Invision Community 4: SEO, prepare for v5 and dormant account notifications By Matt Monday at 02:04 PM
olyclimber Posted November 18, 2022 Posted November 18, 2022 Hi there, I'm working on a long neglected community forum setup and I have some questions. I'm getting up to speed on a few thing, though I have done a lot of configuration of our install, our other guy (who is out of pocket at the moment) did a lot of this work. Here are my questions: 1. Does our license include the ability to set up a test instance of our forum software so I can test an upgrade? Is there anything I need to do or configure to make that work? So basically (at least for a short while, but preferably ongoing, have a dev and a prod forum to test changes. 2. Our board is still on 4.2.9 (like I said, neglected). I already had the custom app we use updated so it will support 4.7. But my question is this: are there significant changes or road bumps you guys are aware of for making such a big immediate jump in versions? I'm also considering just backing up the whole thing and running the upgrade and restoring from backup if I run into issues, but obviously having a long term dev environment would be preferred. 3. i'm forgetting my third question! lol. So I have more questions, but the above is a good start.
Adriano Faria Posted November 18, 2022 Posted November 18, 2022 4 minutes ago, olyclimber said: Does our license include the ability to set up a test instance of our forum software so I can test an upgrade? See test install here: olyclimber 1
Randy Calvert Posted November 18, 2022 Posted November 18, 2022 4 minutes ago, olyclimber said: 1. Does our license include the ability to set up a test instance of our forum software so I can test an upgrade? Is there anything I need to do or configure to make that work? So basically (at least for a short while, but preferably ongoing, have a dev and a prod forum to test changes. Yes. See: 5 minutes ago, olyclimber said: 2. Our board is still on 4.2.9 (like I said, neglected). I already had the custom app we use updated so it will support 4.7. But my question is this: are there significant changes or road bumps you guys are aware of for making such a big immediate jump in versions? I'm also considering just backing up the whole thing and running the upgrade and restoring from backup if I run into issues, but obviously having a long term dev environment would be preferred. In order to run the latest version of IPB, you need to be on either PHP 8.0 or 8.1. 4.2.x only supported 7.x. So you'll need to make sure to have your PHP updated and that you have all of the dependencies installed. Use that script while running PHP8 to make sure you're not missing any modules, etc. Once done... make sure all of your resources are updated for 4.7 (or disable them). Download the IPB files from the client area and upload them to your site. Then run domain.com/admin/upgrade. Don't try to use the automatic updater as you will have problems because 4.2 won't run on PHP8 and 4.7 won't run on PHP7. So just upload all of the 4.7 files once you're site is on PHP8 and do the manual upgrade process. olyclimber and Jim M 2
Gary Posted November 19, 2022 Posted November 19, 2022 I still have a neglected community on 4.6.12.1, so don't feel like you're the only one. 😅 Let us know if you encounter any issues during the upgrade process. Hope it all runs smoothly for you. olyclimber 1
Jim M Posted November 20, 2022 Posted November 20, 2022 14 hours ago, Gary said: I still have a neglected community on 4.6.12.1, so don't feel like you're the only one. 😅 Let us know if you encounter any issues during the upgrade process. Hope it all runs smoothly for you. but seriously, as Gary mentioned, we're here to help 🙂 . olyclimber, Randy Calvert, Vfrloos and 1 other 1 2 1
olyclimber Posted November 21, 2022 Author Posted November 21, 2022 Thank you all! Hope to work on this tomorrow. Need to spend a little time RTFMing.
Marc Posted November 22, 2022 Posted November 22, 2022 Good luck with the upgrades, and make sure you do full backups before you begin 🙂 olyclimber 1
olyclimber Posted November 22, 2022 Author Posted November 22, 2022 We are doing a full backup of our server and have multiple copies of that. Do you guys do a "IPB install only backup"? What are you using for that?
Jim M Posted November 22, 2022 Posted November 22, 2022 1 minute ago, olyclimber said: We are doing a full backup of our server and have multiple copies of that. Do you guys do a "IPB install only backup"? What are you using for that? You would want to talk with your hosting provider/server administrator what the best option for you would be. They would be able to provide any suggestions that would leave you in the best footing. Also, if you have many sites on the server, they would be able to tell you how to backup/restore each one separately (if available).
olyclimber Posted November 22, 2022 Author Posted November 22, 2022 OK...no we've got that covered pretty well. Just the one site on that server. I was just wondering if there was another just IPB specific utility!
Jim M Posted November 22, 2022 Posted November 22, 2022 2 minutes ago, olyclimber said: OK...no we've got that covered pretty well. Just the one site on that server. I was just wondering if there was another just IPB specific utility! No, we do not. Many, many, many moons ago I think we had a feature that did this but it's one of those things where it really is a waste of our time where we could be improving the software in other areas because your server does it already and much more efficiently.
olyclimber Posted November 22, 2022 Author Posted November 22, 2022 Questions: For determining if they will cause a problem with upgrading I'm checking in 3 places: 1. Applications 2. Community Enhancements 3. Plugins I have questions in bold below. The really important one for our forum is Advance Tags and Prefixes. For applications, Adriano has already updated our core app. I have one other, this one: Am I out of luck with this plugin since it has not been updated for 4.7? We use it extensively on our site. For Community Enhancements, we are just using GEOIP and SPAM Defense, and then third party the Google Maps enhancement. Is there a way to tell version info on these, or do I need to worry about them for the upgrade? For the Plugins We are using this one: and this one: The former only says support for 4.4, the latter does support 4.7. Am I out of luck on the one that only supports 4.4? thank you!!!
Adriano Faria Posted November 22, 2022 Posted November 22, 2022 1 minute ago, olyclimber said: Questions: For determining if they will cause a problem with upgrading I'm checking in 3 places: and this one: This is 4.7 compatible and it's running right now on my IPS 4.7.4 with PHP 8.0.25: https://www.sosinvision.com.br/ olyclimber 1
olyclimber Posted November 22, 2022 Author Posted November 22, 2022 Yep @Adriano Faria out of the stuff we have installed i think that might be the only one that is 4.7 compatible...and we don't have a lot installed. We really use the heck of the advanced tags and prefixes...if we are dead with that one, I'm not sure what to do yet.....
Adriano Faria Posted November 22, 2022 Posted November 22, 2022 (edited) 10 minutes ago, olyclimber said: We really use the heck of the advanced tags and prefixes...if we are dead with that one, I'm not sure what to do yet..... I have this converted to IPS 4.7. Drop a message. EDIT: Thought I had it. Will have to search for it. Edited November 22, 2022 by Adriano Faria
olyclimber Posted November 22, 2022 Author Posted November 22, 2022 6 minutes ago, Adriano Faria said: I have this converted to IPS 4.7. Drop a message. messaged.
Jim M Posted November 22, 2022 Posted November 22, 2022 24 minutes ago, olyclimber said: Am I out of luck with this plugin since it has not been updated for 4.7? We use it extensively on our site. If it is not compatible with PHP 8, it will break, unfortunately. The short answer is yes. The risk of running third party plugins on your community, unfortunately. 25 minutes ago, olyclimber said: For Community Enhancements, we are just using GEOIP and SPAM Defense, and then third party the Google Maps enhancement. These are all ours or programmed by us so will be fine. olyclimber 1
olyclimber Posted November 22, 2022 Author Posted November 22, 2022 Worse case I can apparently convert to Radical Tags I guess. Was 4.4 or 4.5 the last on PHP 7.x?
Jim M Posted November 22, 2022 Posted November 22, 2022 1 minute ago, olyclimber said: Was 4.4 or 4.5 the last on PHP 7.x? 4.7.3 is compatible with PHP 7.4. PHP 7 just went out of support from PHP this month. Invision Community 4.7.4 is the first full release which forces PHP 8. Why there have been a lot in motion from us to alert customers 🙂 . olyclimber 1
teraßyte Posted November 23, 2022 Posted November 23, 2022 (edited) 6 hours ago, olyclimber said: Worse case I can apparently convert to Radical Tags I guess. Yeah, a few sites I know that were using that application all converted to using Radical Tags instead. As for Minimized Quote, it's now a built-in feature since version 4.5 so you can just uninstall the plugin. Edited November 23, 2022 by teraßyte Martin A. and olyclimber 2
olyclimber Posted November 23, 2022 Author Posted November 23, 2022 We are on PHP 7.1. Can we: 1. upgrade that to PHP 7.4 2. Upgrade from IPB 4.2.x to IPB 4.7.3 3. Upgrade from PHP 7.3 to PHP 8 4. Then upgrade to IPB 4.7.4 Is this a viable upgrade path? Could we even just use the automatic updater this way? Or is there no way to specify upgrading specific versions using the auto-updater?
teraßyte Posted November 23, 2022 Posted November 23, 2022 Just now, olyclimber said: We are on PHP 7.1. Can we: 1. upgrade that to PHP 7.4 2. Upgrade from IPB 4.2.x to IPB 4.7.3 3. Upgrade from PHP 7.3 to PHP 8 4. Then upgrade to IPB 4.7.4 Is this a viable upgrade path? Could we even just use the automatic updater this way? Or is there no way to specify upgrading specific versions using the auto-updater? You can do this by uploading the 4.7.3 files manually (as long as you downloaded them before 4.7.4 became available). The auto-upgrade in ACP always uses the latest version available so it would upgrade straight to 4.7.4 right now (soon to be 4.7.5).
Marc Posted November 23, 2022 Posted November 23, 2022 It would be worth asking why you want to do it this way? If you are doing the manual upgrade path as you have to do anyway, it would make more sense simply to switch to PHP 8, manually upload files, and upgrade straight to the latest release
olyclimber Posted November 23, 2022 Author Posted November 23, 2022 8 hours ago, Marc Stridgen said: It would be worth asking why you want to do it this way? If you are doing the manual upgrade path as you have to do anyway, it would make more sense simply to switch to PHP 8, manually upload files, and upgrade straight to the latest release Just trying to think through all the paths. But yeah, simplest is usually the best!
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