MyBB Community Forums

Looking for some advice,

My forum is currently running on 1.6.10, and is running fine. I have avoided the upgraded to 1.8.6 because of the work involved, however, there is a mobile theme I want to use that is only compatible with 1.8.X upwards.

I have done a lot of research about custom themes etc, and it seems that they all break when going to 1.8.X. 

Is there a way I can test my theme out, get it in the right state so that when I upgrade my forum, everything is good to go?

I have backup up my database/public directory files/themes, so literally just need to perform the upgrade.

Thanks for your help

Why would a custom theme break on 1.8.x ? If you mean an old 1.6.x theme applied on 1.8 then yes you would expect them to break. In any event it is quite easy to test your theme by creating a new theme/template set and applying the changes, or personally I would install a test forum onto a test database and test everything there.

I don't know why, but if you do a quick search on upgrading, there are a lot of threads with people saying the upgrsde broke their themes, and a lot of recommendations not to upgrade at all :l

I'll do a test installation on a local server or something. Thanks

Themes are generally not compatible for different versions, especially if the version numbers are that far apart. Recommending to not upgrade at all is poor advice, especially when the new version has features that keep up with the times. Upgrading does require a lot of planning and testing though.

When upgrading to a new major version, make a copy of your site and database and play around on that copy. When you are happy, you can export your modified theme, upgrade your main site, and import that modified theme. This also allows you to test your plugins before taking the plunge.