By Cath on

I very new at this...I inherit a site that hasn't be maintained for 1yr. 6mo. I want to upgrade from 6.1 - 6.19. I backed up the site and now started to prepare for the upgrade. I can't tell what are the non-core modules. Can't disable the cck- content. Sorry,for the ignorance. Can someone give some advice before I blow up the server!

⋅ Categories: Drupal 6.x

Comments

vm’s picture

vm commented

minor upgrades don't require disabling of modules.

core =
core and core optional in adminsiter -> modules

Cath’s picture

Cath commented

Thanks. So, I should just delete all the files on the sever and then replace the sites folder once uploaded?

vm’s picture

vm commented

I don't remove the sites folder at all. but you can if you want.

Also of note, you should do a compare of .htaccess / robots.txt and default.settings.php to see if there have been any changes at all between 6.1 and 6.19

if there were changes in these files they need to be moved over to their new respective files.

Cath’s picture

Cath commented

You mentioned to compare .htaccess/robots.txt & default.settings.php files

I trying to grasp this..sorry, please answer my following questions:

1) the .htaccess (dated 2/2/10) files for 6.19 upgrade is housed within the top level directory...my files, actually there are 2 files: 1) dated 3/16/09 live in the sites/all/modules/fckeditor/editor/filemanager/connector 2) dated 3/5/09 live in the same directory

What should be replace, if any and where should it live (I'm assuming within the sites file as is and not to change/move 6.19 .htaccess over?)

2)My robots.txt is dated 6/8/09 - 6.19 is 12/10/08 (I'm assuming my file is most current and leave unchanged?)

3) 6.19 default.settings.php lives in sites/default directory, dated 9/14/09 is newer than mine dated 3/5/09. However, my is renamed to settings.php does that make a difference and should I replace with the newer file?

Modules that are within the sites directory should remain the as is? Just need to update the modules directory at the root?

vm’s picture

vm commented

compare means open them and ensure they are the same or use a tool like winmerge on windows to have software compare the files

.htaccess lives in a few places in your install but the only one to be concerned about is the one in your drupal root.

Cath’s picture

Cath commented

There is not a .htaccess in the drupal Root? Is this why I'm having problems?

Cath’s picture

Cath commented

There are differences between my settings.php and 6.19 default.settings.php

no difference between robot.txt

can't compare (root) .htaccess because

What should I do to the files that are difference?

vm’s picture

vm commented

.htaccess should be in the root same as it's downloaded from the core distro here on drupal.org

backup the old settings.php
delete the old settings.php
open the old settings.php
find $db_url

copy the new default.settings.php to settings.php

open the new settings.php
add the old $db_url string (to connect to the database)

Cath’s picture

Cath commented

When I was trying to upload the default.settings.php file it failed. Would this be a server restriction thing?

I ran the update.php and was able to view the status report...it did update to 6.19. However, when I tried to return to the admin/themes, I selected the wanted theme, when save config. I received an error of:

Fatal error: Only variables can be passed by reference in .../sites/all/modules/admin_menu/admin_menu.inc on line 521

Now I can't even view the Status Reports without view this error. I'm assuming this error occurred because the default.settings.php didn't update. I even tried to rename to settings.php.

What am I doing wrong?

vm’s picture

vm commented

permmissions on the site/default folder and on the old settings.php need to be set in such a way that you can make the changes needed.

errors from modules should be ignored until such time as you update the modules in the install.

Cath’s picture

Cath commented

Thanks again for your help. I re-uploaded the settings.php file, now it the site & admin is working. However there are still a lot other updates that are required for the modules... the upgrade 6.19, don't that automatically makes the necessary updates or do they still have to be done separate (well obviously, but does that mean I did something wrong)?

alfthecat’s picture

alfthecat commented

Hi Cath,

Maybe the following info will be useful, even though you probably covered lots of it already.

1 - Drupal Core is separated from any contributed modules. So modules in Drupal core are situated in your /modules folder

2 - Contributed modules are most likely situated (this is best practice) in sites/all/modules

So updating Drupal Core does not touch you contributed modules. Basically, to update drupal core, you upload the new version of Drupal and run update.php (yoursite.com/update.php). If you don't update your database through update.php, you may get errors. The changes in code sometimes require changes to your database as well. Running the database update will do that for you.

Updating contributed modules follows the same route. Upload the new code into your sites/all/modules (overwriting the old code) and run update.php.

Best practice is always to make backups before you update. Check out the backup & migrate and the backup & migrate files modules. The first allows you to simply backup and restore your database. The B&M files module does the same for your code.

There is also an advice on uploading updated code. Windows has a bug in it that may cause tar.gz files to not properly extract. So if you practice is to download code from drupal.org, extract the files and then use an FTP client for uploading, you may want to double check if the extraction has been done correctly. There is also a module that will help you apply updates for contributed modules more easily, without having to download each of them one by one. Check out the plugin manager module for that. You just install the module, enable it in admin/build/modules and you can then have it check for updates, retrieve and apply them. All you need to do is make sure you have backups in place and run update.php when it's done.

Hope this helps!

----
"People make mistakes. To really mess something up you need a computer."

Cath’s picture

Cath commented

Thanks I'll try that.