Time required for forum upgrade process?

[LandyVlad]

How long do people think would be a realistic time for a forum upgrade from 2.0.19 to 2.1.0?

Yes I know - how long is a piece of string?  (the answer, by the way, is twice the distance between the middle and the end).

Considering these steps:

1. Place in maintenance mode (so nobody can access forum)
1b. Cross fingers
2. Do a  full backup of the forum files and database, in case things go horribly wrong
3. Upload all the new files
4. Upgrade the database to correct all links etc.
5. Install new theme.
6. reinstall any modifcations we are using, assuming they are compatible with the new version.
7. Put forum back online so members can access (take out of maintenance mode).
7a. Hope like hell everything works. If so, uncross fingers.
and
8. Make undoubted numerous adjustments to various settings to refine the way the forum operates, as and when members report problems or concerns.

Q1: What do you think would be a realistic actual amount of time required to do this (my forum is https://www.gsx1400owners.org/forum)?

Q2. Given those circumstances what timeframe would you set as an expectation for your members? (so significantly longer as to allow for a few hassles to crop up with the process) 

[Skhilled]

LMAO! Crossing and uncrossing the fingers will take the longest time! LMAO

Well, it depends on the individual forum and what things they have added to it as well as coding changes they may have added to it to get it to work. For a normal basic setup using the default theme it shouldn't take long. Most issues come in with custom themes, the need to upgrade mods if you can, and custom coding adjustments. There's no accounting for all of that unless you are very familiar with those things for that particular forum.

You should already have backups for the live site you are already using so there shouldn't need to be a worry too much for that and it shouldn't take long if you haven't. I ALWAYS suggest that you make a test site (an exact duplicate) of the live site you wish to upgrade and practice with that to get any issues cleared up before actually upgrading your live site. Doing this will not cause your users any issues...or less issues.

[LandyVlad]

Thanks - can you tell me the best process to make an exact duplicate site?

[Oldiesmann]

Making a duplicate site will take longer than just doing a backup and upgrading. It takes me maybe 20 minutes to upgrade the seniors forum I run and it has a lot more posts than your forum (210,000 so far). I've got 4 mods - Optimus, SMF Gallery, TinyPortal and Country Flags - plus some theme tweaks (larger font size to make things easier to read for them, increased width and max-width so things don't look so cramped with the portal and a few other minor things) and a custom menu item for the chat page.

Depending on activity level the biggest thing would be to just get the site out of maintenance mode so people can get back to posting - you can do the theme tweaks and such live since you can edit everything from the admin center now (even the default theme)

[LandyVlad]

OK dumb it down - steop by step do I

create a new directory in public_html say 'testforum'
Copy everything from the current forum directory tree to that new folfder
Duplicate the database with a new name?

Basically how to get the two so they run in parralel with no danger one of affecting the other / no linkage at all.

Sorry for the dumb Q but I need to get it right.

[shawnb61]

Regarding the time question...  A lot depends on forum size & number of attachments.  A small test forum will take 5-10 minutes via browser.  My 200k post forum (30k members, 20k/10Gb attachments) takes about 35 minutes to upgrade from 2.0 to 2.1 via browser.  (And about 5-10 minutes via CLI.)

The safest way to completely avoid interaction with your prod forum is to install a working forum on your PC.

Installing in a separate folder on your host can work also.  At a high level, you have the basic steps already listed above:
- Backup everything in case you goof...
- Ask your host to backup everything in case you goof...  (They are more experienced doing restores!)
- Copy all files to the subfolder
- Make a copy of the DB
- Run repair_settings.php in the subfolder, using the new DB credentials and location (the reset all settings button works great!).

Some additional steps you may take to ensure they don't interact:
- Use a different cookie name for the new one
- Set cookies to "local", i.e., subfolder-specific

You may want to consider updating robots.txt to exclude the subfolder for crawlers.  Not required, but adds a bit more safety.  You don't want your test forum to accidentally end up on Google.

One thing that drove me nuts was all the links in the new forum still pointing to the old forum.  So, during testing, you might click on a link and find yourself putzing in production by accident...  I wrote this utility to change all the links, etc., as well.  Note it also updates settings for mods, etc:
https://github.com/sbulen/sjrbTools/blob/master/smf_urls_paths.php

Hope this helps!

[LandyVlad]

That utility you wrote  - just run from browser lekewould with upgrade.php etc??

[shawnb61]

Yep!

There are some instructions at the top of the utility.

You get to preview the changes before proceeding.

[Skhilled]

OK dumb it down - steop by step do I

create a new directory in public_html say 'testforum'
Copy everything from the current forum directory tree to that new folfder
Duplicate the database with a new name?

Basically how to get the two so they run in parralel with no danger one of affecting the other / no linkage at all.

Sorry for the dumb Q but I need to get it right.

Sorry, Landy! Been Soooooo busy lately. I've meant to respond to this but it got away from me.

[LandyVlad]

Not sure if I can create a subfolder copy by cpanel file manger? Maybe I need to do it via ftp?

[shawnb61]

Either should work.

My host's cpanel file manager UI gets a little flaky when handling ~20k+ attachments...  But it works.  Sometimes I need to copy in 2 chunks.

[Skhilled]

You mean a subfolder copy of your entire forum? This would depend on how large you can upload which would be set by your hosting.

In that situation, I just make one or more zip files within File Manager then upload them and extract them. It would be faster than uploading single files via FTP.

[LandyVlad]

OK well....

I've just deleted my RC4 test forums and have made a copy of my 2.0.19 live forum so now I've got to the stage where I have to test the upgrade

But first I need to copy the database and run repair settings etc on the copy 2.0 forum.


For my reference: my database size 17.8 MB

Import a MySQL database
Log in to your cPanel service.
Click the phpMyAdmin icon.
Using the left menu of phpMyAdmin, select the database you wish to import your data to.
Now that you're viewing the particular database, click the Import tab.
There you will click Browse to select the file to upload, select the appropriate character set (if in doubt, leave as utf-8) and tweak the additional settings if required; then click Go.
The file will then be imported, perhaps taking some time depending on file size; the outcome of the import will then be confirmed to you.
If your database is quite large (in excess of 50MB) you cannot import this manually through phpMyAdmin. Instead, upload it through cPanel's Backup Wizard tool.

Export a MySQL database
Log in to your cPanel service.
Click the phpMyAdmin icon.
Using the left menu of phpMyAdmin, select the database you wish to export.
Now that you're viewing the particular database, click the Export tab.
Choose your export method (Quick is generally the norm) and select the format to export it as (typically SQL); then click Go.
This will give you a download prompt confirming where to download it to on your computer.

[LandyVlad]

@shawnb61   Well I pasted that php code into the SQL tab for the new database and I get the following error:

MySQL said: Documentation

#1064 - You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MariaDB server version for the right syntax to use near '<?php
/**
* A utility to change all URL and directory settings in settings...' at line 1

The left bracket is highlighted in read (purple really but lets call it red)
If I remove that bracket I get this again

#1064 - You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MariaDB server version for the right syntax to use near '?php
/**
* A utility to change all URL and directory settings in settings ...' at line 1

but nothing highlighted.

If I comment out that line entirely, I get a new error

#1064 - You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MariaDB server version for the right syntax to use near '$site_title = 'SMF URLs and Paths'' at line 31

I'd appreciate if you could help me out with this please. 


MySQL Version   10.2.43-MariaDB-cll-lve

[shawnb61]

Ok...

Where are you at in the upgrade?

What php code are you running?