When updating problems occur.
March 15th, 2007 by signexOne important thing when running websites in corporate environments is the secure feeling that updates will work and be compatible.
But when your biggest fear becomes reality and websites break down after updating to the latest version here are some step you could follow.
You should, ALWAYS, have back-ups, not only because it could crash when updating but also if you experience a HD failure or whatever.
If a website is critical for your business and down-time is not done, you can also restore a back-up in a sub dir on the same server with the same settings, and test the update before you apply it on a live website.
If you have updated your website and it breaks down you can do the following;
If errors occur on the front-end, and you cant fix them within an hour or so, restore a back-up, make a test dir and try again, if it al works well something in the update process went wrong, and you should try again. If it doesn’t and you cant get it to work, get help on the forums, and just keep you live website un-updated for the time being.
If the errors only occur on the back-end (admin) part of the website, you can take some more time trying to fix it because regular visitors wont notice, and if you cant work it out, the forums will probably help you out.
Also make sure that modules you are using are compatible with the new updated version, you can, most of the times, see based on the Php error what file and path is causing what error, if the path is from a module, disable the module and see if everything works well.
So what would be nice to see in CMSMS 2.0 for updating problems.
If all hell breaks lose and no one else can help you, you can, apart from calling the A-team, make a clean install, export and import your theme, but if you have about 100+ pages and maybe 300 news items, it wont be fast job rebuilding the content.
Regular page content and news items is probably the most used CMSMS content, I know lotsa websites have modules and such but they are restored pretty quick most of the times, and if updating really fails you, you have no choice.
So it would be nice to see in 2.0 that one can export pages and news items like you can do with themes, this would make complicated updating errors allot less fearful, since in most cases you could be up and running within one hour if you dont have any special modules which are hard to restore content for.
I you have more ideas on what people can do when having updating problems, or have an idea on how to make the updating safe/easier in the future and reducing forum topic about updating problems please comment.
March 15th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
I’m always afraid to update.
I would like to see a comprehensive backup system integrated into CMSMS. phpmyadmin is very difficult to use and it’s hard to be sure that the backup settings are correct.
March 25th, 2007 at 11:50 am
There are some backup modules in the forge - http://dev.cmsmadesimple.org/softwaremap/trove_list.php?form_cat=324
April 6th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
A wonderful tool for making database backups is MySQLDumper. It even can backup (and of course restore) large databases if you have a 30 second time limit for scripts like on most shared servers. It just splits the dumpfile automatically into parts. Many people have problems with PhpMyAdmin to restore databases containing special characters like German umlauts. They will often find an “?” instead of the character after restoring the database. MySQLDumper prevents this by checking wich coding is running on the MySQL-server, e.g. latin1 etc.! It also allows automated backups through cronjob, send dumpfiles via FTP to another server or by email and much more.
I use this tool since years and it’s by far the most useful backup scripts I know.
It’s freeware and Open Source, you can find it here:
http://www.mysqldumper.de/en/
April 20th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
SO what are the best steps in regards to backups?
I’m assuming doing a regular MySQL dump (which is pretty easy on control panels supplied by my hosts) is the best thing to do first.
What about backups of all the files from the server (like using an FTP Client and copying all the files locally)… is that necessary/overkill or good practice?
I plan on using CMSMS for all my clients and employer because it is a great CMS, and I think easy to use and teach others (editors for instance) to use, but I just want to be sure the best way to keep the sites up and running and properly backed up.