InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "No, Alf, no!"

~didja just pitch up from mars? (sherlock) wrote,
@ 2007-12-08 13:06:00

Entry tags:

! resources

Backup and migration tools

Backup and migration tools

Please link others to this post if you are finding it helpful
[originally posted here at Greatestjournal - RIP]

Looking for icon uploaders, thread unfolders, login extensions, or css patches?
http://karma-apple.insanejournal.com/8898.html

1) LJ Archive
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ljarchive/
http://www.mediafire.com/?twdmz1d2jt2
Lets you download all of your entries and comments; you can then export to xml or html if you so desire. Straightforward. (I uploaded a link since some people were having trouble with the first)

Make sure to make a NEW archive for each journal or it will overwrite the last one
(It's as easy as 1 - 2 - 3 - 4)
I really suggest talkread as the style to use - the rest are damned hideous. DAMNED hideous.

2) LJ Sec
http://www.mp3vcr.com/ljsec/
Lets you download all of your entries and move them elsewhere (and community posts, too).
+ Easier to use than lj-migrate
+ You can move community posts
+ You don't have to be a maintainer to move community posts
- You have to be subscribed to the community you want to move
- No comments
- No polls
- Does not work with blurty (reference)
- All entries will have "originally posted by" with the wrong username link. Not really that huge of an issue.

LJ-sec will not let you move comments. No program will. It won't move polls.

How-to for windows by me: http://karma-apple.insanejournal.com/9019.html

3) LJ Migrate
http://antennapedia.livejournal.com/266462.html?style=mine
LJ-migrate (For mac, linux, and windows w/python) - lets you download your entries or transfer to another journal.
+ Will transfer communities
+ Works on a mac
- Moderately complicated
- Will not transfer comments (no program will)

How-to for mac by Alter: http://www.greatestjournal.com/users/alter_writes/53118.html
How-to for windows by me: http://karma-apple.insanejournal.com/8329.html

4) LJ Dump
http://hewgill.com/software/ljdump/
For mac - I have no idea how this works or what it does, but it claims to read/download all entries and comments.

5) LJ --> Wordpress Tutorial
http://www.inmostlight.org/2005/12/migrating-from-livejournal-to-wordpress
You can move all entries and comments to wordpress. Security and threading is not preserved.

6) LJ --> Blogger
Program here:
http://linuxlore.blogspot.com/2007/09/livejournal-to-blogger-or-blogger-to.html

Instructions here:
http://linuxlore.blogspot.com/2006/12/livejournal-to-blogger.html

Comments will not be exported

7) Journal --> PDF
http://www.ljbook.com/

Will convert your entries and (I assume) comments to pdf format. I personally would not recommend this for several reasons:
- when I tried to use it on a large journal it couldn't handle it
- putting your UN/PW into a remote site seems like a bad idea
- what the hell are you going to do with a pdf? I guess print it. If you want to make a book this could be A+

8) Migrating your icons
--- Open your icon page (edit or allpics, doesn't matter)
--- File --> save as --> Web page, complete
--- Open the folder it saved to, there will be an image folder with all of your icons
--- Use the multi-icon uploader to upload them to your new journal

(Post a new comment)

	(Anonymous) 2008-01-06 06:52 pm UTC (link)
	the yousendit link for lj archive expired, could you reupload it please? (Reply to this) (Thread)

	sherlock 2008-01-06 09:57 pm UTC (link)
	Will do, thanks for the heads up. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	(Anonymous) 2008-01-11 08:14 am UTC (link)
	Quick question: unless otherwise noted, can I assume the programs save comments too? If not, does LJ Archive or any of the programs you've tried for sure save the comments? Sorry to be a pain. Thanks so much for all this! (Reply to this) (Thread)

	sherlock 2008-01-11 08:24 am UTC (link)
	LJ-Archive will let you save comments; I have no idea about LJ-Dump since I don't have a mac and can't try it out - though it claims you can. The migration tools will not let you move the comments. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	A question about LJ-SEC pieceofmind 2008-01-17 02:40 am UTC (link)
	I'm trying to upload my entries to this site and I followed your wonderful walk-through tutorials. The problem comes when I try to repost to IJ, it keeps saying that there's an error with my entries and that I need to turn the backdate entry on when it is on. What do I do?? (Reply to this) (Thread)

	Re: A question about LJ-SEC sherlock 2008-01-17 02:44 am UTC (link)
	Can you screencap the error that comes up? (Reply to this) (Parent)

	rosa_aquafire 2008-03-16 10:19 pm UTC (link)
	hi! Thanks so much for this post, I'm switching over right now, and I'm just curious. Do you know anything about custom filters, and how these programs treat those? (Reply to this) (Thread)

sherlock
2008-03-16 10:26 pm UTC (link)

Custom filters are really REALLY sketchy. Basically if you create them in the same order (not alphabetically) as you did on your original account, the filters -should- hold. But who the hell can remember what order you made custom filters in?

On the plus side, I believe when the custom filter does not exist it reverts to private - but I would strongly suggest doing a test run before moving hundreds of entries over.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	rosa_aquafire 2008-03-16 10:30 pm UTC (link)
	Thanks so much for the response. I'll play around with this, here's hoping I can manage to get SOMETHING out of it ... In the worst case scenario, I just won't migrate my entries themselves. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	sherlock 2008-03-16 10:33 pm UTC (link)
	Depending on how many entries you have, another option is to move everything over except the custom entries, and then to move those by hand. LJ-sec has a window that allows you to select/deselect which entries you want to move over. (Reply to this) (Parent)

I'm entropy_house on LJ
(Anonymous)
2008-03-17 05:04 am UTC (link)

LJ-Book does have some advantages-it works for Mac users which a lot of the other tools don't. It's extremely simple, and reasonably quick. It converts comments and photos. They advise you to change your password immediately you're done, but of course, there's still a window of opportunity for betrayal. I don't think that's likely, but it is possible.

The result is a PDF which is easier to navigate than LJ's calendar. For something like a fiction archive, it's very nice indeed. I now have an over 600 page PDF book of my LJ fan-fic. I'd hate to print it, but it's quite nice to look at on the computer.

Thanks for all these links. I'll gladly check out the ones I hadn't seen before.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

Re: I'm entropy_house on LJ

sherlock
2008-03-17 05:15 am UTC (link)

On a tangent, you can log in using OpenID - all you have to do is type in entropy_house.livejournal.com and you can even upload an icon :D

As for LJ-Book - I realize it's simpler than LJ-Migrate (I don't know about LJ-Dump since I haven't used it and neither have my mac friends) but I have had some bleh experience with it, so as far as my recommendations go, I wouldn't (recommend it, that is). I put it up there for the very reasons you mentioned, and because there are people who swear by it! It all depends what you want, really. I swear by LJ-Archive because I can click through, generate user statistics, export it as html, and habitually resynchronize it so it is up to date. It's all about what you're looking for in a service. :)

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: I'm entropy_house on LJ lorataprose 2008-03-17 04:44 pm UTC (link)
	I'd love to use LjArchive for that very reason, but they haven't ported it to Mac and it doesn't look like they're planning on it. Sigh. (Incidentally, call me stupid, but while all these lovely programs back up my journal for me, I see no way to actually move the entries from the backup to the new journal. Am I missing an option somewhere?) (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: I'm entropy_house on LJ sherlock 2008-03-17 06:44 pm UTC (link)
	If you're using a mac, the only way (I've seen) that you can transfer journals is using lj-migrate (there is a mac tutorial linked above) - or to have someone on a PC use LJ-Sec (which is what I did for a couple of my mac-based friends) to transfer it for you. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: I'm entropy_house on LJ lorataprose 2008-03-17 06:50 pm UTC (link)
	All righty. I'll use the school lab computer or something like that. Thank you! (Reply to this) (Parent)

no username sent

hermonthis
2008-03-23 07:05 pm UTC (link)

I used LJ Sec to transfer my two journals onto IJ (one journal) but when I attempt the same thing to Blurty, it keeps saying:

The configuration file cannot be opened for writing!
The process cannot access the file 'C:blahblahblah/Configuations/Defauls.ljc.' because it is being used by another process

Then all my entries show up, I hit repost to blurty and then it says:

CONNECTION TO LIVEJOURNAL FAILED!
Error message: Client error: no username sent

What did I do wrong?

-BTW, thank you for making this post. It's very helpful and shall be linking it to my flist.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	Re: no username sent sherlock 2008-03-23 10:32 pm UTC (link)
	I know this is a pain, but could you screencap the settings you're putting in and then the error message when it comes up? I haven't experienced the error so I need to know all the steps you took to get to it. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: no username sent hermonthis 2008-03-24 05:39 pm UTC (link)
	No problem. login main screen reposting error: no username sent (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: no username sent sherlock 2008-03-24 09:31 pm UTC (link)
	Okay so I did some testing of my own and I had the same trouble no matter how much I tinked. So then I poked around and found this: http://community.livejournal.com/ljsec/4402.html?thread=53554#t53554 Unfortunate :\ and since I think all migrators use the flat interface, there isn't a way to repost to that particular journal (at least of which I am aware). (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: no username sent hermonthis 2008-03-26 04:08 am UTC (link)
	Ah, well. I suppose it can't be helped and I'll have to do things the old-fashioned way. But thank you so much for looking into this, and for posting this in the first place. Much appreciated. :) (Reply to this) (Parent)

(Anonymous)
2008-05-03 08:58 pm UTC (link)

I got this error when I was following your intructions for LJ Archive

CookComputing.XmlRpc.XmlRpcFaultException: Server returned a fault (502): Server error: Database temporarily unavailable
at CookComputing.XmlRpc.XmlRpcSerializer.DeserializeResponse(TextReader trdr, Type returnType)
at CookComputing.XmlRpc.XmlRpcClientProtocol.ReadResponse(XmlRpcRequest req, WebResponse webResp, Stream respStm, Type returnType)
at CookComputing.XmlRpc.XmlRpcClientProtocol.Invoke(Object clientObj, String methodName, Object[] parameters)
at CookComputing.XmlRpc.XmlRpcClientProtocol.Invoke(String MethodName, Object[] Parameters)
at XmlRpcProxy966018d8-4742-4c03-adfe-33b92badbedd.GetEvents(GetEventsParams )
at EF.ljArchive.Engine.Sync.GetEvents(OptionsRow or, ILJServer iLJ, SyncItemCollection& sic, SyncItemCollection& deletedsic, EventCollection& ec)
at EF.ljArchive.Engine.Sync.ThreadStart()

On the bottom of the program screen it said sync error

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	(Anonymous) 2008-05-03 09:00 pm UTC (link)
	I wanted to d/l my entries on GJ (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	isentropic 2008-05-03 11:15 pm UTC (link)
	Unfortunately this isn't an error in the program it is an error at GJ. Their database is probably so shot it can't handle the requests anymore :\ I would suggest trying at a different time of the day? That's all the advice I can give you, unfortunately. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	tiferet93 2008-06-27 02:23 pm UTC (link)
	I know someone who's working on a way to transfer comments and it's working so far in beta. this will be a variation on the lj-migrate script. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	sherlock 2008-10-13 11:07 pm UTC (link)
	This is fantastic - could you let me know if he gets it to work? (Reply to this) (Parent)

	joans23 2009-01-08 03:11 am UTC (link)
	This post is a lifesaver! Thank you so much! (Reply to this)

	whenitsajar 2009-01-08 04:39 pm UTC (link)
	Quick question - Do you know if LJ Migrate has a Mac tutorial anywhere else? The link that's up there now goes to GJ, which is, alas, no more. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	sherlock 2009-01-08 04:44 pm UTC (link)
	I'll ask the girl who posted it originally if she has a copy anywhere. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	whenitsajar 2009-01-08 04:52 pm UTC (link)
	Thank you! (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	sherlock 2009-01-14 10:13 pm UTC (link)
	Sorry this took so long: http://alter-writes.insanejournal.com/35869.html#cutid1 Hope it helps! (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	whenitsajar 2009-01-14 10:25 pm UTC (link)
	No worries! Thank you so much! (Reply to this) (Parent)

	daddysambiguity 2009-01-08 05:04 pm UTC (link)
	After you get an xml file of your LJ, how do you load that onto IJ? I think I made an xml file from ljArchive, but dunno what to do with the file now. Help! I am computer-illiterate. :) (Reply to this) (Thread)

	sherlock 2009-01-08 05:06 pm UTC (link)
	Was that your UN on LJ? Holy damn I think I used to know you on ed_ucate. Crazy world. Anyway, I wouldn't do it with an xml file, you can't load that onto IJ. Use LJ-sec and you can transfer everything directly (and a lot easier). (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	daddysambiguity 2009-01-08 05:08 pm UTC (link)
	LOL. It was/is my username on LJ. And I am/was on ed_ucate. Small place, the web! :) Thanks for the help! (Reply to this) (Parent)