[forum4ttt]

I have yet to have a trouble-free, simple upgrade....after 2 years of upgrade problems I now hate to get a message to upgrade

1.  clicking on the 'upgrade your forum' link in the Admin Center gets this error -- You cannot download or install new packages because the Packages directory or one of the files in it are not writable! -- NOTE: this has never worked and is always due to 'not writable' issues..even though, after hours of finally getting the upgrade complete, I never set any folders/file permissions to 'not writable'....so I assume the default forum permissions upgrade with 'not writable' correct?

2. going via ftp to the Packages folder shows all files writable except m2.php...trying to change permissions on this file to writable gives this error -- Error21-When sending custom QUOTE commands to the remote server, one of the commands returned an error code that is 400 or higher.

3. going to Package Manager and selecting 'All files are writable' and clicking on 'Change File Permissions' has no effect...and the selection returns to 'Only the standard files are writable'

4. going to SMF Online Manual > Installing, Converting, and Upgrading SMF > Upgrading SMF > Topic: Before you Upgrade and trying to BACKUP...downloading to my harddrive results in a virus detection via AVG of a 'Trojan Horse PHP/BackDoor.C99Shell in file Themes\mod.php 

5. going to Package Manager and clicking on Uninstall to remove all mods (only have 2 ..neither of which I want as they never worked) gets error --  You cannot download or install new packages because the Packages directory or one of the files in it are not writable! (at this point I manually deleted mod.php due to virus)

You begin to see the pattern/problem....can not write and can not make writable

Please advise if I can just upload the Large Upgrade which I downloaded from SMF and overwrite the existing forum files to do the upgrade.  I do not want any mods...just the basic forum (which by the way works great and is an invaluable tool ...between upgrades).  I would try that next however do not want to ruin my forum.  I have done a Backup Database from Forum Maintenance...which I assume saves all my threads and settings.

Thanks in advance

[[n3rve]]

Strange problems you're experiencing as the Upgrade was smooth on my forums. It's probably due to some server setting / restrictions. Your forum can connect to our server to get the package but when it's trying to download and save to ./Packages, you get that error because the folder is read-only. Have you tried to download the packages and upload and apply it like a mod?

Please advise if I can just upload the Large Upgrade which I downloaded from SMF and overwrite the existing forum files to do the upgrade.  I do not want any mods...just the basic forum (which by the way works great and is an invaluable tool ...between upgrades).  I would try that next however do not want to ruin my forum.  I have done a Backup Database from Forum Maintenance...which I assume saves all my threads and settings.

Yes, if all fails, this is the next step to take

-[n3rve]

[forum4ttt]

thanks for the reply

I tried to upload the upgrade package using Package Manager and got error... Could not upload package, please check directory permissions!

in the past I think I just overwrote the existing files manually using ftp...will try that

[[n3rve]]

You're not suppose to upload the Large Upgrade Package via the Package Manager. Unpack the archive and FTP (overwrite) all files on the server.
See: Upgrade SMF

-[n3rve]

[forum4ttt]

yes...I was trying to follow your suggestion(Have you tried to download the packages and upload and apply it like a mod?)...did it wrong apparently

my way out of this usually is to do the manual upload of all unzipped files...change permissions (I note install.php is missing) ...etc... do that now

[forum4ttt]

manual upgrade worked fine...

thanks for your help

[[n3rve]]

yes...I was trying to follow your suggestion(Have you tried to download the packages and upload and apply it like a mod?)...did it wrong apparently

Sorry, I meant that you should download the patch from the 1.1.8 announcement topic

-[n3rve]

[[n3rve]]

Good to see you got it sorted, Topic marked as solved

-[n3rve]