Turned out I had some corrupt data in my TABS db tables; my skin and HTML issues seem resolved.  A 'user' shouldn't have to hand-patch db tables, though...  Great to have people tell you how, though !!  Feels great when it all works.

Now onto a crashed forum(s)...  This is the upgrade from hell.

I'm sure Rick has more credibility, but I'll offer my 2 cents...

At the recommendation of Mitch Sellers in several posts, I have established sites on 3Essentials.  I am considering moving this particular site there, but there is more than dnn involved...  I will tell you the guys at 3E are super, the cost is good, and they KNOW DNN!!

GoDaddy is much improved of late, showing glimpses of hope, but when they say "sorry" you are really, really hosed.  GoDaddy on the surface looks like the better value, until you need help with an 'app' like DNN and they wave at you innocently.  Clients on GoDaddy using mail and calendars and backup storage, etc., don't want to switch...

Bob H.

Sorry for the delay...

I established a new hosting service account.  I had to download and then upload the entire DNN directory structure and files to the new site, using FTP.

I made a backup of the db using the GoDaddy console, downloaded it, and then uploaded it to a location on the new site, using FTP.  3E restored the file to a 'new' db on their site, for which they provided the db name, server name, and user/pw for DNN access.

The only file that changed was web.config.   You need to change it to refer to the 'new' db, server and user/pw.

The whole process took a day, but only an hour or so of that was at the keyboard; ftp took a lot of time.  3E did their part promptly.  Mitch Sellers published a great human readable/executable 'script' that even I could follow.

One thing I or the machines got 'confused' over were portal alias entries in the db because I actually changed the web address (url) initially until I got everything tested.  It would have been better to make that change in the db either before backup (not in my case...) or before 'turning it on' on the 'new' platform.  If you do a 'pure' migration, the portal aliases do not change...

ALL portals are part of the one db and one DNN instance; the whole shootin' match comes over at one time.

It is a little eerie having 2 identical (nearly) sites up at once.  I changed screens ever-so-slightly so I could always look and be sure whether I was on test or live.  When the time comes the switch is totally instantaneous and transparent to a user.

I have since done this same 'conversion' between GoDaddy accounts/instances with success.  Only recommended for clients who simply won't switch or pay for an independent backup host.  It's cheap as GoDaddy gives you 2 MSSQL databases for each account...