[solved]Error in install documentation can lead to site destruction !

[PatDeLux]

The documentation describing the Shell installation gives a syntax sample

tar -zxf cmsmadesimple-1.2.3.tar.gz

to uncompress your archive, and states that after issuing the command,

Now you have new directory named something like cmsmadesimple-1.2.3

.
This used to be true, but now, the structure of the archive has changed and it extracts IN THE CURRENT FOLDER.
I followed the instructions in the root of my site, believing it would create a test version with release 1.4.1 in a sub folder, instead I got my old version 1.2.x overwritten and my  site down.

I should have followed the old advice: Don't fix what's not broken.

[Dr.CSS]

So did you run install/upgrade.php ? or get it fixed some how?...

[PatDeLux]

Thanks Mark.
No, it's not all solved, I put a static html page at the moment.
I messed everything up, because I tried to run the new install on the old db and got server errors.
Then I reinstalled letting it delete and recreate the tables. Problems again.
Then cleaned up my .htaccess file, leaving only the option to activate PHP5, and it installed and I could see the admin page.
I am rebuilding everything "by hand" now, but the TinyMCE seems absent and the Image Manager gives me an Internal Server error.
These are not too annoying for myself but impossible for client install.
And frankly...I am now evaluating SilverStripe, because I think a product like this should not have more than 2 updates a year (and surely not 7 releases in 8 month), specially when most upgrades have given me lot of trouble.

I'll give your idea a try: restore the old db, make a fresh instal again and run the update script.

[alby]

I'll give your idea a try: restore the old db, make a fresh instal again and run the update script.

Sorry for the problem occurred.
Probably, your trouble, are permission (file/folder) problem

I changed shell-install wiki with this note.

Alby

[Dr.CSS]

If it wrote over the old files when you did this nothing but an upgrade would have happened if you ran /install/upgrade.php...

If you run /install it will ask for all your information again, and one thing you can do is tell it NOT to write tables to the DB and it will retain all of your current content, stylesheets, templates, news articles, etc. and just upgrade the site, I've used this scenario to get sites I've moved to servers to work correctly when the DB and folders/files weren't cooperating and had the exact site I started with on my test server...

When this happened you could have gotten all the folders/files from the ver. of CMSMS that was on the server from your original install unpacked folder on your comp. or from the DL site and written over the new ones and nothing would have been harmed, the reason you got the site down message was because it was waiting for you to upgrade and that file is in the tmp/templates_c folder which you can FTP to the site and remove but when you logged in to the backend you would have gotten a "site needs upgrading" message and a link to click which would have run the upgrade procedure and you would have retained all of your previous info and had a newer ver. of CMSMS running your site...

Most of the updates are for reasons of security or new features requested by the community or the developers trying to extend the ability of the program or make it work faster and cleaner with less queries...

What program/software you use of course is up to you but I would encourage you to give CMS Made Simple another chance...

Personally I never use Shell Install I just use FTP so I wouldn't know how or what has been changed to make this happen but I will make the Developers aware of the situation you have encountered...

[PatDeLux]

Alby & Mark,

Many thanks for your replies.
Apart of the nice concept, this community is what makes CMSMS a pleasure.

Mark: I have enjoyed working with CMSMS and I will give it more chances.

However I would NOT recommend to systematically update one's CMSMS because my own upgrade experiences resulted in a 50% failure rate, where I had to rebuild my site. And I am really not ready to take that risk 10 times a year. I will try to find my own way, something like :

• -backup the db and restore it to a new one
• -then install the new version to a subfolder (that's what i tried last night :/  )
• -then if it works, move the new version to the root.

May I also suggest that an expert updates the doc with a few do's and don't concerning what options CMSMS will be able to cope with ? I mean those thinks you modify through .htaccess on shared hostings, like Zend optimizer, PHP4 or 5, register_globals (I have no idea what that one is) and so on.

[PatDeLux]

THANK YOU !   :)

I managed to restore last week's database (thanks to my host who makes that automatically), then I followed the instructions Mark provided (..../install/upgrade.php)...and it worked like a charm.
Many thanks for your help guys.

Patrick

ps: I noticed that the documentation was updated thanks to Alby.

[faglork]

However I would NOT recommend to systematically update one's CMSMS because my own upgrade experiences resulted in a 50% failure rate, where I had to rebuild my site. And I am really not ready to take that risk 10 times a year.

You might want to look into this. I run about 30 cmsms sites, and I rarely have problems with the upgrades (knock on wood!).
What is your main problem when upgrading?

I will try to find my own way, something like :

• -backup the db and restore it to a new one
• -then install the new version to a subfolder (that's what i tried last night :/  )
• -then if it works, move the new version to the root.

This is not "your own way", but the very procedure which is highly recommended by the cmsms team:
http://wiki.cmsmadesimple.org/index.php ... /Upgrading

All in all: you have to have a working backup before doing any upgrades. You never can be 100% sure that a file gets transmitted undamaged. Or the server/network times out. Or ... whatever.

Cheers,
Alex