Using an old INDB file

It's been quite some time since playing with anything MU* related, let alone building, compiling and running PennMUSH. I was a former Wiz on a Tolkien-themed MUSH and am trying to revive this database. I have the old DB, and thought simply swapping the data from within to a newly formed INDB file would magically work. I, much to my expectations, failed. :)

Here's a response from the netmush log:

START OF LOG.
[10/18 09:13:26] 1.8.4
[10/18 09:13:26] MUSH restarted, PID -1, at Thu Oct 18 09:13:26 2012
[10/18 09:13:26] Creating file: txt\help.txt
[10/18 09:13:26] Copying file: index.hlp, 50653 bytes
[10/18 09:13:26] Copying file: pennattr.hlp, 7410 bytes
[10/18 09:13:26] Copying file: pennchat.hlp, 25344 bytes
[10/18 09:13:26] Copying file: penncmd.hlp, 198862 bytes
[10/18 09:13:26] Copying file: penncode.hlp, 8716 bytes
[10/18 09:13:26] Copying file: pennconf.hlp, 12307 bytes
[10/18 09:13:26] Copying file: pennevents.hlp, 9448 bytes
[10/18 09:13:26] Copying file: pennflag.hlp, 27961 bytes
[10/18 09:13:26] Copying file: pennfunc.hlp, 216818 bytes
[10/18 09:13:26] Copying file: pennlock.hlp, 18079 bytes
[10/18 09:13:26] Copying file: pennmail.hlp, 14591 bytes
[10/18 09:13:26] Copying file: pennpueb.hlp, 4271 bytes
[10/18 09:13:26] Copying file: penntop.hlp, 98248 bytes
[10/18 09:13:26] Copying file: pennv174.hlp, 35047 bytes
[10/18 09:13:26] Copying file: pennv175.hlp, 23349 bytes
[10/18 09:13:26] Copying file: pennv176.hlp, 15500 bytes
[10/18 09:13:26] Copying file: pennv177.hlp, 71962 bytes
[10/18 09:13:26] Copying file: pennv180.hlp, 11571 bytes
[10/18 09:13:26] Copying file: pennv181.hlp, 21164 bytes
[10/18 09:13:26] Copying file: pennv182.hlp, 9121 bytes
[10/18 09:13:26] Copying file: pennv183.hlp, 32184 bytes
[10/18 09:13:26] Copying file: pennv184.hlp, 45322 bytes
[10/18 09:13:26] Copying file: pennv185.hlp, 19487 bytes
[10/18 09:13:26] Copying file: pennvOLD.hlp, 207559 bytes
[10/18 09:13:26] Copied 24 files, 1184974 bytes
[10/18 09:13:26] Creating file: txt\news.txt
[10/18 09:13:26] Copying file: index.nws, 330 bytes
[10/18 09:13:26] Copying file: pennmush.nws, 53 bytes
[10/18 09:13:26] Copied 2 files, 383 bytes
[10/18 09:13:26] Creating file: txt\events.txt
[10/18 09:13:26] Copying file: index.evt, 251 bytes
[10/18 09:13:26] Copying file: pennmush.evt, 329 bytes
[10/18 09:13:26] Copied 2 files, 580 bytes
[10/18 09:13:26] Creating file: txt\rules.txt
[10/18 09:13:26] **** No files matching: "txt\rul\*.rul" found.
[10/18 09:13:26] Creating file: txt\index.txt
[10/18 09:13:26] **** No files matching: "txt\idx\*.idx" found.
[10/18 09:13:26] File "data/indb" found, size 7692180 bytes, modified on 18 Oct 2012 14:13:20
[10/18 09:13:26] File "data/outdb" not found.
[10/18 09:13:26] File "data/PANIC.db" found, size 11868 bytes, modified on 18 Oct 2012 14:13:02
[10/18 09:13:26] Verifying selected database.
[10/18 09:13:26] File "data/indb" found, size 7692180 bytes, modified on 18 Oct 2012 14:13:20
[10/18 09:13:26] Input database verified. Proceeding to analysis.
[10/18 09:13:26] ANALYZING: data/indb
[10/18 09:13:26] ANALYZING: data/indb (done)
[10/18 09:13:26] LOADING: data/indb
[10/18 09:13:26] ERROR: Old database without required dbflags.
[10/18 09:13:26] ERROR LOADING data/indb
[10/18 09:13:26] ERROR: Couldn't load databases! Exiting.

Note the last three errors, most specifically:
[10/18 09:13:26] ERROR: Old database without required dbflags.

Any ideas or direction would be welcomed. And as a disclaimer, forgiveness for my ignorance as I'm re-learning so much already today!

Also, running PennMUSH 1.8.5p3 on a win32 (Windows 7) OS, pre-compiled from Javelin's site.

I don't know personally. It's been ages since I used PennMUSH. Try asking on their forum.

http://mush.pennmush.org/

I'm thinking the easiest way to do it would be to drop the revision of the server that you're using now to try and match the one you were using with your old db, recompile and try opening your old db straight from the old rev.

It looks as if the latest version they have on their SVN repo is from 2009 (http://code.google.com/p/pennmush/source/checkout). However, http://download.pennmush.org/Source/oldsrc seems to have some older versions.

My idea with this would be to open your database in a version of the server that actually works, and re-@dump it, which should upgrade it to that version of the server, then up your copy of the server a few revisions or one full version patch at a time, so that any changes that were made to the db will gradually be applied. That way it hopefully won't break trying to upgrade too many things at once.

Daniel,

Thanks for the quick reply! I ended up compiling an older version as you suggested (1.7.2p35) and with some effort got the old database to load up. I managed to hack the #1 password and started to surf around the great world that once was, so that was exciting :)

Here are some other issues, which I'm not quite expecting an answer, because I half know what it will be already ... just correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm basically trying to reverse engineer builds, make options, and versions to match this DB, right? The reason I ask, is that yes, I'm in as #1 and have 98% functionality as the God-character, but many of the globals (+help, +who) do not respond. It doesn't crash the server, but instead echos nothing back to me. I can see all the global objects in the Master Room, the code is in tact also ... they just don't work right.

Along with that, I am seeing some random #-1 FUNCTION DISABLED errors, random "Huh?"'s and the lot ...

Basically, my question is this. There is no quick fix to this, is there? I'm under the assumption I'll literally have to match up all the custom work that was once done to this DB (i.e. shoot in the dark or try and track down an original coder). Or am I missing something blatantly obvious?

Thanks for the guidance already! :)