2.1 upgrade error

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Upgrading 2.0.19 using current 2.1.1 download package.  Stopped at this -

Incorrect string value: '\xE4ttnin...' for column `guldforu_forum`.`smf_settings`.`value` at row 1

Value is '2.1 dev0'.

n/m, fixed it.  Doing utf-8 conversion, message at bottom of page is 'Conversion Complete! Click Continue to Proceed.' while conversion is still running.  Someone should fix that.

[Sesquipedalian]

Doing utf-8 conversion, message at bottom of page is 'Conversion Complete! Click Continue to Proceed.' while conversion is still running.  Someone should fix that.

Could I get you to post about that in the Bug Reports board so that we don't forget about it?

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Will do (if I remember).

Upgrade is hanging converting log_search_subjects to utf-8.  Been running 10-15 minutes, table is 951kb.  I'm getting worried. 

Refreshed the page, continue message is gone, hanging again at log_search_subjects conversion.  What happens if I empty the table?

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Crap, recovering 2.0.19. 

[Antechinus]

Why don't you just truncate any log_whatever tables before upgrading? This is quite common.

[shawnb61]

When dealing with problematic upgrades, use the CLI upgrader.  You get actionable errors you can work with.

I wouldn't truncate tables, even log_ tables, unless you know exactly what they do.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Shouldn't have to, it's only 25,000 rows.  There are much larger tables to follow.  Upgrader didn't like the swedish language files, when I get 2.0.19 back up and running think I'll uninstall/reinstall the language package.  Pretty much done for tonight, just waiting for recovery to complete.

Back to 2.0.19.  Nothing wrong with the language files.  Later ........

[Doug Heffernan]

Shouldn't have to, it's only 25,000 rows.  There are much larger tables to follow.  Upgrader didn't like the swedish language files, when I get 2.0.19 back up and running think I'll uninstall/reinstall the language package.  Pretty much done for tonight, just waiting for recovery to complete.

Back to 2.0.19.  Nothing wrong with the language files.  Later ........

Is the default language of the forum set to swedish? Can you switch it to english and give the upgrader another go? I am saying this because I did an upgrade with a german language forum and at first I ran into a similiar issue. After changing the default language to english, the upgrade went through like a champ.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Just getting back to it.  Language is set to swedish utf-8, will try your suggestion.  Upgrader was giving me a mix of swedish and english. 

This specific problem was reported in RC (here's one), apparently hasn't been fixed.  SMF users should be entitled to a reasonable expectation that major upgrades will run correctly out of box, without requiring CLI (which most cpanels don't have) or manually hacking the database.

[shawnb61]

Is it still halting at the settings table?

My suspicion when we see the "incorrect string value" errors is that, in fact, there is a corrupt character in there that will cause an issue when the upgrader attempts to update the record in strict mode.

If so, the challenge is to find & fix the problem character & then restart the upgrade.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

After changing the default language to english, the upgrade went through like a champ.

That worked, thanks Doug.

Is it still halting at the settings table?

My suspicion when we see the "incorrect string value" errors is that, in fact, there is a corrupt character in there that will cause an issue when the upgrader attempts to update the record in strict mode.

If so, the challenge is to find & fix the problem character & then restart the upgrade.

There were a couple of odd characters in smfVersion (2.1 something something), upgrader put them there then choked on them.  That was easily fixed by deleting them.  They were not in the 2.0.19 database.  The other problem was caused by running upgrade with language set to swedish utf-8.  Upgrader started with outdated/missing language files error (files were current), with option to run in english.  Did that, upgrader ran with mix of english and swedish, then died in utf-8 conversion.  Ran upgrade successfully today after changing language setting to english.  After upgrade completed swedish utf-8 was gone from languages, english and swedish ISO-8859-1 remained.  Installed current swedish utf-8 package, it replaced swedish ISO-8859-1, and we now have english utf-8.  Upgrader seems to have a problem with languages.

[Doug Heffernan]

That worked, thanks Doug.

You are welcome @Sir Osis of Liver. Glad to see that the upgrade is completed successfully. I will go ahead and mark ths topic as solved then.