Best way to upgrade phpBB3 with mods

[najam]

Hey Guys,
I'm planning to upgrade our forums phpBB.. I was wondering what is best method for doing this..
Thanks!

[MrGroove]

Are you going from phpbb 2.x to a 3.x? I take it the site is heavily modded? How many mods we talking about?

[najam]

Not too heavy.. got all of the phpbb-seo mods and one other mod... and interested in updating from 3.0.1 to 3.0.2. This is my first time updating a modded forum and i want to reduce the amount of downtime as much as possible..

[MrGroove]

Well......

Sooner or later your going to need to make the cutover to phpbb3 (or another Forum should you go that direction). The reason I say "sooner or later" is because phpbb 2.x support is being retired early http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=900655. Jan 1, 2009 if a security exploit comes out, the phpbb team will not be patching it (officially).

My PERSONAL recommendation would be to build a new forum on your server using the phpbb-SEO 3.x Premod. Convert your database (users, posts) then play with phpbb3 to decide if you can make the cut. You should be able to convert without changing any URLS so you should be good there if your indexed.

Remember, there were a lot of improvements with phpbb3 so you might not need all the MODS your using from phpbb2.x. If you decide you can make the cut, run the migration script again and cutover to the new site.

Good Luck!

[najam]

Thanks MrGroove!,
But im just upgrading from 3.0.1 to 3.0.2... But i have been thinking of starting it on another server but just wanted tips on best practice from the pros and also i have made allot of changes to the phpBB files... so not too excited about doing the changes from scratch..

[SeO]

Well, if you are using the SEO premod, then you should use the SEO premod update packages, otherwise, you'll have to use the phpBB update packages.

In both case, the procedure is the same, you should first try the 3.0.1 to 3.0.2 auto updater, it will tell you which files are requiring a manual merging.
You can then stop the process and start using the changed file package, you'll just have to manually merge the files to update (the one with mods installed), then, update the SEO mods using theire respective update file form the version you are using to the next one), and finally upload all files and run the install/database_update.php file.

Note that up to 3.0.2 included, you will have to do a small trick to update with our mod rewrite, you will have to use an up to date and not modified includes/functions.php file while lunching the update script. Just put the properly modded one back on your ftp once done. It won't be necessary to update to 3.0.3 later, and would nto be at all if you are using the SEO premod with its update packages.

Winmerge can be a very handy solution to handle the merging, since you can compare folders.

After you updated to 3.0.2, you will have to un-install/ install GYM sitemaps in case you are using it and then generate a new .htaccess.

All these are steps are pretty easy to apply, it's more a matter of patience, but I encourage you to do all this on a local / test server before you go online. Once all the files are properly updated to 3.0.2 and tested, you can safely upload them on your ftp and run the data base update script on the online server (a db backup is still a good thing before this).

Note that you'll as well have to take care about eventual custom style installed manually.

And then, you'll be ready to do the job again going from 3.0.2 to 3.0.3.

A matter of an after noon to go from 3.0.1 to 3.0.3 IMO.

[MrGroove]