('PHPBB_PATH', '../phpBB2/');
   There are two ways to define this variable: 1) put in the absolute path (e.g. '/var/www/forums/phpbb/') or 2) define it relative to the vBulletin dir, where convert.php will be uploaded (e.g. '../phpbb/').
   The second option is the simplest, but for some reason people keep messing this up.
   Examples:
   • vB: http://forum.yourhost.com/, phpBB: http://forum.yourhost.com/phpbb/ -> define('PHPBB_PATH', 'phpbb/');
   • vB: http://www.yourhost.com/forums/, phpBB: http://www.yourhost.com/newforum/ -> define('PHPBB_PATH', '../newforum/');
   • vB: http://www.yourhost.com/forums/, phpBB: http://www.yourhost.com/forums/phpbb/ -> define('PHPBB_PATH', 'phpbb/');
2. The second variable you have to edit is the URL of your phpBB board as it would be viewed through your browser:
   define('PHPBB_URI', 'http://www.yourdomain.com/phpBB2/');
3. Upload the edited convert.php into your vBulletin dir (in the forum root, where forumdisplay.php is)

Be sure to include the tailing slashes on all paths. If you still get these errors and are unable to figure it out on your own, PM me with the URL of your vBulletin and phpBB forum and I'll send you the correct defines.
If you have PHP 4.3, use full paths instead of relative ones if you experience problems. This will most certainly help.

Does the converter overwrite my old vBulletin forum?
No. The converter reads from the vBulletin database and writes to the new phpBB database. The vBulletin installation is left totally intact. So if there is a problem converting, no data will be lost and you can safely try again after solving the problem.

My vB installation uses subforums, will these get converted?
Yes, since phpBB doesn't support subforums, the vB subforums are converted to normal forums.

After the conversion, there are no forums on the frontpage
Your vB installation did not have categories or there where forums without a category. After adding a new category in the phpBB admin area, the forums will appear and everything will work.

I get timeout errors or the script stops in the middle of the process
Enable the FORCE_SAFE_MODE define (set it to '1'). Even though you are not running on safe_mode, this should stop the script timing out.
If you still get timeouts, you should also lower the SAFE_MODE_BATCHES define (integer values only!).
As a last resort, you can manually edit to something lower, like 100. This piece of code is located at line 2843 of convert.php.

At some step in the process, I ran into an error. It's now fixed, do I have to restart the entire process?
No, you can simply resume the process after the last step that was successful. Point your browser to f.i. http://www.yourdomain.com/vb/convert.php?step=wordlist
Also, you may resume the wordlist indexing when using FORCE_SAFE_MODE at the last batch, http://www.yourdomain.com/vb/convert.php?step=wordlist&startat=XXXX

I used an earlier version of the converter and I have problems with avatar permissions
Run the following query on the database, using a tool like phpMyAdmin
UPDATE phpbb_users SET user_allowavatar=1;

What about supporting vBulletin 3.0 RC-X/Final?
A new converter for vB 3.0 will be written in due time. See my (pre-)development topic here.