To cut the story short, I got stuck with one problem. Whenever I post something new on the blog, I got this error:

WordPress database error: [Duplicate entry ‘0? for key 1] INSERT INTO wp_postmeta (post_id,meta_key,meta_value) VALUES (’0?,’_pingme’,’1?)

WordPress database error: [Duplicate entry ‘0? for key 1] INSERT INTO wp_postmeta (post_id,meta_key,meta_value) VALUES (’0?,’_encloseme’,’1?)

Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /isulongseoph/wp-includes/wp-db.php:102) in /isulongseoph/wp-admin/post.php on line 60

After searching online, all I got was other people with the same problem but not with a solution.

For people knowledgeable about databases, it was pretty obvious that in the statements above, the post_id is a unique key and writing over it was not allowed. It this is the case, why was this happening all of sudden? Tracing back the problem…

I checked my database and it used to run on MySQL 4.1.19. And on the new servers I was running, it was MySQL 3.23. And I needed to export the data of my WordPress blog to be MySQL 3.23 compatible using phpMyAdmin.

And after doing so, everything seemed to be fine after importing it to MySQL 3.23 except for one thing I havent noticed. All primary keys in the database that had auto_increment properties were all removed and the auto_increment was no longer working.

If you are experiencing the same problem and is running WordPress 2.0.3, all you need to do is run the following query in MySQL, you can do this in phpMyAdmin or through MySQL command prompt commands:

ALTER TABLE `wp_categories` CHANGE `cat_ID` `cat_ID` BIGINT( 20 ) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT;
ALTER TABLE `wp_comments` CHANGE `comment_ID` `comment_ID` BIGINT( 20 ) UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT;
ALTER TABLE `wp_linkcategories` CHANGE `cat_id` `cat_id` BIGINT( 20 ) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT;
ALTER TABLE `wp_links` CHANGE `link_id` `link_id` BIGINT( 20 ) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT;
ALTER TABLE `wp_options` CHANGE `option_id` `option_id` BIGINT( 20 ) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT;
ALTER TABLE `wp_post2cat` CHANGE `rel_id` `rel_id` BIGINT( 20 ) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT;
ALTER TABLE `wp_postmeta` CHANGE `meta_id` `meta_id` BIGINT( 20 ) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT;
ALTER TABLE `wp_posts` CHANGE `ID` `ID` BIGINT( 20 ) UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT;
ALTER TABLE `wp_usermeta` CHANGE `umeta_id` `umeta_id` BIGINT( 20 ) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT;
ALTER TABLE `wp_users` CHANGE `ID` `ID` BIGINT( 20 ) UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT;

Once that is done, the problem should be fixed already.

So I just entered my Blogger login and password and that was it. Everything else was all self-explanatory and the transition was simply waiting until everything is transferred. I can’t remember how many months ago this was, but I have had no problem with my hosting clients who wanted to do the same thing.
Now this month, I got a new web hosting client who wanted her blog on WordPress too and had an existing blog on Typepad. Typepad owned by 6Apart who are the people behind MovableType where the opensource project of it has been discontinued and is offering the updated licensed version for a certain fee. I checked the WordPress Import function, and under MovableType, it just had an upload box. And I said to myself, what is this? So it looks like I need to login to TypePad and do an export.

I went to my clients Typepad using her login and password she shared so I can set everything up. After doing an export, it brought me to a page that looked like a preformatted plain text page with all post. And again I said to myself, what is this? I simply saved the file and uploaded it in the upload box on Wordress’ import function for MovableType and that was it. It was that simple.

One thing I want to try is importing from TextPattern. And I wonder when the impossible will come out… a Xanga to WordPress conversion. Xanga is just so different and templates can get so wild that I imagine the import can be done if the Xanga blog is designed in a certain way. Or maybe some XML or RSS way can be done?