Upgrading from an older vbulletin.

[Brigitte]

I am about to purchase the upgrade to vbulletin 4.0. Right now my site (which I recently inherited from the previous owner) is running version 3.6.4, mySQL 4.0.27 and PHP 4.3.11.

I have backed up my site, but I am afraid to upgrade the MySQL and PHP to more recent versions. Will this make my current version 3.6.4 stop working? I would like to set up a test board to play with before going live and upgrading the old board, but am afraid just getting MySQL and PHP upgraded will cause problems.

[ENF]

You should purchase VB4 and then go download VB3.8.6.

Before you do anything, back-up your database.
Before you do anything, back-up your database.
Before you do anything, back-up your database.

1) Remove and disable any/all plug-ins that may not be compatible with VB3.8.
2) Upgrade your site to VB3.8.6, make sure everything is working first.
3) Upgrade your PHP and MySQL as you wish, VB 3.8 series should have no problem with the most recent versions of both. Keep in mind that for VB4, you need at the very least: PHP 5.2.0 or greater and MySQL 4.1.0 or greater. It it highly recommended that you use PHP 5.2.6, or later and MySQL 5.0.19 or later.
4) Once you have upgraded your PHP and and MySQL and the VB3.8.6 site is working correctly... then...
5) Upgrade VB3.8.6 to VB4.1.1

Notes On Upgrading from VB3 to VB4:

- Your VB3 styles will not work on VB4, delete them before upgrading and just use the default style.
- Your VB3 plug-ins and modifications probably won't work on VB4, remove or disable them from the product manager.
- You should do this upgrade on a test site first if possible.

Hope this helps in getting you started down the right path!

Oh, and before I forget:Before you do anything, back-up your database.

[Brigitte]

So I am understanding I should back up first?

Thank you. This is very helpful. I wasn't sure what order to do these things.

[ENF]

So I am understanding I should back up first?

Glad we see eye-to-eye. Once you modify a VB3 database for VB4, there's no going back, easily, without a backup of the DB before the upgrade. Many people have made this mistake... many...

Thank you. This is very helpful. I wasn't sure what order to do these things.

You are welcome.

[mccollin]

I just recently upgraded two sites... one from vBulletin 3.5 and the other from vBulletin 3.6. Both were running on my server that had current versions of PHP and MySQL. I upgraded first to 3.8, and then immediately to 4.1PL2, and the upgrade went smoothly. As he said, backup, backup, backup. I uninstalled all my add-ons, and deleted all the styles except default, and finally reverted all templates. So I was essentially running a default installation before doing the upgrade.

[Shamil.]

Now who would run MySQL 4.x and PHP 4.x in this day and age?

[ENF]

Now who would run MySQL 4.x and PHP 4.x in this day and age?

You would be flipping surprised. Easily, 45% or better of problems I handle off-board are related to getting PHP/MySQL up to acceptable levels. In some cases it becomes just easier to move the requesting party to a new host that's more cooperative.

More people are getting up-to-date, so that number is beginning to drop. I have a feeling as things as progress, we'll be revisiting this topic and asking "Who's still running php 5.2.x these days?" lol..

[Shamil.]

You would be flipping surprised. Easily, 45% or better of problems I handle off-board are related to getting PHP/MySQL up to acceptable levels. In some cases it becomes just easier to move the requesting party to a new host that's more cooperative.

More people are getting up-to-date, so that number is beginning to drop. I have a feeling as things as progress, we'll be revisiting this topic and asking "Who's still running php 5.2.x these days?" lol..

I really hope we won't, but it's true, we will. I upgrade mysql and php for free for my clients