CMS Made Simple Forums

I am currently running 1.9.4

I am planning a redesign and upgrade which I am doing on a development copy of my site.

I initially upgrade the development site to the latest version and it crashed - the upgrade froze half way through and broke the install.

So anyway, I have had this site running cmsms for about 5 years, so I thought it would be nice to make a fresh install - the site has been hacked a few times over the years and bits added and removed etc.

Anyway, I have now installed from scratch the latest version on my development site - I have used same table prefix, same admin DIR etc. I have also installed all of the same plugins that I am running on my live site.

Then I made a backup of the development site, afterward I restored a copy of my current live Database into the development site --then I realised it wont work because the development site is running a newer version of CMSMS.

SO, after all that, my question is: Can I upgrade that database to make it work on the current version?

After updating the database with the older version, run yoursite.com/install

^^ I don't have install directory - I have already installed and configured the new site - including deleting the install directory.

Then I drop database and restore SQL file from working site - this the database is coming from the older version and being put into the newer version.

Download a new install on the side, and copy the install folder over.

I usually just lock out the install folder instead of removing it, so I can get it back if needed

Set up the existing/older site in a subfolder...

Copy folders/files into a subfolder in root of site, mysite.com/subfolder/...
Export older DB...
Make new DB, w/o tables etc....
Import old DB into new DB...
In /subfolder change paths in config.php to point to new DB and add /subfolder to the paths...

Upgrade /subfolder site, add new modules etc. whatever you need to do, once it runs and looks as you want...

Reverse what you did the first time...

Copy folders/files from /subfolder into root of site...
Export new DB...
Import new DB into old DB...
In root change paths in config.php to point to new/imported DB and remove /subfolder from the paths...

Now you will have 2 installs, one production for visitors to see and one development to make any major changes to such as adding new modules or doing CMSMS upgrade to for testing if it works etc...

Thanks Dr. CSS. Great post. Nice and clear.

OK thanks alot guys, Im getting somewhere now - I have the dev site up and running with the latest install AND a copy of my live DB.

--DrCSS - Im running the dev site on a subdomain - I usually keep it matching the live site so I can test new designs out etc.

Have more trouble now though - seems like some of the modules arent working - notably Questions module and also MenuManager as there is no navigation displaying.

Thats probably for another section here though, so I will close this thread now.

Thanks alot!