Hari's Corner

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phpBB upgrade tips

Filed under: Software and Technology by Hari
Posted on Fri, Nov 11, 2005 at 20:33 IST (last updated: Fri, May 8, 2009 @ 17:36 IST)

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I had mentioned in this article that the latest update to phpBB was a whopper, especially to those who had heavily modified boards. Well, earlier this week, I managed to successfully apply the upgrade to 2.0.18 and though there was a little niggle with the Last Visit Mod, it wasn't anything serious and there was a patch to fix it as well.

To those who are deferring their upgrades from 2.0.17, I must say that this update wasn't as bad as it looks. Certainly the sheer number of files to edit makes this a lot more tedious than previous upgrades, but in reality, I found that a lot of those files had just one or two lines of changes to the code. I'll share a few general tips on how to make the code changes manually.

First of all, phpBB has released a very good guide in HTML describing the code changes. I suggest you download it first and go through the changes carefully before you start modifying the forum. It is important that you first upload the install/update_to_latest.php file and run it on your forum before you apply the upgrade.

Now on how to start. Firstly I would recommend creating a test forum offline. If you have a local web server running, it's ideal. You can download your forum and actually replicate it offline. This requires a bit of tweaking with your configuration files, but it's not a big deal. I did it on my Debian server. It's quite easy if you know the stuff. On the other hand, if you cannot have a test server, it's fine. Just go ahead and make the changes, but be sure to keep a back up of all the changed files in a separate folder offline. In any case, take a full forum backup and a database backup for double safety. I cannot stress the importance of this vital step enough.

The actual code changes can be quite tedious and in some places a little tricky. It's a chore. Take plenty of time over it. You can even do it over a couple of days if you wish. I made a mistakes in the first attempt - a small typo. Never apply your changes live before cross-checking first. It might take a little bit of extra effort, but it should save you a lot of work later if something goes wrong. If you have the luxury of testing it on a test forum like me, do it. It's a great way to make sure that nothing is obviously wrong and you've not made any typos. Finally upload your changed files, take a coffee break and hope for the best! It should work fine if you had done all the changes correctly.

If you have a very heavily modded board, the hardest part would be to find out whether any of them have been broken by the upgrade. In some cases, it might not even be obvious that there's something wrong. Through phpBBHacks I found out that a few mods are known to be broken with this update. Luckily most of them can be fixed quite easily. I suggest that if you have any problems with the upgrade, you ask at the very helpful community there. Help will certainly be forthcoming. Happy upgrading!

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4 comment(s)

  1. I am very scared of this mod. Last time I did a mod of this magnitude I had a complete site meltdown!

    Comment by Brad (visitor) on Fri, Nov 11, 2005 @ 21:20 IST #
  2. Brad, yes. It is a whopper. But actually if you don't have too many mods installed, you could even try using EasyMOD to do the update. Just make sure you take a full forum backup and a database backup before you proceed ;)

    Comment by hari (blog owner) on Fri, Nov 11, 2005 @ 21:32 IST #
  3. Glad that we were able to be of some assistance. Thanks for the kind words.Yeah, this one was a beast. I had 9 phpBBs to upgrade. I got it done over a couple of days. Fun! :)

    Comment by Patrick (visitor) on Thu, Nov 17, 2005 @ 20:48 IST #
  4. Just giving credit where it's due, Patrick! :) Yes, although the upgrade was tedious, it isn't anything to fear because even with a heavily modded forum like mine, I had no problems upgrading.

    Comment by hari (blog owner) on Thu, Nov 17, 2005 @ 21:50 IST #

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