I first was introduced to DotNetNuke four years ago with version 4.8.x and I must admit I was blown away with what I was able to do with only basic web skills. I've upgraded my site from it's initial release to 4.9.5 and during this process I was also impressed with how simple it was.

Then version 5 came along, and the wheels seem to have come off the DNN upgrade wagon. The web is littered with DNN 5.x upgrade horror stories. I've held off trying to get into DNN 5.x because of the reported issues, and also the lack of information about how to do the upgrade. There used to be upgrade manuals on the DNN site, but now you are hard pressed to find these details. Now your dependent on blogs and forum posts.

And then there is the upgrade process itself. Deciding that we shouldn't put off the upgrade any longer I tried to jump from 4.9.5 to 5.6.0 having read somewhere that 5.6 was a safe version to use. Having solved the full install versus upgrade package issue. I went about upgrading my site last night only for the upgrade to crash and leaving me no option other than to return to my trustee 4.9.5 version.

My problems seem to have been caused by a DLL (Telerik.Web.UI.dll) not being in the bin folder… why wasn't it. It was in the full install package which is were I found a copy after finding the answer on a blog site. That wasn't the end of the problem because the upgrade package does not include a new web.config file, mine was left with many inconsistencies. I eventually got back into my site by using the web.config from the install package (after changing the personal keys).

This got me back into the site but unfortunately the damage was done, I could not get into the modules area or edit any html module. So, regrettably I have had to abandon my attempt and I don't feel confident enough to re-try this any time soon.

DNN must address the issue with upgrades which seems to be very problematic. Take my site, it's as basic as you can get with no foreign third-party modules, it's DNN through-and-through, but still I can't go from 4.9.5 to 5.6.0!

Has anybody else made this jump and what issues (if any) did you encounter.

Steve Le Monnier

Please take a look at the suggested upgrade path page on the wiki - http://www.dotnetnuke.com/Resources/Wiki/tabid/1409/Page/Suggested_Upgrade_Path/Discuss/1/Default.aspx . It also has information on the changing pre-requisites for new versions.

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Just from my own experience, you are MUCH better off keeping up with the updates.

I had huge issues when upgrading any 4.x version to a newer 4.x version.  It usually involved lots of trying it, restoring from backup, fixing the config issues, trying again.

Once it hit version 5 the updates have gone much smoother.   Meaning, I haven't had to roll back a site update.

One thing I learned with the version 4 updates was that you had to do a file comparison between your config file and the one provided by DNN and make all the changes.

Personally, I'm glad the config file is missing from the 5.x series.  I haven't had to worry that a bad config file was going to completely hose me.