By dsamuel on

I am trying to upgrade from 4.7 to 5.1. I tried it on my production installation, which failed miserably (hint: BACK UP YOUR DRUPAL SITE BEFORE UPGRADING or you may live to regret it! I was able to restore my 4.7 installation.

Next, I used the backup files to set up an identical website on my pc. I was able to upgrade on my PC without trouble.

I noticed that upgrade.php ran on my PC, it said it was upgrading the database (nice AJAX interface, very nice!), showed a progress meter, then the new installation was ready (which it was).

I tired again on my installation. If I don't run upgrade, the menu block does not appear. If I try to run upgrade.php, it gets to where it says it is "upgrading", but nothing happens.

Should I try waiting a really long time (my server is pretty responsive, probably faster than my PC), or am I missing something?

Any help most appreciated, thanks.

⋅ Categories: Drupal 4.7.x

Comments

litwol’s picture

litwol commented

i'll admit i didnt read your post. but your title said it all.

in the 5.1 upgrade it specifically said that people that are trying to upgrade from 4.7 should first upgrade to 5.0 and only THEN upgrade 5.0 to 5.1

you didnt follow the instructions and thats why i think you have having those problems.

Sometimes something interesting appears on http://litwol.com

gabble’s picture

gabble commented

I have to ask... where did you read that?

I have gone through http://drupal.org/upgrade and UPGRADE.txt in the drupal-5.1 package, and I see no indication about first upgrading to 5.0 then upgrading again to 5.1

And in any case, I see no more drupal-5.0 packages around, to download…

I am very interested because I'll soon have update my website from 4.7.9 to 5.1

Thanks in advance,
Gabriele

litwol’s picture

litwol commented

see here: http://drupal.org/drupal-5.1

scroll down to where it says "upgrading"

Sometimes something interesting appears on http://litwol.com

gabble’s picture

gabble commented

You're right, I can't believe it!!!
Why why why???

We're not talking of upgrading from 2.0 to 5.1, we're simply upgading from a close version… 5.1 has just security vulns and bug fixes, no major changes since 5.0… so what's the point with that upagrade warning note? Mmh… :-/

Anyway, to anyone interested, "old" version 5.0 is here:
http://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/drupal/files/projects/drupal-5.0.tar.gz

twohills’s picture

twohills commented

You're right, this is not good.

5.0 is not available.

the upgrade intsructions in the tar don't mention this

the upgrade instructions in the manual don't mention it either.

fantastic

escoles’s picture

escoles commented

OK, here's what it says:

For the most trouble-free transition from an existing installation, it is recommended that you first upgrade to Drupal 4.7.5 or Drupal 5.0....

That seems to me to be saying that you should upgrade to 4.7.5 before upgrading to 5.1, or to 5.0 before 5.1.

Very, very unclear.

As an old manager of mine used to say: "Vague is not flexible."

So, just to be clear about this, is this what needs to happen?

  1. Upgrade to 4.7.5
  2. Upgrade to 5.0
  3. Only after following those steps, upgrade to 5.1. Do not under any circumstances omit a step.

If that's what's meant, the instructions need to bloody say so.

datakid’s picture

datakid commented

Can someone please confirm or deny escoles comment?

Can we skip step 2, if we go from 4.7 -> 4.7.6 -> 5.1?

datakid’s picture

datakid commented

I just tried skipping step two, ie:

I did:

4.7.0 -> 4.7.6 (good)
4.7.6 -> 5.1 (bad)

so I went back to 4.7.0 (backup)

and did:

4.7.0 -> 5.0 (good)
5.0 -> 5.1 (mostly good, theme broke, am rolling back to 4.7.6, natch, ouch!)

.carey’s picture

.carey commented

If the only bad thing that happened after you upgraded from 5.0 to 5.1 then maybe -- if I may suggest -- upgrade your theme to work with it. You could presumably make a separate clean install of Drupal and play with your theme until it works like it should, then use it for your newly upgraded Drupal site.

racakg’s picture

racakg commented

dsamuel, first update you drupal site to 4.7.6 and then upgrade to 5.1.

update: i see now you upgrade was successful. Cheers, :)

dsamuel’s picture

dsamuel commented

Thanks for the ideas. Actually, the upgrade path is a bit of a problem, and it would be great, essential really, to have a tool built in to Drupal to help with upgrades.

I first tried upgrading from 4.7.x (x=?, I'm not exactly sure which version I have) to 5.0. The second time was to 5.1.

The thing is that I was able to upgrade on one system, and not the other. What's up with that?

I followed the instructions (I forget where I found them on this big, informative but rambling site) on how to determine the installation version. Actually, I could not find any indication of which version I have. I can make some guesses based on when I installed it, and which zip packages I have on my PC.

My site is now back to 4.7, so the problem is not yet resolved. Since I don't have much content, I may start over with the latest Drupal and manually cut and past all the posts. This would be faster, but it bothers me that I can't do the upgrade "properly", and next time I need to upgrade, I will have a whole lot more material. I am just about to start serious development of this site!

The other thing that worries me a bit is that if this upgrade is so much trouble and so disruptive, how much trouble and disruption will I experience if I apply every minor upgrade that comes out? Will following each incremental upgrade always work and be less trouble, or will more upgrades expose me to more chances of trouble?

This leads me to wonder if Drupal could have a revert function, so that upgrades are less risky.
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litwol’s picture

litwol commented

I am still learning drupal development, and you can see initial efforts here: http://64.158.178.196/
this link will update in content almost every day as i apply the different themes deeper and deeper into the site.

i have been using drupal ever since 5.0 and the only update i've done was few minor security updates that were from the 5.0 and up releases. i can say that i NEVER had any issue with upgrading the drupal 5 system.

i would guess that you had problems because 4.7 and 5.0 are different systems.

but i am sure there's something very small that you are just doing wrong, or maybe need a different approach.

also as your website becomes much bigger and more customized you will most likely need to customize your own upgrade methods, but i dont know about that one because i never researched what actually happens during upgrade.

Sometimes something interesting appears on http://litwol.com

dsamuel’s picture

dsamuel commented

I've wasted so much time trying to do a "proper" upgrade that I decided it was faster to just copy the material manually to a new installation (in a sub domain), which I will then move to the primary domain when its all done.

If anyone has any better ideas for future visitors to this thread, do please put in your two cents!

Mean while, a module to import/export/back up any database from/to any Drupal version would be really cool, if that grabs the fancy of anyone to develop!

Mean while, I have got the new site with the old content up and running. Now working on adding new content to the site and new modules to Drupal.

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datakid’s picture

datakid commented

This did not work for me...I am going back to try the 4.7.6 -> 5.0 -> 5.1 route...