XF 1.2 Upgrade Risk and Concern?

[denzil]

I have to admit, it's been a while since our forum has been upgraded. However, I'm generally used to habit of testing things locally before deploying them to production... it's just best practice. Of course, I'm curious how safe it is to just follow the upgrade procedure outlined in the XF manual.

How safe is it really to just upgrade like that without any catastrophic problems? I'm not extremely familiar with the codebase but I know enough that I brought it up on my own just by following the installation directions.

Would appreciate anyone's experience with upgrading XF, positive and negative. Thanks in advance!

P.S. Looking to upgrade from 1.2.0 to 1.4.4.

 

[Paul B]

You should upgrade on a test installation first.
Also, 1.2 to 1.3 is a fairly decent upgrade so there are some specific points to note.

Here are some resources which may be of use.

https://xenforo.com/community/resources/how-to-duplicate-a-live-site-to-use-as-a-test-site.2792/

https://xenforo.com/community/resources/how-to-upgrade-to-xenforo-1-3.2810/

 

[denzil]

Alright, thanks for confirming that. Do you feel this is necessary for minor releases as well or just major ones?

 

[Paul B]

Personally I always upgrade on my local test install first, but it's probably not necessary for third point releases, unless you have third party styles and add-ons, in which case you should check first as they may require updating.

 

[denzil]

Yeah, personally I'd like to get into that habit too but I just don't have things (hardware/software/files) set up for it yet where I can just run it like a well oiled machine. If you don't mind me asking, what's your typical release cycle? Do you dupe the live site, upgrade, and then if it breaks, just dupe the live site again locally? Also, as far as running it locally, are their idiosyncrasies with it? I have to be frank, I haven't really touched the backend lately (as you can tell by my lack of upgrades).

 

[Paul B]

I always have an up to date version of my live site locally installed.

I upgrade locally, check if anything needs resolving - outdated templates, phrases, add-ons, etc.

Once everything is resolved and I have my upgrade plan, I upgrade my live site.

Running locally is simple: https://xenforo.com/community/resources/how-to-install-xenforo-locally-to-your-pc-using-xampp.355/

 

[denzil]

Cool, I'll check those resources out, have at it, then report back if I have issues (hope not) or if I'm successful. Thanks so much for your help!