how can i import multiple livejournals?

  • Unknown's avatar
    farbel · Member ·

    I have more than one livejournal and want to import both of them. when I try to import the second one, it acts as if it has done it, but it is too fast (i have years of entries), and the content isn’t there when I go to look.

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • kathrynwp · Staff ·

    Hi there – I see 5,580 posts on your site currently – were those all from the first import?

    I see an “import interrupted” error here – could you please try restarting the import from there and let me know how it goes?

    https://davidscottmoyer.wordpress.com/wp-admin/admin.php?import=livejournal

  • Unknown's avatar
    farbel · Member ·

    I am fairly sure they are. I have been using Livejournal for 13 years. I imported my most used journal first. I obviously haven’t checked every entry, but spot checks tell me the import was successful. The other journal has entries that go back 4 months further, and as the earliest entry showing is from my first import, I am fairly sure the second hasn’t worked. I should have several hundred entries at least from my second journal, but when I have restarted the import (3 times now), it spends just a couple of minutes, tells me it’s organizing comments etc, and then tells me it’s finished. The initial import I had to restart several times, probably because of the quantity of posts. I think it did about 600 each time. Thanks for your help!

  • kathrynwp · Staff ·

    If you’d like, I could cancel the current import job so you can try again with the new import – just let me know if you’d like me to go ahead.

  • Unknown's avatar
    farbel · Member ·

    I initiated the import again, and again it imported 2 batches, supposedly, and then a bunch of batches of comments. When it finished, I checked for posts from my second journal at both the beginning and end. Then I went to the import page again, re-entered my username & password, and it again did 2 batches followed by comments (a different number of comment batches this time.) Can you tell me if it typically imports a journal chronologically?

  • Unknown's avatar
    farbel · Member ·

    Just found some recent comments from my second journal showing up as replies to old entries of my first import. now I’m wondering if all the comment batches are just getting spread around randomly.

  • Unknown's avatar
    farbel · Member ·

    Maybe the problem is that I didn’t finish with the comments from my first import. Trying to reinitiate that one now…

  • kathrynwp · Staff ·

    I checked with our developers, and the import doesn’t necessarily work chronologically.

    I still see 5,580 posts on your site. How many posts in total are you aiming to import? Can you tell which posts are missing?

    LiveJournal apparently offers a real XML export tool – which may work better for importing into WordPress – but you can only export one month at a time:

    Screenshot on 2013-03-26 at 16.12.27.png

    There is also a LiveJournal importer for WordPress.org, which might be useful as an intermediate importing step, as a last resort. You could try importing into a self-hosted installation, generate an export file from there, and then try importing into WordPress.com.

  • Unknown's avatar
    farbel · Member ·

    I successfully imported (i think) i.livejournal.com in its entirety. That is the 5,580 posts you see. Then I have been trying to import farbel.livejournal.com, and see no posts from that journal, but recent comments from it have been showing up appended to posts from i.livejournal.com 13 years ago. do i need to delete all of them and start over?
    It seems as if the import tool has a hard time handling two journals and their posts and comments which are concurrent in time.

  • kathrynwp · Staff ·

    Hi there, thanks for the update. Our developers have confirmed that LiveJournal imports can be glitchy, due to the quality of the export provided by LJ.

    We have two ideas to suggest:

    Option 1

    If there aren’t a huge number of “stray” comments from LJ blog 2 (farbel.livejournal.com) incorrectly appended to posts from LJ blog 1, you could delete those comments manually. When you’re done, empty the comments trash. Next:

    1. Create a test WordPress.com blog that will be used only temporarily. (You can set the site to private so no one will see it.)
    2. Import LJ blog 2 into this test site. If all looks good, generate a WordPress.com export file from the test site.
    3. Import the WordPress export file you just generated on your temporary site into the original WordPress.com site with 5,580 posts on it.

    Option 2

    If there are too many “stray” comments to be removed manually, another way to go would be:

    1. Create two test WordPress.com sites.
    2. Import LJ blog 1 into the first test site.
    3. Import LJ blog 2 into the second test site.
    4. Generate a WordPress.com export file from each site.
    5. Have staff empty your original WordPress.com site.
    6. Import the two WordPress.com export files into your original WordPress.com site.

    —-

    Just let me know if you have any questions about either method.

  • Unknown's avatar
    farbel · Member ·

    thanks again, I’ll try option 1 when i have some time.

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