Manually upgrade e107 CMS Tutorial

Upgrading e107 to updated version is a fairly straight forward task if you have not done and modifications to the core files and wit minimum third party plugins, there is also a handy system verification tool in the administration screen to help you perform integrity checks on files and database. Let's go through the upgrade process in detail

Preparing for upgrade

When there is a need to upgrade your e107 CMS, you should first check through the third party plugins to see if there is a compatible version, or if there is any issues with the plugins if you upgrade your e107 core program, this is important otherwise your website may not be functioning properly after an upgrade. If there are issues to be resolved, you can wait till the critical issues are addressed before upgrading your website.

Also noted that it is advised to not install too many plugins or heavily modified your e107 core system, otherwise there will always be a headache moment when there is an upgrade, you will need to scan through the modifications made to the core and manually apply them to the new files, and checking through the plugins status is going to take a while, worst if the selected plugins are on the not so popular list and contributor may have stop supporting it.

Basically, to prepare for an upgrade, you will need to do :-

1. Check your plugins compatibility
2. if you have modified the e107 core files, you will have to download a copy of the new e107 files, manually compare the changes made and apply your custom codes to the new file
3. If you have not made any changes to the core files, just download a copy of the new e107 files, uncompressed it in your computer
4. go through the readme.txt file and understand what the upgrade is all about
5. Backup mysql database and existing e107 program folder, this is important to keep a working copy of the website, you will need it in case something goes wrong during the upgrade process, you can have a good copy to restore to
6. set your e107 website in maintenance mode (login to e107 administration screen to do it)

Applying the new e107 files

When you have all the preparation done, you can proceed on to applying the update :-

1. FTP upload the new files to your hosting account and overwrite the old files with the new e107 files you have prepared in your computer
2. Be sure not to overwrite the e107_config.php file, this is the configuration files with connection info and setting for running your e107 website
3. If you have installed local language pack to your e107, be sure to copy over the corresponding language files as well

Verifying the new system

After applying the new files to the e107 program folder, you can then perform integrity checks on the files and database :-

1. Login to your e107 administration screen
2. Check if the new version number is shown (this ensure you are running the newly applied files)
3. Perform a series of integrity checks :-
   
   • File Inspector (check to confirm all your new files are applied correctly)
   • Database 'Check for Updates' option (system will check and apply new changes if needed)
   • Plugin Manager (to check and apply new changes to all you plugins, you may need to download and upload the corresponding plugins)
   • Admin -> Database -> integrity check
   • Admin -> Database -> Plugin Scanner
   • Admin -> Database -> language file checker
4. After all the checks are done, you are now safely upgraded your e107
5. deactivate the maintenance mode of your e107 website