Topic: Upgrading From Old to New Versions

Upgrading From Old to New Versions

kkradel
Participant

@kkradel

11 years, 3 months ago

I am using WordPress 3.2.1 multi site
I am using BuddyPress 1.5 with custom edits
Current Theme is Futurosity by Upstart Blogger
Site is artist-at-large.com

I am thinking of finally getting a BuddyPress friendly theme (currently looking at Salutation) and upgrading the entire site to the latest versions of everything.

It’s a little daunting to think of doing this and wondering what the best and easiest way might be – because I think there are major changes to the BuddyPress code between 1.5 and 1.7? I don’t want to lose any past activity, but I also want to go to a more standard, less customized version of BuddyPress.

Can this happen without blowing my current BuddyPress install away?

I also have subdomain blogs that I created myself, not through BuddyPress.

Or do I have to blow everything away and start from scratch …?

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

Tammie Lister
Moderator

@karmatosed

11 years, 3 months ago

Upgrading is not something to be fearful about if you do it methodically. First up, 1.7 hasn’t been released yet so if you’re going to upgrade my suggestion would be to go to 1.6.x (whatever the latest is when you do it). That way you can ensure you’re also ready for when 1.7 comes out. You can of course run ‘bleeding edge’ or the latest 1.7 but if you’re upgrading and it’s a live community you may not want to do that.

Next, my advice is make a list of all the plugins and check each to see if they are updated. If they aren’t note it and when you reactivate all plugins do those one by one to see if they work or break your site. You may even want to do that testing on a test site.

Before you do anything you need to back up – this is your safety net. Remove all plugins, make sure you have the latest theme and use the default one first then load the default BuddyPress theme first. Doing in stages means you can check as you do each one and know what is responsible for the issue if you do find any.

kkradel
Participant

@kkradel

11 years, 3 months ago

Yes, thank you.

My main question is that I think the BP filenames changed after 1.5 and I highly edited my current files to work with my current theme. I am not using a standard BP install. I rewrote quite a bit. So I’m wondering if just updating the plugin is going to royally screw my current setup/filenames – I really don’t want to have the files and the database disagree because I want to make sure that all of the site activity is still available – am I going to have to majorly edit the database as well? Does that make sense?

I’m trying to decide if I have to blow everything (backing up databases for sure) completely away and do a fresh install.

@mercime
Keymaster

@mercime

11 years, 3 months ago

@kkradel if you changed anything in BP core files, then it would be a challenging upgrade. I would set up a test server and check out BP trunk with import of your current site’s DB to figure out what to do when you upgrade. Check out WP codex re moving to new site for how to change DB info before importing to test server.

kkradel
Participant

@kkradel

11 years, 3 months ago

Thank you @mercime !

dgteam
Participant

@dgteam

11 years, 3 months ago

Im not a huge fan of the latest version 1.6.X …been having a ton of issues since the update. Looking forward to 1.7 getting these issues fixed

kkradel
Participant

@kkradel

11 years, 3 months ago

Good to know, @dgteam … My configuration works fine, and it took a long time to get it configured, but I would love an updated look and feel, mostly to attract subscribers.

So while it is something I want to do, I am conflicted about updating.