BentAngle wrote
The way the upgrade process works, you should be able to upgrade to 4.4.1 from any dnn version (not including dnn1) just by getting the lastest upgrade.
I can tell you from my MANY MANY efforts - upgrading in this fashion will not work and I can confirm after speaking with core team members who have done this have failures and had to use their knoweldge of the core code to get themselves out of it and upgrading a dnn 2 site for one experienced core team member took about 2 days... now, if he's having problems, has access to his server via remote desktop, I can't see in a month of sundays where others can just pick up think that taking their DNN 2 site on a hosted environment will be able to upgrade to the latest version of DNN. What normally happens in builds is that there is a focus in a particular area, for example in this build - 4.4.1 was compression, once it was the membership management, etc.. and there have been builds which focus on upgrading. Not that it shouldn't upgrade, but it simply doesn't.
I have been working with DNN for over three years now and the nature of my business is based on building sites for clients and often have seen the necessity to make decisions on upgrading or moving clients from 'child portals' to stand alone ecommerce portals, upgrading from earlier versions of DNN to move into later versions that meet client requirements.
To be honest, upgrading requires preparation and experimentation and sure you can work in a hosted environment but if you do - you really should be looking at having the full build locally to test thoroughly. Sometimes I have to attempt upgrades 1/2 dozen times and that has to be evaluated to whether you should be doing a completely new build and just importing the users.. it's quite a challenge in my opinion, juggling things and where your expectations of what it should do and what it does can find you rather disillusioned with the whole process.
Having said that - on Tuesday, have succesfully upgraded a website running catalook from 3.2.2 to 4.4.1 - and will be documenting and taking screen shots on how I did it and post on my website for you to learn from. I am attempting now a 3.1.1 >> 4.4.1 upgrade based on what I learnt from it and will share with you. This is also another Catalook site where I want to use different payment gateways so have to upgrade, it is a deep site with a mix of articles modules from ventrian and the photo gallery too.
There is one thing I also believe that makes upgradeability possible - the modules you are using. And I have alot of experience with modules in general having had to provide solutions for clients - have around 1,000 modules in my 'kitty' and know from good and quite horrible experiences as to what works and what doesn't, so over time have split my business model up into 'segments' that allow me to provide a range of solutions that are workable for both clients and me. And that includes a range of 'customised' builds where we strip out the problems before they occur.
So, by all means - dont' take my advice - try until the cows home home - but I've never met a single person who's been able to upgrade without taking a few steps... and if they are out there.. then please post here.. because it's very disheartening to read 'experts' saying - sure it will work but not knowing their 'secret herbs and spices' to make it actually work.
Part of the reason I think it's good to do things in small steps is that you can often catch the 'culprits' rather than wait until trying to sort the mess out and redoing again. And then it goes back to me thinking ... wow, if I was on a shared hosting envrionment how would I go about this.. so, after I get the upgrades explained, if I have time - will try my best to 'pretend' I'm a hosted person and do a 'step by step' upgrade to see how that goes. I cannot guarantee any promises of success there but hey it's worth a try.
So, step by step I think will get you there with less headache.
Nina Meiers