Hi everyone,

I’m preparing to update my Invision Community forum, which has over a million posts, and I’d love to hear your tips and best practices to ensure a smooth process. My license is up to date, and I’m planning to update from IPS 4.7.21 to IPS 5. Here are my main questions and concerns:

• CLI Support : As far as I know, IPS doesn’t support CLI-based updates. Is this still the case? Are there any workarounds for managing large-scale updates more efficiently?
  

• Automatic Updates : I can download IPS 5 from my client area, but I don’t see an option for automatic updates in my admin panel. Is this expected, or could something be misconfigured?
  

• Maintenance Mode and Modules : I plan to enable maintenance mode and disable all unofficial modules/plugins before starting. Is this the recommended approach? Are there risks to leaving unofficial modules enabled during the update?
  

• Fresh Install Process : I’d prefer to do a “fresh install” for this major version update. The only method I see is downloading the IPS 5 archive and overwriting existing files. Is this the best way, or is there a cleaner approach to ensure a stable setup?

Additional Tips: Are there any other precautions or steps I should take for a forum of this size?

I plan to back up my database and files before starting, but I’m open to any additional advice or pitfalls to avoid. Thanks for your help, and have a great day!

Paul.

Edited June 20Jun 20 by NightAngel

13 minutes ago, NightAngel said:

CLI Support : As far as I know, IPS doesn’t support CLI-based updates. Is this still the case? Are there any workarounds for managing large-scale updates more efficiently?

This is still the case. Only a web updater.

13 minutes ago, NightAngel said:

Automatic Updates : I can download IPS 5 from my client area, but I don’t see an option for automatic updates in my admin panel. Is this expected, or could something be misconfigured?

Version 5 requires a manual update for self-hosted customers.

13 minutes ago, NightAngel said:

Maintenance Mode and Modules : I plan to enable maintenance mode and disable all unofficial modules/plugins before starting. Is this the recommended approach? Are there risks to leaving unofficial modules enabled during the update?

The upgrade will disable them if you do not but I always recommend disabling it in case.

14 minutes ago, NightAngel said:

Fresh Install Process : I’d prefer to do a “fresh install” for this major version update. The only method I see is downloading the IPS 5 archive and overwriting existing files. Is this the best way, or is there a cleaner approach to ensure a stable setup?

As you have an existing community, you will want to do an upgrade. A fresh install is only if you're starting the community brand new, without any data.

15 minutes ago, NightAngel said:

Additional Tips: Are there any other precautions or steps I should take for a forum of this size?

I always recommend doing a test upgrade if you have a large forum to understand how it reacts.

Be sure you have a tested and true backup/restore procedure in place for database and file system.

Thanks for all the answers @Jim M !

Should I upgrade Elasticsearch to version 8.17.7 (in accordance with this release note), 8.18.2 or 9.0.2 ?

I'm currently using Redis 7.2.1, which I'm going to upgrade to 7.4.4 or even 8.0.2, if supported by IPS5.

I'm going to try PHP 8.4.8 and MySQL 8.4.5... we'll see 🤞🏻

I typically wouldn't recommend changing too much in regards to ElasticSearch and Redis. So long as they are compatible, you can come back later and upgrade them. That will allow less changing in the moment with the upgrade so you can address issues that come up more easily.

14 minutes ago, NightAngel said:

PHP 8.4.8

PHP 8.3 is the highest which we support.

48 minutes ago, NightAngel said:

Fresh Install Process : I’d prefer to do a “fresh install” for this major version update. The only method I see is downloading the IPS 5 archive and overwriting existing files. Is this the best way, or is there a cleaner approach to ensure a stable setup?

What do you mean by fresh install? I am asking because that indicates a restart from scrach, which I doubt that that is what you want to do. Anyways, overwritting your current forum files with those from the latest IC 5 package is the best way imo to perform such an upgrade. Make sure to select the overwrite option though at your Ftp Program when uploading the files.

9 minutes ago, Miss_B said:

What do you mean by fresh install? I am asking because that indicates a restart from scrach, which I doubt that that is what you want to do. Anyways, overwritting your current forum files with those from the latest IC 5 package is the best way imo to perform such an upgrade. Make sure to select the overwrite option though at your Ftp Program when uploading the files.

I wanted to talk more about “clean install”. Really by using a new directory containing only IPS5 files... so as not to keep anything old, or even very old.

I have nothing against reintroducing certain files or folders from the old installation, it's just a philosophically different approach.

With the “file replacement” method, you almost systematically miss out on things, obsolete (sometimes hidden) files, reuse an old configuration file, perhaps missing out on new variables that you would have discovered when rewriting it, etc.

Anyway, whatever, I understand myself, that's something 🤪

Thanks again for your answers !

15 hours ago, NightAngel said:

With the “file replacement” method, you almost systematically miss out on things, obsolete (sometimes hidden) files, reuse an old configuration file, perhaps missing out on new variables that you would have discovered when rewriting it, etc.

As @teraßyte says in this topic, I deleted the entire /applications/core/sources/Statuses/ old directory myself.

For your information, everything works perfectly with Redis 8.0.2 and Elasticsearch 8.18.2.

In the previous major version, I determined that a minimum number of messages had to be posted by a user before he could post in a specific forum. Has this now disappeared?

Should members who have posted a certain amount of content now be promoted to a new group? A new group with specific permissions?

Thank you and have a nice day.

9 minutes ago, NightAngel said:

In the previous major version, I determined that a minimum number of messages had to be posted by a user before he could post in a specific forum. Has this now disappeared?

Should members who have posted a certain amount of content now be promoted to a new group? A new group with specific permissions?

Thank you and have a nice day.

Yes, this is something you should use the group permission system for