I've tried two different updates to convert a test site on a development platform from Contao 2.11.7 to 3.0.3 both times without success following the Update Guide and several posts in the Forum with tips on how to do this.
Here are some the issues that I'm seeing when attempting the upgrades that lead me to believe that for anything other than a very basic Contao website, there may not be a path forward other than rebuilding the site from the ground up if we're using the current install package for the upgrade.
1. Admin User Password - it doesn't seem to hold after the upgrade. I've identified an issue that the update from v2.11.7 to v3.0.3 failed to change the tl_user/password field from VARCHAR 64 to VARCHAR 128 which results in a truncated password encryption. The encryption change to SHA1 also seems to throw the password off after the update. Consistently, after I logged in one time and then logged out, I was not able to log back in. I found a post online that suggested using a standard encryption reset to "reset123" and then changing the password, but there were still issues with it holding the Admin User password.
2. The modified "Tristan Script" seemed to work to change links from "tl_files" to "files" but after the update, the graphics theme was totally broken. Images were there, but it looks like the css is not converted over with the script, so that has to be handled manually in the layouts and templates.
3. Advice is provided to "purge all pre-existing resources" and then replace them with current versions of extensions and plugins (now "assets"). If I remove all extensions, and delete them from the database using the update utility, then it looks like I'm back at square one with the site, as any modifications or use of modules etc. would be obliterated in the database. One of the forum tips suggested to NOT delete any fields or tables until after the update was run, and slowly copy in Contao v3.0.x extensions into the system/modules folder, run the install again, and "pray" that you didn't have problems.
Okay that's probably good advice, but if the upgrade path is challenged with great peril, would it not be easier and less time consuming to simply rebuild the site?
4. Information about the update to Contao 3.0.3 mentions that there could be 1 - 4 "steps" involved in updating the database. Steps 1 and 2 worked fine, but step 3 left several fields that needed to be updated:
Code:
ALTER TABLE `tl_member` CHANGE `autologin` `autologin` varchar(32) NULL default NULL;
ALTER TABLE `tl_user` CHANGE `password` `password` varchar(64) NOT NULL default '';
ALTER TABLE `tl_calendar_events` CHANGE `startTime` `startTime` int(10) unsigned NULL default NULL;
ALTER TABLE `tl_calendar_events` CHANGE `endTime` `endTime` int(10) unsigned NULL default NULL;
ALTER TABLE `tl_calendar_events` CHANGE `startDate` `startDate` int(10) unsigned NULL default NULL;
ALTER TABLE `tl_calendar_events` CHANGE `endDate` `endDate` int(10) unsigned NULL default NULL;
I realized that I had left the "plugins" folder in the root (I don't believe that there is an instruction to remove the plugins folder since that is now "assets". Once the "plugins" folder was deleted from the root, and I ran the install routine again, the install posted a change to update the tl_user/password field to VARCHAR 128 (which I already done manually in PHP MyAdmin). It still left fields remaining to be changed out however.
5. I hope that some of you have some ideas about how to process these upgrades smoothly, but from what I'm seeing at this point, its may well be easier to rebuild the site. If anybody any tips or suggestions, I would be very interested in hearing them.
Ernest McDermon
Snellville, GA
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