By Valdemarick on

I just recently installed Drupal 6.9 and just a few short days later was met with a notice on my site regarding the release of 6.10. After downloading the update and reading the UPGRADE.txt file, I decided to attempt the update.

The instructions were a little confusing, but from what I can understand I am suppose to unpack the new version entirely into the /installation subdirectory at my site root, and then visit /update.php to perform the update.

However, when I do this, update.php reports that there are no new versions available. The only other alternative I can think of is to unpack and overwrite the new version directly in to the site root.

I am a little hesitant to do this though, and would like some thoughts / opinions on the upgrade process before proceeding. Thank you in advance.

⋅ Categories: Drupal 6.x

Comments

silverwing’s picture

silverwing commented

The only other alternative I can think of is to unpack and overwrite the new version directly in to the site root.

If your existing files are in the site root (where your drupal's main index.php file is) then that's where you overwrite the files.

~silverwing

mediafrenzy’s picture

mediafrenzy commented

Remember to backup all your site files AND backup your database before you do anything. That way, if you break something by accident, you can restore everything back to how it was, and try again!

That update.php saying there are no new versions available just means there are no *Database* changes happening. You still need to replace all the drupal files with the new drupal version files, and still run update.php just in case after you've done that.

uncoolbob’s picture

uncoolbob commented

I've installed many modules and so on and the thought of disabling them all for a second digit, single digit upgrade seems over the top.

I've done a diff of 6.9 to 6.10 and I'm going to try my luck making and applying a patchfile and keep everything running. it would probably even work to just unpack in the current installation, but the patchfile is a little bit safer if you've edited files (I haven't edited core drupal files as far as I remember, but anyway...).

of course... I'll make a full file and database backup and put the site offline just to be sure! (as I do regularly anyway)

if I had hundreds of visitors I might be more cautious and get a test site working first though!

uncoolbob’s picture

uncoolbob commented

In case you're wondering how to make and apply a patch file (in Linux/Unix-like environment):

Outside your main drupal installation directory, let's say in /tmp download and unpack drupal-6.9.tar.gz and drupal-6.10.tar.gz into side-by-side directories

% diff -Naur drupal-6.9 drupal-6.10 > drupal-upgrade-6.9-to-6.10.patch
% cd /your/drupal/installation
##BACK UP YOUR DRUPAL FILES AND DATABASE##
##Put drupal into maintenance mode##
% patch -p1 < /tmp/drupal-upgrade-6.9-to-6.10.patch

Then go to http: // yoursite.com/update.php
follow instructions
check all is working fine, check admin/reports/status etc.
put site back online.

(PS. this should also work if there are new files in the new version, but you should double check they get created)
I was done in 2 minutes - it took longer to write this post intelligibly - but of course, your mileage may vary!

jwuk’s picture

jwuk commented

Wow! Uncool, Bob? Pretty damn cool from where I'm standing! :)

Thanks so much for this recipe. I've just been checking those diff and patch options, I'm no expert, but it looks to me like they're also the appropriate options in FreeBSD (I use nearlyfreespeech.net for hosting). This looks a great way to upgrade for anyone with SSH access.

Ironic really -- I read this thread because my recently installed 6.9 has started whining that it needs an upgrade. Having checked the advisory I don't think there's anything on my site that really needs this upgrade, and I came here hoping to find if there's some way of turning off that nagging "There is a security update available for your version of Drupal. To ensure the security of your server, you should update immediately! See the available updates page for more information." message.

In other words, I want a way to acknowledge that I'm aware of 6.10 but have decided not to install it, but I still want to be told when 6.11 comes out. Is there a way to do that?

uncoolbob’s picture

uncoolbob commented

You can run patch with the --dry-run option if you like, but of course, if you have a full file and database backup (and know how to restore them) there's nothing to be afraid of!

Don't know about disabling the nagging, sorry!

thaiboxer’s picture

thaiboxer commented

Just completed my first upgrade. 6.9 to 6.10

This was a pretty scary process, i had just completed some tedious setups & was finally happy & then started to get the security warnings. My issue was my files folder & customized garland theme that was still in the root themes. My files folder contains several gig & i didn't want to start moving it about.

I unzipped the 6.10 on my HD, removed the .htaccess & sites folder, then copied my garland theme to the sites/all/themes/ folder & proceeded to turn off all custom modules before deleting all of the root drupal 6.9 files except for sites/

Uploaded the modified 6.10 zip & extracted to root, ran upgrade, turned on modules, ran upgrade again & every thing is hunky dory, even still have the garland mods working.

I think if i tried this on a monday it would have failed completely, tgif.

obeahman’s picture

obeahman commented

ThaiBoxer:

You are a lucky guy.

I have got all types of problems.

read my problems at:

http://acquia.com/node/313953#comment-4220

O

jwuk’s picture

jwuk commented

Uncoolbob -- I've just discovered http://drupal.org/node/320 and 321. These seem like even easier ways to install/update than your neat patch solution (provided one has ssh access of course).

eceleste’s picture

eceleste commented

Uncoolbob, I love your patch idea. I'm new to Drupal and found the 6.8 - 6.9 upgrade ridiculously difficult. But one of the main pains of the process was the "disable all non-core modules" step (took me four times through to work through the dependencies!). Clearly your patch method does not bother with disabling the modules. Are you saying that this can be skipped for this kind of patch? (See the "survey" at http://drupal.org/node/377816.) What do you look for in the patch to give you a hint that a module may be at risk during an upgrade?

uncoolbob’s picture

uncoolbob commented

yes I skipped disabling the non-core modules. I've got a backup and know how to use it, so I took the "risk" and thought it was worth reporting back my success here.

uncoolbob’s picture

uncoolbob commented

The sites/default directory is read-only, and the patch operation doesn't like this.

You need to do

chmod u+w sites/default

before applying the patch

and then reverse it afterwards

chmod u-w sites/default

jayburgh’s picture

jayburgh commented

I've had my fill of trying the latest and greatest Drupal version. Drupal.org should publicly state in bold print on the home page which version of Drupal it's running. When drupal.org has the balls to run the version it publicizes, then I will. It's like the guinea pig thing is ass-backwards.

styro’s picture

styro commented

These "latest and greatest" versions are just bug fixes (including security patches) - there is nothing in there that is new functionality. There is no "guinea pig thing".

drupal.org will always roll out the latest bug fixes very quickly - it has to.

drupal.org is now on the latest 6.x codebase. The reasons for the delay in moving drupal.org to 6.x weren't because nobody wanted to move to 6.x (it's the opposite, there were lots of 6.x features they wanted) - it was mainly to do with porting some of the very complex back end modules.

jayburgh’s picture

jayburgh commented

So I'm guaranteed to be looking at 6.10 right now, with all those pesky little security/bug fixes just humming along?

silverwing’s picture

silverwing commented

it's 6.9 http://drupal.org/CHANGELOG.txt

~silverwing - of course I have no idea why it really matters to you unless you're just trying to pick a fight about something that really doesn't matter

styro’s picture

styro commented

but it will have all the 6.10 fixes.

Edit: as pointed out by silverwing it is (currently) on 6.9, presumably as the single urgent security fix in 6.10 only mattered to Windows servers. As I don't use Windows servers, this is the same reason I haven't rushed to install 6.10 or 5.16 yet.

When I say "not pure 6.10", there will probably be additional patches for specific purposes as well.

When the site was on 5.x there were a few extra patches put in place to eg handle DB replication, or prevent certain queries overwhelming the DB server etc. Some of these 5.x tweaks were specific to drupal.org only, while others got finetuned and made more generic then ended up in 6.x (the changes would've been too drastic for 5.x).

No doubt the current 6.x site has some tweaks of its own (materialised views is something I've heard of, but don't know much about), that may end up as part of a later version.

A lot of these ideas are only needed for very high traffic sites like drupal.org, and you'll never quite know how they perform until they get tried on a site like drupal.org.

So if anything drupal.org was/is being the guinea pig for trialling new ideas.

modoftheday’s picture

modoftheday commented

and have no idea what anyones talking about...Do i really need to upgrade from 6.9 to 6.10 ?
i downloaded it but have no idea what program to use to open the file? any help ( in english please...haha) would be appreciated,thanks

uncoolbob’s picture

uncoolbob commented

can't answer in English, but if you have comandline access to a Unix-like system (which doesn't need the security update, but the way) you can probably do this:

tar xzf drupal-6.10.tar.gz

(which creates a directory called drupal-6.10)

but you probably need to wait for your hosting provider to provide the upgrade through a GUI if you are stuck at this stage. Without the (commandline) knowledge to make backups and restore them you are going to get into a lot of trouble.

modoftheday’s picture

modoftheday commented

Thanks for your response

jwuk’s picture

jwuk commented

What computer are you using? (Windows, Linux, BSD, Mac?). And is your site on your own development machine or a remote server? If the latter, what kind of access do you have to it? (Ftp, ssh...)

If people understand your circumstances they can give a straightforward reply that fits your situation.

modoftheday’s picture

modoftheday commented

I'm using windows on my own machine...now my site says i have no access...
The site is currently not available due to technical problems. Please try again later. Thank you for your understanding.

Is this my site and if so how do i access it or is it druple? Grrrr

webmaven17’s picture

webmaven17 commented

I'm a newbie and I need some help here. I am using a cpanel interface on a host server and have access to my files through File Manager, but here's my problem:

I attempted to upgrade my site from 6.9 to 6.10 following the instructions in the "Using Drupal" book by Angela Byron et al. but it went sour. I gave up and spent an entire day trying to restore my site from my backup files. Now I have my site back (in good old 6.9) but I can't access the modules section. When I go to Administer-Site Building-Modules, here's the error message I get:

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 94071 bytes) in /home4/resonant/public_html/includes/form.inc on line 2056

Any ideas on how I can fix this? If you need any more info to help, please let me know and I'll try to provide it.

I appreciate your suggestions.

vm’s picture

vm commented

use Fatal error: Allowed memory size as a search term here on drupal.org as this question has been asked and answered many times in the past. you need to increase your available memory.

jwuk’s picture

jwuk commented

That sounds like a helpful workaround, but is it the full story? 32M sounds like a lot of memory, PHP should be able to handle an awful lot in such memory unless there's some very wasteful programming somewhere. So what's the root cause of the problem?

I think line 2056 in form.inc is a return statement in function theme_form(). It's quite long, it starts:

return '<form '. $action .' accept-charset="UTF-8" method="'. $element['#method'] .'" id="'. $element['#id'] .'"'. drupal_attribu...

but it's just stringing together a load of strings, doesn't look to me terribly offensive. Presumably something earlier has generated some surprisingly long strings, perhaps due to corruption somewhere?

vm’s picture

vm commented

Drupal core alone, reccommends 16M of memory. The more contrib modules added the more memory needed.