Application Version - OJS 3.1.2.1, running on a Windows server, PHP 7.2.5, Microsoft-IIS/10.0
I’m have a single journal with about 2000 published articles in almost 200 issues. The journal has been using OJS since 2.4 (installed in 2011) with the last upgrade to 3.1 in 2019. For some reason it was decided to run it on a Windows server which has caused nothing but problems over the years (for example, plugin installation is almost impossible). Additionally, I believe that we have some legacy database errors from the olden days of 2.4.
My idea was to create a clean instalation in a Linux environment and import the old issues using the native import/export plugin. However, I did not even manage to export an issue without running into errors.
My question is the following:
What would be the best way to approach migrating all content (issues and users) from an old and buggy journal with almost 200 published issues to a fresh installation of OJS?
When you have a considerable amount of content to migrate, the best approach would be to export/import it using command-line (CLI) tools. If you attempt to use the browser interface is likely you will bump into server expire time limit to process it all.
Please, just notice, if you use the export/import feature, you will loose your submission workflow history, once just published articles and issues are exported. You will need also to export/import your users.
I would recommend you to give it a try exporting your DB and your files_dir folder from your windows and run an upgrade attempt to OJS 3.2. It would preserve the submission workflow history and all your users as well.
Thank you very much for your quick reply!
I am aware of the loss of the workflow history, but it seems we don’t have a choice. The editors will continue to have access to the old version, so the disruption shouldn’t be too bad.