Hi All, I made an upgrade jump from 1.2.14 straight to 1.6.10 by manipulating the tables directly through mysql. Had to alter tables, truncate tables, import data … just not fun. Not being a developer on this project and knowing the schema I will not say my methods were graceful, but they worked.
Problem:
Trying to make the leap to any later version (1.4.x through 1.6.x) I get the common “Performing Queries” Performing necessary upgrade queries message that just sits there. I have tried what recommendations I could find to work around this (may have missed one). The “step method” upgrading one version at a time failed. The “merge method” bring up a 1.6.x instance of mybb and use the merge tool failed with the 1054 - Unknown column 'allowvideocode' in 'field list' error, which the posting say the remedy is doing an upgrade. Nothing is jumping out at me in the MySql server logs (at the current logging level)
Root Cause:
Varies, from simple issues like running the upgrade and picking the wrong version to upgrade from, jumping many version at a time, or not closing the board and disabling plugins. To the more complex issues (from what I can tell) like problems with the SQL Tables getting updated correctly, bad user names, to things like database corruption at the bad end.
Fix:
You will need the correct upgrade files to start:
Finding Upgrade files
Note: for upgrading from versions 1.2.x to 1.2.14. you will want to upgrade to 1.2.14 (the last version in the 1.2.x series) first.
• Zipped file changes for 1.2.x versions can be found on mybb, look for ‘versions’ link, click on it, and then look for the link after “More information here” that points to old postings under which you might find the changed files zip. Usually //community.mybb.com/showthread......
Note: There was a major database change starting with version 1.4.0, so your next upgrade should be to a 1.4.x version.
• The upgrade file sets starting with 1.4.6 to 1.6.9 (as of this post) can be found at:
http://mybbsource.com/archives.html
Of course the latest version can be found off of the MyBB home page.
(Backup MySQL database and the forum folder both. For major jumps you may want to try this in a test environment first.)
Procedure
• Backup MySQL database and the forum folder.
• Follow the upgrade instruction off of MyBB
http://docs.mybb.com/Upgrading.html
In general, upgrading each version is the same;
• Close the board
• Backup sql (I like to use the MySQL tools)
• Backup files (forum folder)
• Disable plugins
• Upload new files to the ‘forum’ folder replacing old files
• Delete the ‘lock’ file from the: forum/install directory
• Open your web browser to (your sites name)/install/upgrade.php
• As outline on the mybb upgrade pages, pick the version you are upgrading from and follow the prompts.
Repeat above steps going from version to version until you are at the latest version.
If you are still getting Performing necessary upgrade queries message that just sits there. (What I had to do, and yes I hope a developer can post something better)
• Open MySQL in one window, and open the database table listing on mybb
http://docs.mybb.com/Database_Tables.html in another.
• In MySQL inspect each table in the list adding in the missing fields.
• After making corrections to a table, save it, and attempt to run the upgrade tool again.
• Repeat
I had to go through 5 of the 70+ tables starting with the user tables. I also found bad data in one table which I exported, truncated the table (cleared the data out), and imported the data after cleaning it up. I was relying heavily on SQL giving me errors when adding fields to a table to find the problem areas, and the upgrade scripts to reset the field type correctly along with doing the data changes. For example, one upgrade script removed commas from user names.
Good luck, and should anyone have a better step by step please post it.
