Suggestions/recommendations for upgrade?

[Paranoimia]

I run a small gaming clan site, which is currently using SMF 1.1.11 and TinyPortal 1.0 beta 5.

I was thinking about upgrading it to SMF 2.0 RC5 and SimplePortal.

I have a couple of mods installed: Custom Board Icons (CBI) and Spoiler Show & Hide.

Anyone done such an upgrade, and able to offer any suggestions, recommendations or advice?

I'm thinking:

1. Make copies of my pages & custom block code.
2. Back up everything, including database.
3. Uninstall TinyPortal.
4. Upgrade SMF.
5. Install SimplePortal.
6. Re-create my pages & custom blocks as necessary.


Any pointers, things I've missed, potential pitfalls, warnings, tales of woe etc. would be much appreciated!

Thanks in advance.

[Matthew K.]

Hey there!

Definitely backup before you upgrade, although might I suggest waiting a little? SMF 2.0 Final should be released by the end of this month, and that will save you from having to upgrade twice.

If you are opposed to waiting, and would like to upgrade to SMF 2.0 RC5 at this time, I can help you with further information.

[Paranoimia]

Ah, okay... thanks for that. I can wait until the final version is available.

What I may do in the meantime is get a copy of the site running locally on my PC and just play around with upgrading there, using RC5 - just to see how smoothly (or otherwise) it goes.

[Matthew K.]

Sounds like a plan!

Do you have any further questions or shall I mark this one as solved for now?

[Paranoimia]

That's all for now, thanks. I've marked it as solved.

[Paranoimia]

I've got a copy of my site locally now, working fine. I've uninstalled TinyPortal, but when I try uploading the large upgrade package for 2.0 RC5, I get the error:

"The package you tried to upload either is not a valid package or has become corrupted."

I've downloaded both the .zip and the .tar.gz file twice, and keep getting the same message.

[Matthew K.]

That's because they aren't "packages", you have to upload them to your server, extract the contents and then run upgrade.php.

[Paranoimia]

That's because they aren't "packages", you have to upload them to your server, extract the contents and then run upgrade.php.

Ah. Oops! How stupid of me...

[Paranoimia]

Just as an 'FYI'...

I got my local copy of the site updated, and everything went incredibly smoothly; I'll be honest, I was expecting at least some issues, since I was moving from TinyPortal to SimplePortal, but no... not a thing!

I've had to change the spoiler mod I was using, since the previous one isn't updated for SMF 2.0, but that's no big deal (though to be honest, I'm surprised SMF 2 doesn't come with a built-in spoiler tag). I also found an awesome theme by Crip which I plan to use.

Now I just need to wait for the final SMF 2 release, and I can get the live site updated - which will hopefully be just as uneventful.

[Matthew K.]

That's great to hear, Paranoimia!

Be sure to let us know how your upgrade to 2.0 goes

[Paranoimia]

Well, the update to 2.0 Final went very smoothly - though not quite as smooth as the upgrade to 2.0 RC5!

I had a couple of minor issues.

The first was that the Quick Reply box was for some reason set to a massive 600 columns wide, which didn't happen on the local test with RC5 and the same theme. That looked really messy, but I managed to sort that out thanks to a very basic knowledge of PHP and CSS, plus the invaluable Firebug extension for Firefox.

The second was (or rather, is) that the copyright message for SimplePortal displays in a rather ugly fashion in SMF2 Final compared to SMF2 RC5 - but I've asked on the SP forums, and apparently they're aware of the issue. Something to do with SMF2 Final changing the way copyright messages are handled. They'll be updating SP soon to account for it.

Other than that... silky smooth!

[Illori]

you may find http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=437484.msg3071522#msg3071522 helpful

[Paranoimia]

you may find http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=437484.msg3071522#msg3071522 helpful

That's awesome - thanks! Essentially the same result as I got myself, but this is a little more elegant as it's coded by someone who knows exactly what they're doing.