Upgrade with Minimal Downtime

1, 2
avatar Ilija Studen Staff Jul 14. 2009. 2:26 am #1
We just published a short article where we explain how we upgrade activeCollab installations without bringing them down for more than a minute or two: Tip: Upgrade with Minimal Downtime

This approach has been used numerous times by our staff when we upgrade other people's setups as part of Professional Installation and Upgrade service. We hope that you'll find it useful :)
Follow @activecollab and activeCollab on Facebook.
avatar veratiago Jul 21. 2009. 9:57 am #2
Hi... does this really works?
I'm gonna try an upgrade, and i want to do right thing... the simplest way :-P
avatar Ilija Studen Staff Jul 21. 2009. 10:13 am #3
Yes, this works - we use it ourselves.
Follow @activecollab and activeCollab on Facebook.
avatar pixelita Pro Jul 29. 2009. 10:29 pm #4
Wow, great tip. You guys are on the ball, as usual. I've been putting off upgrading simply because of the down time and we have several projects and client activity on the site currently. I'm going to do this tonight when I get home from my second job (while everyone else is sleeping!). Thanks, Ilija and team!
Pixelita Designs LLC
http://www.pixelita.com
Joni Mueller (Houston, Texas) and
Ivan Minic (Belgrade, Serbia)
avatar Nirav M. Dev Oct 13. 2009. 8:14 am #5
We have posted a video tutorial about how to upgrade activeCollab to the latest version. It utilizes the minimal downtime method that activeCollab recommends.

Here's the 6 minute video tutorial on upgrading activeCollab.

And yes, this method works! It's by far the most reliable and trouble free method of upgrading activeCollab. We use it to upgrade installations for acGarage customers as well. We have automated almost the entire process and it also takes care of preserving custom modules, themes and supported hacks!

If your server has cPanel or similar web based control panel, you can upload the activeCollab zip file on the server and unzip it there. Then copy over files using web file manager. This cuts down the FTP process - the most boring and error prone step in the whole upgrade process.

Feel free to give your feedback and share it with others.
Discover a new high in team productivity with our Best Selling & Most Loved activeCollab Extensions
avatar chris.wright Pro Feb 11. 2010. 3:35 pm #6
Why don't you guys use a SVN repository in conjunction with an upgrade script (like Wordpress say). Then it's just a case of a svn update, AC can check if its databases need adjusting etc and all customisation is preserved (with any luck). Just a thought..
avatar lucapost Pro Jul 6. 2011. 12:48 pm #7
I just upgraded to 2.3.3 following your instructions; I have a suggestion to improve the document (and avoid a few minutes of panic to users!):

if you have purchased and installed extra modules you should move them manually from the old activecollab/application/modules/ to the corresponding location in _activecollab/application/modules before renaming them and running the upgrade procedure.

I did not do that and I was getting PHP fatal errors because of the missing code for the 'notifications module' !
avatar Ilija Studen Staff Jul 6. 2011. 3:07 pm #8
Hello,

Thanks, we'll see to improve both documentation and the whole upgrade process.
Follow @activecollab and activeCollab on Facebook.
avatar lucapost Pro Jul 7. 2011. 11:38 am #9
All 3rd party modules also require a folder in /public/assets/modules.

Worst part is that many modules also need to modify .tpl and .class.php files in 'system', 'resources' and other random places of the original codebase; hence upgrading activeCollab from your source will brake all such modules (?!)

...the only safe way for an admin is to write down all modifications introduced by the various modules; check each one of these against the new activeCollab files and, re-apply them then try the upgrade and hope nothing was missing !??!
avatar Ilija Studen Staff Jul 7. 2011. 4:21 pm #10
Hello,

It's strongly recommended to avoid add-ons and tweaks that require you to change existing module. activeCollab is not designed to provide upgrade procedure for such add-ons, and that's not something that's going to change.

To have the easiest possible upgrade path, use third party modules that do no require system modules to be tweaked and changed.
Follow @activecollab and activeCollab on Facebook.
or Go To Next Page