vb3 to vb4 or vb5 upgrade

[I, Brian]

I'm sure it's covered somewhere, but I can't find any threads on it at present via vb search or Google.

1. Could someone please point me to a link about general advice of upgrading vb3 to vb4, and what's involved?

2. Will vb developers provide the option to upgrade from vb3 to vb5 directly when it's released? Just wondered if this is being talked about, as no doubt the vb team will be aware that a lot of their customers are still on vb3 and watching to see how things pan out.

[Dustin L.]

Upgrading to vB4 from vB3 is perfectly safe if you make backups. Here is the
manual to do so: https://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/upgrade/

The second question I'm unsure of. The dev. team hasn't released their plans for allowing vB3 users to skip vB4 and go to vB5.




Dustin

[Wayne Luke]

You'll be able to upgrade to vBulletin 5 from vBulletin 3. We recommend that you upgrade to 3.8.7 first but the vB4 upgrade supports upgrades from 3.5.5. The vBulletin 5 upgrade will probably be similar.

[Ace]

1. Could someone please point me to a link about general advice of upgrading vb3 to vb4, and what's involved?

Hey Brian,

Main things to bear in mind:

v3 styles won't work
Any v3 products with plugins that called templates won't work (and you should be disabling hooks prior to upgrading)
Do it on a backup of your database/site first to make sure it all goes smoothly

[Wayne Luke]

Hey Brian,

Main things to bear in mind:

v3 styles won't work
Any v3 products with plugins that called templates won't work (and you should be disabling hooks prior to upgrading)
Do it on a backup of your database/site first to make sure it all goes smoothly

The same can be assumed with vBulletin 5. Your styles and addons will need to be updated completely.

[I, Brian]

You'll be able to upgrade to vBulletin 5 from vBulletin 3. We recommend that you upgrade to 3.8.7 first but the vB4 upgrade supports upgrades from 3.5.5. The vBulletin 5 upgrade will probably be similar.

I'm still hoping I can get the upgrade from 3.8.5 to 3.8.7 - raised this previously but it didn't go anywhere, so am hopeful of getting this resolved somehow.

Simply never noticed the email about the licence changes, so never upgraded in time before the current policy came into effect.

The same can be assumed with vBulletin 5. Your styles and addons will need to be updated completely.

Yes, I'm fully expecting that.

I am also presuming, hopefully not too optimistically, that vb5 will be a far more widely welcomed and accepted upgrade among the forum community than vb4 was.

[Mark.B]

I'm still hoping I can get the upgrade from 3.8.5 to 3.8.7 - raised this previously but it didn't go anywhere, so am hopeful of getting this resolved somehow.

Simply never noticed the email about the licence changes, so never upgraded in time before the current policy came into effect.

To be honest that's extremely unlikely.

There was a $50 "3.8 upgrade" licence on sale for several months which allowed people to get access to the latest 3.8 release without buying a full vB4 licence. However that was withdrawn some time ago and I really very much doubt they will do anything similar again.

[I, Brian]

To be honest that's extremely unlikely.

Well, when you're running a business through the worst financial crisis for a century, and you find yourself incurring massive bad debt losses, that "an announcement from vbulletin" email will never be a priority.

[rbrashear68]

Were you able to go from ver 3 to 4 without uninstalling mods and plugins first? It seems to me that you wouldn't need to but just making sure. I'm on 3.6.8 on one of the forums I help with and want to move to 4.2 possibly. Thanks!

[Ace]

Under most (ie: every one I have ever done) circumstances, disabling all hooks via config.php is all that's needed.

You don't HAVE to uninstall mods, but could well find that they don't work.

[AusPhotography]

The vB3 -> vB4 upgrade is significant and needs a test system and a bit of work, but quite worth it. vB5 will be similar.
The main issues are:

• Skins - you will need new ones
• Add-ons - you will need to get vB4 versions
• Testing - take you time and be thorough
• Upgrade - use the command line version if you can - it is the best

[zshadow]

The vB3 -> vB4 upgrade is significant and needs a test system and a bit of work, but quite worth it. vB5 will be similar.
The main issues are:

• Skins - you will need new ones
• Add-ons - you will need to get vB4 versions
• Testing - take you time and be thorough
• Upgrade - use the command line version if you can - it is the best

Speak for yourself... I went from vB3 -> vB4 awhile ago and it was more of a sidegrade if anything. A lot of effort for no gain. Could be a different story I guess if you need the social features (I don't). I would just wait for vB5 at this point. There's no reason to spend a lot of time migrating to 4.x when 5 isn't far off.