Upgrading 4.3.6 -> 4.4.1

[Sonya*]

Hi,

when I upgrade 4.3.6 to 4.4.1 with a bunch of custom applications and plugins what is the recommended way?

1. Put the site offline
2. Disable all plugins
3. Disable all custom applications
4. Upload and upgrade core components
5. Upload new versions of plugins and applications ???? <-------------------
6. Enable plugins and custom applications
7. Put the site online

Or should I upload core AND custom applications at the same step and upgrade them all together? What is the better way? 

Thanks

[bfarber]

When I perform upgrades I

1. Remove any unused themes (all themes have to be updated during an upgrade, so having unused themes installed slows down the upgrade process unnecessarily)
2. Process the normal upgrade
3. Make any specific theme adjustments needed for compatibility
4. Install any application and plugin updates, if there are an.

I do not explicitly turn the site offline first - the upgrade process already does this for you basically by setting an "update in progress" flag and shown a message.

I also do not explicitly disable any third party customizations first. They shouldn't interfere with the upgrade process. You can upload the files for the third party apps first so that you can upgrade them at the same time as the main suite applications, but that requires a bit more work on your part (untaring the application and uploading those files manually, vs uploading the tar in the AdminCP) so I don't bother personally.

[rgf100]

I'll always post an announcement 30 mins in advance so nobody gets caught by surprise when submitting a long post. If it's a big upgrade I might disable third-party stuff or check it still works on a test site, but 90% of the time it works fine, and if it doesn't it's not catastrophic. All my plugins and so on are pretty minor though, and mostly for admin use. 

[Clover13]

I turn my site offline mainly to take a current backup.  If you have automated backups and are willing to lose the delta if you need to restore, then no big deal.  My site is very active and I'd prefer not to lose any new content between the last scheduled backup and the time I upgrade in the event of a failure and restore process.

Most times things go smoothly and it's a lot of work that gets tossed, but the times you run into headaches, it's worth having and dealing with the inconvenience up front.

I also tend to set up a test site, perform the upgrade, complete theme updates and then have a baseline and reference point for updating my live site themes.  Alternately I could export the test site theme and then import it into the live site's themes, really depends on the magnitude of changes.  I only have a handful of changes, so manual is fine for me.  The IPS side by side diff/comparison (show Default) in the theme editing certainly expedites identification.

[bfarber]

Good points about backups and such.

I'm in a bit of a different situation than many in that I can go in and fix any issues that come up.

[Sonya*]

I have just upgraded my test server and there were no issues (except of one custom application). It looks good so far, we are testing further. The only thing I wonder 

22 hours ago, bfarber said:

I do not explicitly turn the site offline first - the upgrade process already does this for you basically by setting an "update in progress" flag and shown a message.

Is this message translatable? The most of my users do not understand English 😉

[Daniel F]

5 minutes ago, Sonya* said:

I have just upgraded my test server and there were no issues (except of one custom application). It looks good so far, we are testing further. The only thing I wonder 

Is this message translatable? The most of my users do not understand English 😉

Yes, you can set your own page via the UPGRADING_PAGE constant 🙂

See also https://invisioncommunity.com/4guides/advanced-options/configuration-options/custom-error-and-maintenance-pages-r248/😉