Thank you all for your advice. It has worked and I was able to bypass the conversion stage and finish the upgrade.
However, after the upgrade I am not able to log in. When I try to click on sign in I get the following error
I could not find in the admin CP support tool anything to restore the default theme or anything.
This is what I am seeing in the logs:
Error: Class "\IPS\Helpers\Form\Captcha\Default" not found in /home/techstu2/public_html/ipb_qa/system/Helpers/Form/Captcha.php:43
Stack trace:
#0 /home/techstu2/public_html/ipb_qa/system/Theme/Theme.php(885) : eval()'d code(807): IPS\Helpers\Form\_Captcha::supportsModal()
#1 /home/techstu2/public_html/ipb_qa/system/Theme/SandboxedTemplate.php(61): IPS\Theme\class_forums_front_topics->post(Object(IPS\forums\Topic), Object(IPS\forums\Topic\Post), 'topic_comment', 'forums', 'forums', 'forums_Topic')
#2 /home/techstu2/public_html/ipb_qa/system/Theme/Theme.php(885) : eval()'d code(2654): IPS\Theme\_SandboxedTemplate->__call('post', Array)
#3 /home/techstu2/public_html/ipb_qa/system/Theme/SandboxedTemplate.php(61): IPS\Theme\class_forums_front_topics->postContainer(Object(IPS\forums\Topic), Object(IPS\forums\Topic\Post), Array, '')
#4 /home/techstu2/public_html/ipb_qa/system/Theme/Theme.php(885) : eval()'d code(5101): IPS\Theme\_SandboxedTemplate->__call('postContainer', Array)
#5 /home/techstu2/public_html/ipb_qa/system/Theme/SandboxedTemplate.php(61): IPS\Theme\class_forums_front_topics->topic(Object(IPS\forums\Topic), Array, NULL, Array, NULL, NULL, Array)
#6 /home/techstu2/public_html/ipb_qa/applications/forums/modules/front/forums/topic.php(576): IPS\Theme\_SandboxedTemplate->__call('topic', Array)
#7 /home/techstu2/public_html/ipb_qa/system/Dispatcher/Controller.php(118): IPS\forums\modules\front\forums\_topic->manage()
#8 /home/techstu2/public_html/ipb_qa/system/Content/Controller.php(50): IPS\Dispatcher\_Controller->execute()
#9 /home/techstu2/public_html/ipb_qa/applications/forums/modules/front/forums/topic.php(39): IPS\Content\_Controller->execute()
#10 /home/techstu2/public_html/ipb_qa/system/Dispatcher/Dispatcher.php(153): IPS\forums\modules\front\forums\_topic->execute()
#11 /home/techstu2/public_html/ipb_qa/index.php(13): IPS\_Dispatcher->run()
#12 {main}