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By Steady on
Hi All,
I am quite new to drupal.
I have only ever worked on an old site version 4.6.3
However, I have recently installed version 6.10 on a number of new sites with no problems.
Now, my difficulty is that I have tried to upgrade the 4.6.3 site to the latest version. I have literally spent 40 hours or so, trying to get from 4.6.3 to 6.10 with no success.
Actually, I have managed to get from 4.6.3 to 4.6.11 ok.
Anything further than this and I get all sorts of update erros, or blank screens or whatever. Too many different problems to list.
To cut a long story short I am very disappointed that it has come to this. I really feel like giving up on drupal, but I don't want to concede defeat.
My long term worry is that I may run into problems in the future when I eventually have to upgrade my 6.10 sites.
I have done nothing fancy with any of my sites. Just a simple install with basic themes. But I am scared of creating problems for myself in the future which I won't be able to handle.
Why is is so complicated to upgrade?
Is drupal worth persisting with?
Even now I still see many people dread upgrading drupal who have more experience than me.
I have been an advocate of drupal so far but I am beginning to get disillusioned.
My poor old 4.6.3 site is running ok but it seems wrong to just let it stay like that for ever.
Please help.
Comments
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Not sure why your decision not to upgrade as older core versions were sunset is the fault of drupal.
but that rants aside:
to go to 4.7.x you need to disable all contrib modules. 4.6.x modules won't work with 4.7.x and 4.7.x modules won't work with 5.x and so on. you also need to ensure you aren't using a custom or contrib theme. Only a core theme ie: blue marine.
Because you left the site sit for so long your steps will be slow and possibly painful if you are already pulling your hair out.
Getting the site up to 4.7.x will be first step. This includes core and all contrib modules while using a core theme.
Then you will have to follow the same steps to get to 5.x
Then again to get to 6.x
Along the way some of the modules you were using will no longer work at all. As they've been replaced over time
Is there a simpler solution?
Thanks for the reply. I should clarify the situation:
I am a complete novice with mysql and drupal. I have spent the last week reading up on drupal and I have done my first install of the latest version and that went ok.
However, my problem is that I have just decided to help out a local kids sports club and they have a website that someone built for them in drupal version 4.6.3
They need to move their site to another host and obviously upgrade it. This is why I volunteered to help out and have been trying to understand drupal to help them out. They are a non-profit club and don't have the resources to pay anyone for this.
I know html and can build static sites with no problem, but I am struggling to take this further.
I have tried all sorts of upgrades and can't get further than 4.6.11
There are no added modules or changes. It has been an original theme and no other changes have been made. On the face of it, it is as default an installation as one could possibly have.
I have been thrown in at the deepend and I don't want to tell them I can't help them as it is too complicated.
I would hate to see them lose their site after 3 years of content has been added.
Please help. What should I do?
I don't fancy having to cut and paste each page of content into a new 6.10 site but I'm really struggling to find out why the upgrades aren't working.
Help???
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If there was a simpiler solution it would be the standard for upgrades. Developers aren't going out of their way to make things difficult to upgrade one site to another.
The storyline isn't what is needed here. What is needed information about the problems themselves.
A site link would be a benefit as well.
These updgrades should most definetly be done using an export of the database on your localmachine to ensure that the site doesn't go down while trying to work these issues out.
Going from 4.6 - 6.10 isn't going to be an "easy" task.
The only way any one here can help you without debug information would be if we had an export of the database a copy of all files and the ability to test an upgrade in our own sandboxes. So that we can try to reproduce the problems you are having.
it would help to understand:
what theme is in use?
what modules are enabled?
whether they are "stock" or "default" it can help research previous problems that were had when users were upgrading from 4.6.x - 4.7.x
what the OS environment is built from?
ie:
version of PHP?
version of MySQL?
Major and minor upgrades
I have several sites that began their life as 4.6.x installations and are running 5.x and 6.x today. General rule: Upgrade only one major release at a time, and make sure there were no errors.
A gotcha: 4.6 to 4.7 is a major upgrade, not a minor upgrade as the point notation would suggest. The numbering scheme changed after 4.7.
I would do a complete backup, then upgrade your 4.6.11 to http://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/drupal-4.7.11.tar.gz -- which should work after you run update.php.
After you're sure that your upgrade went smoothly, you can proceed to back everything up again, and upgrade 4.7.11 to http://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/drupal-5.16.tar.gz.
Then repeat the process for http://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/drupal-6.10.tar.gz.
If you don't have any contributed modules and you're running a standard theme, you should not have any major problems once you get to 4.7.x. The core upgrade code in latter-day Drupal is pretty solid.
Thank you for your suggestions
Hi Yelvington & Very Misunderstood,
I just wanted to say thank you for taking the time and trouble to write up some help for me.
Sadly, I still have been unsuccessful in upgrading to 6.10
This is obviously disappointing to say the least.
To cut a long story short I have ended up doing a fresh install of 6.10 and cutting and pasting key information from the old site into the new one.
Very time consuming but at least 50% or so of the data will be available to the kids.
I wish I could elucidate on exactly why I was unable to upgrade. I only hope that the experts who write the valuable drupal code can continue to try to make upgrades ever simpler and more newbie friendly when problems do arise.
I know this will be easier said than done but it will definitely help drupal take off even faster than it has in the last few years.
Thanks once again.