aC forum: Upgrade with Minimal Downtime

Post #15 by Oliver Maksimović

Oliver Maksimović — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 07:17:24 CDT

"Disable Modules" sounds okay but, in case that someone may want to do it manually for 3rd-party modules (at least right now with aC 2.x) by uninstalling third-party modules prior to doing an upgrade, don't forget that uninstalling a module can actually lead to losing all data that has been entered using it (depending on developer(s) and what they've put into uninstall method of their module).

Post #14 by Nirav M.

Nirav Mehta — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 05:26:21 CDT

I think "disable modules" must be on aC's list as well, and we hope to see that in aC 3.0.

As for maintenance mode: Yes, I recommend you put aC in maintenance mode every time you do an upgrade. That will stop users from getting in and making changes.

:Nirav

Post #13 by lucapost

lucapost — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 04:58:26 CDT

Thanks Nirav that is definetely the safest way!

I believe a wordPress-like 'disable All' modules before performing updates would be useful to avoid disservices to users in the interval of time between uploading the updated core files and uploading the modules files.

btw is it safe to put the site in maintenance mode while upgrading?!

Post #12 by Nirav M.

Nirav Mehta — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 02:14:13 CDT

I guess another option is to upgrade activeCollab only after the modules you are using are made compatible with the latest release. ;-)

In our case, we do have modules that modify core files. We consciously avoid doing this, but where we think it will be best for performance and feature implementation, we do modify core files.

And frankly, a new activeCollab release may require updating a third party module, even if it does not modify core files. Some internal code in activeCollab may change and that may require updating a module.

We update our modules every time there is a new version of activeCollab. And that too as quickly as we can. I am not aware of release cycles of other developers, but I am sure they work hard on making their modules compatible with newer releases as well.

Customers purchase third party modules because they add value to their activeCollab experience. I think it would be ok to wait for a reasonable time so that third party developers update their modules for latest version compatibility.

Again, with the introduction of activeCollab developer program, this wait time may reduce even further since developers will get early access to new activeCollab versions.

HTH.

:Nirav

Post #11 by lucapost

lucapost — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 05:35:56 CDT

I understand such things are outside the control of the activeCollab team; but given such modules are listed on the official site they get purchased... that's when one realizes that they spread modifications all around the core directories!

Aside from these worries about managing updates, my activeCollab installation is still running very stable 'despite' 6 3rd-party extra modules installed (ShadowViewer, Tabsorter, Tabinator, Confidential, Reports, BruteForceLoginManager) !

ciao

Post #10 by Ilija Studen

Ilija Studen — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 16:21:59 CDT

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.

Post #9 by lucapost

lucapost — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 11:38:03 CDT

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 !??!

Post #8 by Ilija Studen

Ilija Studen — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 15:07:35 CDT

Hello,

Thanks, we'll see to improve both documentation and the whole upgrade process.

Post #7 by lucapost

lucapost — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 12:48:32 CDT

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' !

Post #6 by chris.wright

chris.wright — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:35:51 CST

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..