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By chrisbeaman on
When you upgrade Drupal you're instructed to disable your modules. Is there a quick and easy way to save which modules you had enabled without writing them down or trying to remember them? It would be nice if Drupal had a checkbox that saved all of one's enabled modules for upgrade purposes. That way, once you've upgraded, you can just click this box and it would fill in all the modules you had previously enabled. (If I were a programmer I'd do this myself, but, alas, I'm not)
Comments
That would be nice. There is
That would be nice. There is the http://drupal.org/project/contrib_toggle module which disables all contributed modules, but in its current version it can't enable them again. Maybe if it matures a bit it will be considered for core. For now, a printout seems necessary.
Debateable whether you need to disable them
http://drupal.org/node/359586
There are differing opinions as to whether it's necessary to disable all non-contrib modules when updating the Drupal core. Given the pace at which some of the recent patches have been coming out, it is a real nuisance having to disable them (in multiple steps due to dependencies most times) and then renabling them all again. I've been starting to skip disabling modules and just update the Drupal core with the site offline. However, I have been using the Backup and Migrate module to make a database backup before I do the update (along with doing a Subversion commit of the entire site including the backup file) prior to upgrading anything.
dman's response
dman's response is the most helpful I've ever read on this topic. Personally I have never in several years of using Drupal disabled contrib modules during a minor upgrade, and even with 100-200 modules at once have never had a single problem. However your mileage may vary. For a large number of complexly configured modules, it's absolutely a "no-way-aint-gonna-happen" to manually disable and re-enable them all every time (especially when you have more Drupal sites to take care of for friends/family and clients than you can count on your fingers haha). So personally until the contrib module that helps this issue works, or the feature is in core (which if it really is an issue it "really" has to be in D7 core), I personally will not be doing it. I back up first before upgrading of course (doesn't everyone? ah hem *grin*) so in the rare case that something goes wrong, I'll roll back and try again with the offending contribs disabled.
-- David
davidnewkerk.com | absolutecross.com
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I screenshot my Module page
I screenshot my Module page when I update Drupal, that way I can go back through the list and check the ones I had originally enabled.
J
Disabling modules, only for 5.x->6.y, unnecessary for 6.x->6.y
As commented on another thread (Is a different approach in upgrading possible?), disabling modules is only necessary when upgrading between major versions (5.x -> 6.y), and not when updating between minor ones (6.x -> 6.y), which is a much more frequent and much simpler procedure. For details on major upgrades and minor updates, see also for example Acquia Drupal's Getting Started Guide (a PDF in their downloads section).