How to Upgrade from 3.1.2 to 3.2.0

[Timbow]

Upgrading an Existing Site from GS 3.1.2 to 3.2.0
(What to do if your site has told you you need to get the latest version)

Backup Your Site First!

Nothing needs to be uninstalled, there is no installation routine, you just download the new version and ftp the new folders and files to your server, overwriting the old ones. The simplest procedure is just to upload everything in the zip file to your site root, so that all the old files are overwritten.

If you don't want to overwrite everything because for instance you have customised or edited your old files or themes then the minimum you need to upload is the folder 'Admin' and the file index.php .

And that's it. It really is that simple.

Hope that helps. It is the distilled wisdom of devs and experts from posts you will find below.

[shawn_a]

The simplest way is to just copy the whole thing on top of your install.
Assuming you have a backup of course, and have copies of anything custom you may have changed, like htaccess files.

One would assume you made copies of your themes if you modified them also.

[Connie]

The wiki says ftp everything except the folders data, backups and theme.

And that files in the root directory - index.php, robots.txt and several others don't need uploading?

Timbow, "except" means "everything else but this not..:"

of course you should upload all files from the root directory! I am sure index.php should be necessarily updated.

Well, I followed the instruction from the WIKI, understood "except" and uploaded everything but not data + backups + theme and everything went well.

Cheers,

Connie

[Timbow]

I had the first email yesterday from a customer saying that his admin was flagging an upgrade and what should he do and should I do it for him. I need to make sure I have a nice and simple, quick, safe method for upgrading because I don't want to create any problems, and other users will be looking in here seeking clear instructions. So what should they do to update an existing site? We have three methods: Which one is best?

First thing to explain is that nothing needs 're-installing', it's just a matter of updating files by ftp.

Always Backup First.

1. The wiki instructions are fine and should cause no problems
   
2. Shawn has suggested it might be simpler just to upload the whole thing over everything, but with a warning that if you have altered or deleted any files the changes will be undone.
   
3. I am going to upload just the 'admin' folder and index.php from the root.
   

The reason I like method 3 being that outside of the admin folder there are only five files altered. Two are very minor changes to themes which are probably not in use. One is to temp.gsconfig.php which is irrelevant to an existing site. One is to the anonymous_data plugin, also irrelevant to an existing site and the last is to index.php which should be updated.

Is that sensible? Or am I making needless complication out of a simple upgrade?

[shawn_a]

Yeah i just copy the whole thing, i mean there is nothing in the data folder so it wont do anything.
The zip is made to be installed over, thats how zip installs work.

temp config has the new configs in them for reference, i usually manually add them to my config.

( I actually use a script that pulls from git hub and deploys on to my site )

[yojoe]

Is upgrade no longer as simple as it used to be ?
Overwrite /admin directory + index.php in root dir always worked for me.
Non-existent options in gsconfig were disabled by default.


ps. saving custom rules in .htaccess is a must

[shawn_a]

Not the main htaccess but subfolder htaccess yes. Install does not contain a main htaccess.

Yeah, install is that simple, I extract the whole thing over my install. always have.

[Carlos]

The only thing you have to be carefull with is themes, if you're using Innovation or Cardinal (or based on them, without having renamed the theme folder) and have made changes to them (navigation plugins, custom/plugin titles and sidebars etc.)

[shawn_a]

And FYI, it is as simple as renaming or copying a theme then switching to it, if you have customized it.
Provided the them or you do not use any static paths, the default themes do not, and most ihave used I was able to rename and switch in theme switcher. And thats all there was to it,.

[Rene]

Great work on 3.2.0 update!

I wonder - when copy the whole update over the old one - if there are any obsolete files? Particularly in the admin directory. So I disabled my old 'admin' directory and copied the new one to server, added non-existent options in my old gsconfig (just for future purposes).

It works for me 99,9%
- Plugin management doesn't show update(s) anymore, I know there are a few (has it do with admin css definitions moved from style.php to css.php?)
- Page management is only showing tags like
{i18n_base/CLOSE_ALL} {i18n_base/OPEN_ALL} {i18n_base/SAVE_OPEN}

What have I failed to do?

[shawn_a]

Sounds like your language files are not loading for that plugin for some reason.

There is no known issue with plugin updates, there is an issue with some plugins in extend being not found in the api. Are your plugin names linked ?

Goto settings and click flush cache, see if that helps.

[Rene]

Shawn, thx for your reply. Did flush cache, changed to default language and even delete 2nd (dutch) language file. Nothing changed. What do you exactly mean with 'Are your plugin names linked?'

Attached images are screendump of ..
a. some installed plugins, I18N Custom Fields 1.8.2, Search 2.8 and Special Pages 1.0.1. Note that there are no update indicators to respectively 1.8.4 / 2.9.1 / 1.1.2.
   

b. tags
   

[shawn_a]

If the plugin name is not a link then that means it is not loading the data from the extend API.

[Rene]

Aha, didn't know that. That explains it. Thx.

[shawn_a]

So obviously you have some kid of issue going on either with your install or your host.

Turn debugmode on and check for errors.
Also check health check.

[shawn_a]

It looks like there is a problem with I18N plugins in extend.
That is probably the issue.

[Rene]

Thx Shawn, but after every update I first always do a health check, that was ok. I also did a run in debug mode - Mikes (n00dles101) plugin. Must say, was getting warning ...

Warning: ini_set() has been disabled for security reasons in /.../public_html/plugins/debug.php on line 32

My first thought was this plugin has to be updated for 3.2.0 version. By default it's deactivated so I didn't pay much attention to it.
After your suggestion I just activate debug mode again, but now via config file and I'm getting next warning ...

Warning: ini_set() has been disabled for security reasons in /.../public_html/admin/inc/common.php on line 83

So after checking my folders & files permissons on /data/other/logs/ I suddenly saw some errors on 'Data File Integrity Check'

Warning: simplexml_load_string() [function.simplexml-load-string]: Entity: line 3: parser error : Extra content at the end of the document in /.../public_html/admin/inc/basic.php on line 287

Warning: simplexml_load_string() [function.simplexml-load-string]: gin> in /.../public_html/admin/inc/basic.php on line 287

Warning: simplexml_load_string() [function.simplexml-load-string]: ^ in /.../public_html/admin/inc/basic.php on line 287

Can this be related to a corrupt XML file?

[shawn_a]

You have to enable debug in config not use the plugin

[datiswous]

@Rene

Did you use Cpanel for upgrading the website? Maybe file permissions are set wrong (777). I18N plugins have by default permission 777.

[Rene]

@datiswous
Thx for your reply. The only thing I did was : I deleted the old admin dir, copied new one to server (not the best way ) and changed my config file. But maybe something went wrong.

[kelly]

@Timbow:
I agree; it's needed to have a simple, quick, safe method for upgrading existing sites.

For those devs who might have many sites made in GS, which now needs to be updated, and where it's too time consuming to remember/check out whether old files or themes were edited .. it's needed just to have a safe way for a quick and simple update.

Looking at the forum now there is to many options; you can do this, you can do that ...

So in the first entry in an update-thread like this, it would be really great with guidelines saying;
"If in doubt, DO THIS:"
1. xxx
2. xxxxxxx
3. xxxxx
All done !

[Timbow]

@kelly - I thought I had done that. I went back and rewrote the first post of this thread. I will have to see if I can make it any clearer.

[kelly]

@Timbow:
I guess you are right .. if you just read the first post, it's pretty clear what to do.
But if you continue reading the thread it seems a bit like turning into a discussion with alternatives, comments and corrections ... enough anyway, to confuse this newbie : )

But ok, I guess I got it: just upload the 'Admin' folder and index.php, and your there.

[shawn_a]

That might work for minor upgrades but not major ones.
What if we add new folders somewhere.

The correct answer is what i said twice.

1. Backup
2. Install on top of existing install

If you idiotically modified a core file you can restore you backups or manually reinsert them. Either way you have to review the core files since they probably changed.

[shawn_a]

One thing of note is if you are using a custom admin folder youll have to do the renaming.