Upgrade phpFox 4.7.0 the right way
Since the release of phpFox 4.7.0 last week, we are delighted by all the love and support through loads of feedback and suggestions from you. As committed to completed satisfaction from clients, we truly appreciate and welcome all your constructive opinions and inputs, as these greatly inspire and help us in the process of perfecting the platform.
On top of many positive feedbacks, we also received some reports about issues while upgrading to 4.7.0 and this may make you have concerns. To make sure the upgrade process goes smoothly on your side, we will now cover some frequent problems in common scenarios so you can prepare in advance and have a successful upgrade.
1. Should I upgrade when my site has only Core apps?
→ All Core default apps are fully compatible with phpFox 4.7.0 now, indeed all Core apps are already upgraded to work well on this new versions. Therefore, you can just go ahead and upgrade immediately. However, it is important to note that some apps such as Pages, Group, Activity Point, Messages, etc. are only compatible with phpFox 4.7.0. Please don’t forget to upgrade all phpFox apps to their latest versions along with phpFox Core upgrade to prevent any compatible issues.
2. Should I upgrade when my site has only Core apps and some were customized?
→ When it comes to customization, the situation turns to a little bit complicated. The customized apps may need to be merged with the newest source code manually to avoid any missing or bug. If your site was launched, then you shouldn’t apply the codes directly to your production site as it might cause unexpected malfunctions and conflicts which potentially crash your site. We recommend you to build up a development environment for this upgrade then perform the upgrade on this so you can test and fix bugs first. Once the development environment works smoothly without any issue, it’s time to deploy source code to the live site.
3. Should I upgrade when my site has 3rd-party apps?
→ First of all, please make sure that all 3rd-party apps you wish to use on your site have to be compatible with phpFox 4.7.0. The risk of applying and using an incompatible app may cause your site down. So even you really want to use the apps, we recommend you to wait until all apps are checked and fully compatible. In case you are in rush, please contact 3rd party providers/experts to schedule the upgrading plan for the apps.
4. Should I upgrade when my site has customized 3rd-party apps?
→ This situation is the same to above, we recommend you to check for app compatible first regardless it’s customized or not. Again, in case you are in rush, you can always contact 3rd party providers/experts to schedule the upgrading plan for the apps. Third-party experts can have good advices for you to upgrade customized apps as well as merge old custom work then.
Moreover, it is always the best practice that you should have full backup your site before proceeding upgrade. When starting the phpFox upgrade, it is highly recommended to temporarily disable all 3rd-party apps to avoid compatibility issues. After upgrading your phpFox Core and default apps successfully, you can move to upgrade and enable 3rd-party apps.
Upgrading your Production site should be taken place during low traffic time. Ideally, it’s around midnight and 5 AM, but it’s not right to all industries and you have to adjust accordingly.
Hopefully, these walkthroughs on scenarios above will clear up of your concerns and help you in the process upgrading your site to phpFox 4.7.0. Feel free to let us know if you have any inquiry about the upgrading process and also about the platform so we can improve phpFox better through future releases.
Let contribute your thoughts and ideas by emailing us at hello@phpfox.com.