Upgrading to 4.7 Fail, Total Nightmare, and How I fixed it on my own

[Robert Angle]

After upgrading my test installation without a hitch, I assumed it was safe to upgrade our main community. I backed up my database to my local computer and began the installation process, which FAILED when I hit the button at the bottom of the page that showed me all the applications that would be upgrading from 4.6.12.1 to 4.7. I received an error message that said my site could not be reached. Backing up and trying again just resulted in the same message.

So I did what I haven't had to do in years, and logged into the Client Area with the intent to submit a Support Ticket. But lo and behold the Support Ticket system is now non-existent and I am greeted with a message that says my plan doesn't include email support. Like, what the actual hell? I thought part of the exorbitant fees were so I had access to tech support. In the past, they would even log into my community and troubleshoot and apply fixes. Now I as a paying customer can't contact someone for help or submit a ticket anymore?

Anyway....

I visited the Invision forums and did a search for "upgrade failed" and found a ton of posts from others experiencing similar issues. Apparently the problem/bug comes down to having set up a custom admin directory, like so....

• mydomain.com/admin <--- this works and is acceptable
• mydomain.com/SecretAdminDirectory <---is gonna screw you up big time.

The common answer from Invision devs is that manually visiting the upgrade URL is the solution (i.e. /admin/upgrade/ OR /SecretAdminDirectory/upgrade/). Sadly, this did not work. Now my Staff and I are having cardiac arrest at the thought of the community being down for at least the entire night.

The next attempt was to do a manual upgrade. I downloaded the .zip file for 4.7 from the Client Area, unzipped it, and uploaded and overwritten all the files on the server. I also changed my constants.php file to just point to the default admin directory. Once all 7500+ files had uploaded, I pointed my browser once again to the upgrade path, /admin/upgrade/

I was taken to the AdminCP, already logged in, but I was only given an error message that said "Upgrading relies in PHP Sessions, but PHP is not configured properly on your server. You will need to contact your host to fix the issue." So I began the process of submitting a ticket to my host when I decided I would first research what a PHP session is. In brief, it's data stored on the server and not on a local machine like a cookie is. So I figured I need something from the previous URL string when my upgrade had failed, so I when through my browser history until I found the key from my very first upgrade attempt which looked like this... 

• mydomain.com/SecretAdminDirectory/upgrade/?controller=systemcheck&key=Th15Rand0mString0fL3tt3rsAndNumb3rs

And I then manually entered the URL to the upgrade path with that previous key as follows....

• mydomain.com/admin/upgrade/?controller=systemcheck&key=Th15Rand0mString0fL3tt3rsAndNumb3rs

This launched the Upgrader and then all the steps went as they are supposed to, updating tables, themes, etc, and then completing the upgrade and presenting me with the option to go to the AdminCP or the community. 

 

So, to recap, after the internal automatic upgrade failed, I had to take the following steps....

1. Download 4.7 from the Client Area
2. Unzip it on my local drive
3. FTP it to the server, overwriting everything
4. Edit constants.php so that it points to the default /admin/ directory
5. Find the previous PHP session key from my browser history
6. Manually visit the upgrade path with the variable string/session key included
7. Complete the upgrade

Tonight was a nightmare, but I figured out a fix, and I simply wanted to share what I did to get back up and running because it's clear this is happening to others as well.

 

 

 

 

 

[Marc]

Could I ask how you have your admin directory set up? Have you by any chance changed the init.php file to do this? If so, this may well be what is causing your issue. Please could you clarify that first of all? If you have any issues going forward on these, please do let us know before you continue so that we can take a look. 

3 hours ago, Robert Angle said:

So I did what I haven't had to do in years, and logged into the Client Area with the intent to submit a Support Ticket. But lo and behold the Support Ticket system is now non-existent and I am greeted with a message that says my plan doesn't include email support. Like, what the actual hell? I thought part of the exorbitant fees were so I had access to tech support. In the past, they would even log into my community and troubleshoot and apply fixes. Now I as a paying customer can't contact someone for help or submit a ticket anymore?

We have simply moved where we do support. We are still here (Hi! 🙂 ) dont worry. This forum is now fully staffed, and if anything does need to be escalated we can get it to a ticket from here and get it to our devs. We can access your details are normal too. Its simply a change in how we issue support, not a removal of support

[Sonya*]

4 hours ago, Robert Angle said:

I visited the Invision forums and did a search for "upgrade failed" and found a ton of posts from others experiencing similar issues... The common answer from Invision devs is that ....

This is exactly why support is now moved to the forum. 😉 

If the support still would be ticket only, you would not do a quick search for "upgrade failed" but spend your time describing your issue in detail in the ticket. Or you would search but would not find anything usable.

The common answers from devs in the forum are something that helps you instantly without waiting for the common answer in the support ticket first, then saying, no, it does not work for me and then going back and forth with support.

4 hours ago, Robert Angle said:

In the past, they would even log into my community and troubleshoot and apply fixes.

They still do it. Just submit your issue in this forum, be sure that login credentials for your forum in the IPS client area are up to date and they will log in to troubleshoot.

[Robert Angle]

7 hours ago, Marc Stridgen said:

Could I ask how you have your admin directory set up? Have you by any chance changed the init.php file to do this? If so, this may well be what is causing your issue. Please could you clarify that first of all?

I had previously renamed the /admin/ directory to something else and made that notation in the constants.php file. It's been this way for years. 

I don't recall ever changing the init.php file. Since it's in the root directory, it has now been overwritten by me manually FTPing 4.7 to my server, so I don't have the previous init.php file for comparison. But again, I don't recall every messing with this. Besides the constants.php file, I only ever mess with template code from within the AdminCP's Theme Editor. 

I usually update from within the AdminCP also. Unless the internal upgrade mechanism is different from FTPing the whole package (for example, maybe upgrading only imports the actual files that have changed??) I would assume init.php is overwritten with every upgrade.

 

7 hours ago, Marc Stridgen said:

We have simply moved where we do support. We are still here (Hi! 🙂 ) dont worry. This forum is now fully staffed, and if anything does need to be escalated we can get it to a ticket from here and get it to our devs. We can access your details are normal too. Its simply a change in how we issue support, not a removal of support

 

6 hours ago, Sonya* said:

This is exactly why support is now moved to the forum. 😉 

They still do it. Just submit your issue in this forum, be sure that login credentials for your forum in the IPS client area are up to date and they will log in to troubleshoot.

Somehow I missed the memo on this. I managed to fill myself in over at TAZ. I had seen the prices go up a few months back but didn't really care about that. 

I understand this now. And as long as this Help forum is consistently and actively monitored and responses are timely when a crisis like this arises, I'm fine with it. The missing ticket system simply came as a shock while we were already in a state of despair.

[Jim M]

11 minutes ago, Robert Angle said:

I don't recall ever changing the init.php file. Since it's in the root directory, it has now been overwritten by me manually FTPing 4.7 to my server, so I don't have the previous init.php file for comparison. But again, I don't recall every messing with this. Besides the constants.php file, I only ever mess with template code from within the AdminCP's Theme Editor. 

I usually update from within the AdminCP also. Unless the internal upgrade mechanism is different from FTPing the whole package (for example, maybe upgrading only imports the actual files that have changed??) I would assume init.php is overwritten with every upgrade.

Our auto-upgrader in the ACP, does only track what is changed version to version and applies that in the upgrade. However, you would receive an alert to any manually modified files during the upgrade or in the Support tab of the ACP. 

21 minutes ago, Robert Angle said:

Somehow I missed the memo on this. I managed to fill myself in over at TAZ. I had seen the prices go up a few months back but didn't really care about that. 

I understand this now. And as long as this Help forum is consistently and actively monitored and responses are timely when a crisis like this arises, I'm fine with it. The missing ticket system simply came as a shock while we were already in a state of despair.

The notice should have gone out last year. It may be worth double checking the email address on file in the Client Area for your account just to ensure. This way you can get your information "straight from the horses mouth" 🙂 .