closed Looking to very migrate soon - process and json and media files

I have a decent-sized Ning network -- started January 2008 on a custom domain the entire time, and now about 10,000 members, 9500 images, 20 groups, 3500 forum discussions, 650 blogs, 269 videos (most embedded).

I tried migrating over to grou.ps but they have not returned one of my emails asking for help and their support forum is moribund. So I am actively looking for an alternative. Want to move by the end of the year. Need to move before March.

I will probably go with the Arvixe hosted option as I don't want to be responsible for maintaining this myself (on Bluehost where most everything else is).

Where do I put the .json files and media for the import? Keep them on my local machine or FTP them up to the host? Total file size is about 12gb.

Also, during the export, not all of the media files could be downloaded for some of the content areas, what sort of problems are the missing files likely to cause?

Thanks in advance,
:: Clay
updated by @claygordon: 07/09/16 09:21:02AM

Hi @thechocolatelife - Welcome to Jamroom

Checkout our documentation for how to import from Ning to Jamroom. It tells you were to upload the Ning archive and walks you through the whole process -

https://www.jamroom.net/ning-to-jamroom/documentation/ning2jamroom

Its hopefully straightforward, but if after reading it it still sounds daunting, we can do it for you -

https://www.jamroom.net/ning-to-jamroom/serviceshop

If you signup with Arvixe you can optionally get Jamroom pre-installed. Signup via this link -

https://www.jamroom.net/r/recommended-hosting

If the import process cannot file media files for audio/video etc, they will not be imported. This does not 'break' the import, it just means that they will be missing in the Jamroom system.

Hope that helps
Paul


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Paul Asher - JR Developer and System Import Specialist
updated by @paul: 12/29/14 09:23:54AM

Love the name @thechocolatelife.
updated by @michael: 12/29/14 09:23:54AM

@Paul

Thanks for the quick response. I did read the docs on the migration process. I am kind of compulsive that way.

It's not that I am intimidated by the process, but it's a value of time evaluation. Based on everything I've seen so far I think I am going to get the hosted install over at Arvixe and ask you guys to do the import for me. It's worth what you're charging to have you do it

Final question (maybe); I want to schedule the install so I can put my Ning site into maintenance mode so that no changes happen to the Ning site while the xfer is happening. What's the normal lead time for scheduling the import and how long is it likely to take given the size of things I mentioned above? The image library is about 7.9gb of the overall total of 11.35gb.
updated by @claygordon: 12/29/14 09:23:54AM

@Michael

Thanks. The idea for the name came from the Ricky Martin song Living La Vida Loca. That became (in my mind) Living La Vida Cocoa (I also own lavidacocoa.com) and that became Living The Chocolate Life. The Ning community I am looking to migrate is TheChocolateLife.com.
updated by @claygordon: 12/29/14 09:23:54AM

Hi Clay
I would say that given the size of your site, the import process would take 2/3 days to complete.
Bear in mind that you would still need to upload your Ning archive to the Jamroom site before we could start it so that may well take a couple of days as well, dependent upload the speed of your internet connection.
You will also need some of our modules to accept your Ning archive items. Again, looking at your first post here, I suggest that our Ning Bundle is the best value for money and will give you everything you need to import your site -

https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/bundle/18/ning-to-jamroom

You say that most of your videos are embedded. Presumably they are YouTube videos? If so, they will also be imported to the jrYouTube module included in the bundle. If your archive has Vimeo videos, you may also want our jrVimeo module so as to receive those.

We can start the import process pretty well as soon as we receive your order and when your archive is uploaded to the Jamroom site, but bear in mind that Christmas is rapidly looming and some of us here might want a day off


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Paul Asher - JR Developer and System Import Specialist
updated by @paul: 12/29/14 09:23:54AM

Paul:

I have created the account with a Jamroom install on Arvixe using the hostname for my current site. I need to get an alternate URL to access the account until I change the DNS settings.

Once I have that I will purchase the Jamroom Ning bundle and custom install package and install the bundle and start becoming familiar with the Jamroom admin console and doing some design and coding customization (coding customization is mostly adding scripts to the to support external services I am using).

Once that's all taken care of I will re-archive my Ning community. I am thinking of just deleting the .json files and starting over with them. Hopefully it will then ask me to retry to download the media so I don't have to start from scratch there. I can then put my Ning site in maintenance mode.

When I upload the content by FTP I notify you when it's done and give you access to my hosting account?
updated by @claygordon: 12/29/14 09:23:54AM

Sounds like a plan.


Yes - send details to support [at] jamroom [dot] net
We'll need your FTP and Jamroom admin logins.

Cheers
Pa


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Paul Asher - JR Developer and System Import Specialist
updated by @paul: 12/29/14 09:23:54AM

Gotcha. On live chat with Arvixe right now about logging in to the account.
updated by @claygordon: 12/29/14 09:23:54AM

"Once that's all taken care of I will re-archive my Ning community. I am thinking of just deleting the .json files and starting over with them. Hopefully it will then ask me to retry to download the media so I don't have to start from scratch there."
ChocolateLife, I would suspect you will have to start from scratch because the Ning Archiver seems to reset itself every 24 hours on each feature- I wonder whether it will 'play nice' with the prior folders of media you have in place already on your computer. If your plan works I'd love to know it for myself, so please let us know if it works!

I assume you realize that existing private inbox messages will not carry over from Ning. Also, if you want your new JR site to support private messages between members, you'll also need to install JR's "Private notes" module, which is not in the Ning bundle.
Best of luck. (-eating some chocolate right now!)


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...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015
updated by @strumelia: 12/29/14 09:23:54AM

@Strumelia:

I will definitely let you know if this works.

And thanks for the heads up on the messaging. I kind of figured I would lose the archive of private messages and it's something I will need to give my members a heads up about. I will keep the site up at it's Ning URL for a while after making the changeover so people can grab stuff they want - including me!
updated by @claygordon: 12/29/14 09:23:54AM

@Strumelia:

I just relaunched the Ning archive tool 3 days after doing the initial download and I can re-scan every category of content. It doesn't take long to create the .json files, and the list of all the media downloaded stays intact so rescanning that should mean that if it's downloaded already it won't need to be re-downloaded.

So no need to delete the existing .json files at all.
updated by @claygordon: 12/29/14 09:23:54AM

It 'should', right? Are you pointing the download to your same previously downloaded archive folder I assume? Is it actually working out as you had hoped, or have you not yet successfully completed the re-archive on top of the older one yet?


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...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015
updated by @strumelia: 12/29/14 09:23:54AM

It actually does work, assuming you are downloading into the same directory. From the time stamps it looks like it overwrites the existing .json files and creates entirely new ones. However, it appears that the archive utility scans the existing corresponding media folder and does not re-download anything that's already been downloaded. It scanned the media folder for my Events archive with over 400 images in a minute or three and downloaded only one new media file added since the archive.

Huge time savings.
updated by @claygordon: 12/29/14 09:23:54AM

Oh wow, that is going to save me a TON of time. Thank you!!


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...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015
updated by @strumelia: 12/29/14 09:23:54AM