PHPBB 2.xx to 3 Gold information 500 server errors

This is just a note to myself and anyone else who may find this problem

if you are getting 500 server errors when trying convert from phpbb 2 to 3 and you think it is due to server load issues this is how I got around it

1) install phpbb 3 gold on remote server as per instructions
2) download and install XAMPP and start apache / mysql on your local (windows in my case) machine
3) install phpbb 3 gold on your new local webserver
4) use mysqldump on your remote machine (or phpmyadmin) and dump your phpbb database *
5) download this to your local mysql server
6) use the mysql command line to upload your phpbb2 database to a new database
7) run the conversion process from your local phpbb3 installation
8) dump your phpbb3 database and upload this to your server
9) drop all phpbb3 tables from your phpbb3 database
10 use mysql command line to upload your local phpbb3 database to your remote phpbb3 database
* if your local copy of mysql is new than your remote dont forget to save out as a compatability version (wasted 40 mins on this one)

congrats.. all done – took me about 4 hours of pissing about to get this sorted.