In this screencast I will go over how to update a MODx Evolution 0.9.6.3 website to MODx Evolution 1.0.0 by taking one of my MODx sites and updating it while walking you through my process.
I don’t believe there’s a particular prescription to this, what I go through here is my own process. I look forward to your comments on how you do your updates, any suggestions on making the process smoother (if possible 🙂 ), and any ideas, questions, corrections and such.
More Reading:
http://svn.modxcms.com/docs/display/MODx096/Upgrading
Super work – thanks, Mary!
One thing that would fit in with this as an adjunct to Numbers 1 through 5 would be the process of restoring your backup in case of a site gone awry. Also, what happens to a site while being updated – does a “site not available” message display automatically?
You are creating very valuable resources – again, thanks!
Wendy
thanks for the feedback 🙂 Regarding restoring a site gone awry, my approach would be to wipe the existing database clean and import the sql from my backup. Then I would do the same with the site files, clean them out and ftp my backed up files into the folder. I’m sure there’s a cleaner way to do it but I’m not an expert in that area, I will do a little research though 🙂
I realized after your question that I neglected to add one step, probably should have been step 7b, and that’s to take your site offline before uploading the new files. I didn’t think about this because my site isn’t heavily trafficked at all, but it definitely would be a smart idea to announce that you’re doing routine maintenance by taking the site offline before starting to upload the new files. You do this by going under Site Manager -> Tools -> Configuration and then under Site Status just toggling it to “Offline”. You can then customize the message you want to show as you’re uploading the files.
I will look more into the restoring backup issue to see if there’s a cleaner more efficient way to do it, and will report back.
thanks again for your support and feedback!
Hi Mary, you’re also the twitter user http://twitter.com/einsteinsboi 🙂
iPad, good to see you here. Yes I am 🙂 Didn’t you know that? I have it on the sidebar of the blog and I always tweet from that account about this blog! 🙂
Yeah, but I thought you were a boy 😛 hehe sorry. Anyways, this is my main MODx resource after the MODx site 🙂 very well done.
lol, that’s funny! A lot of people think that… hehehe, glad you enjoy the blog! See you on Twitter
mary
Loved the video…I need to update my website now….thanks!
Jason
Good to see you around here again 🙂 Thanks for the feedback. Hope your site is doing well!!
mary
Another fabulous job:-)
I do have a question about bking up the database.
Should we be checking the box for “Generate DROP TABLE statements” and what exactly does this do?
Thanks!
Thanks Jules. I could be mistaken but I think when you check that box what it does is that when you’re importing the backup, it drops any tables that exist that have the same names as the ones you’re importing. I hope someone will correct me on this if I’m wrong. In this case I don’t think you need to. I basically use the default export settings in phpmyadmin and it works fine.
mary
Thanks for the info. I just finished upgrading my coding pad contest site, which I went through without a hitch. So glad you did this screencast, it gave me not just the info, but the confidence I needed to do it for the first time:-)
Glad it went well!! 🙂 I definitely found that getting the confidence to actually start the process was the hardest part for me since I was doing it on a live site and was afraid of something going wrong.
Happy that the screencast was useful!! 🙂
Hey Mary, I wanted to say thanks again. I just went live with my first MODx site (real world stuff, not just for learning) and figured I’d might as well upgrade it to 1.0.0. I followed your tutorial again, just to make sure I didn’t forget anything, and it worked without a hitch:-) Yes, I’m a happy girl and thankful that you take the time to provide the rest of us with such a valuable resource. If you’re interested in looking the site is http://www.roysteinberg.com. I’m going to get up from my computer now and do my “happy dance”:-)
Jules
That’s a nice site, pleasing on the eye, easy to read and navigate. Excellent work!!
Glad that these tutorials and the screencast have been so helpful to you 🙂
mary
hi mary – thanks for making this helpful screencast.
I’m just wondering if there is a reason you don’t use the built in database backup in the manager, rather than using phpmyadmin as you mentioned in the video?
crunch
Thanks for the feedback. Honestly, there’s no particular reason, probably just habit. I build websites and apps using all sorts of different tools and such and have just become accustomed to using phpMyAdmin or HeidiSQL or other utilities for doing my database backups and restores, it’s never occurred to me to use the MODx database backup tool 🙂
mary
I was told by one of the MODx guys that he preferred to download by phpMyAdmin because the resultant files were “cleaner”…some host dbs were a bit more finicky and wouldn’t play nice with restored files, which sort of defeated the purpose! This was v.9.6 something, though, so maybe that’s changed.
wendy
I’m honestly not sure about this. It may be true that using phpMyAdmin creates cleaner files. Very possible especially considering that that’s a standard database management tool used across the web. I’ve never used the MODx database backup tool so I have no idea how it would compare.
Would be interesting to do a backup of the same site using both tools and compare the code side by side.
While we’re on the topic, another tool I use often is HeidiSQL. I tend to use phpMyAdmin more but HeidiSQL is pretty useful too.
mary
Hi Mary, Great stuff. If enough people are interested, could you touch on the boring bits a little more (backing up and restoring the database and files)?
Top class work,
Respect due.
kay
thanks! Someone else did ask me this question some time ago. I’ll make time to do a quick screencast on this.
mary
Hello Mary,
After completing the update, my site is not found (error 404) I’m lost. What to do?
Hi Sebblu
As a first step, check in your file manager and see what the error log says.
Also, what version were you updating to/from?
mary
0.9.6.3 to 1.0.12
In the file manager there is no error
I do not know what to do to solve the problem
I mean the error log on your hosting, or the MODX error log file found in the root of your site folder. If you open that file in a text editor it should give you a list of errors and the latest errors would tell you what’s gone wrong with your site.
What’s the url of your site?
Did you back up your site files and database before starting the update?
I actually do a backup before updating.
I can not find the error log MODx, could you tell me how to get there.
URL of my site is: http://www.gpef-fr.ch
The error log is a file in the root folder of your website. You can find it in the file manager in cpanel or plesk, whichever your host is using.
I just went to the site and it seems to be working so I assume you managed to fix it?
mary
I actually succeeded after a few hours of research.
thank you very much