Hi,



I’d like to share with the community my DNN upgrade experience and conclusions with a hope to help others with this somewhat stressful task.



I use the upgrade path maintained by Will Strohl, god bless him http://www.willstrohl.com/Blog/EntryI...



But this path does not and can’t take into considerations all scenarios and you can find yourself facing a none functioning site as most of us did many time.



After much struggling with upgrades from 4+ (or even older versions) to 5.6.2 here are my conclusions:

1. Following Will’s path will work perfectly if:



a. You go from  old versions to 4.9.5 



b. You go from 5+ to higher versions.



c. In many cases it will even work all the way from under 4.9.5 to 5.6.2.



2. If it does not work (I assume you backed up) then you should consider the following after restoring the last working installation:



3. Before you start upgrading BACKUP! Files and DB.



4. Before you start upgrading create a file named “App_Offline.htm” and upload it to the root of your DNN. It will prevent unwanted site activation after you drop the upgrade files. When you are ready to activate the upgrade rename this file to something else. See here how Mitchel Sellers explains how to use it and many other useful upgrade hints. You should read it carefully. http://www.mitchelsellers.com/blogs/a...



5. If you start with version under 4.9.5 you should take the path as described in Will’s upgrade path until you are successful at v4.9.5



6. Stop at 4.9.5 and backup DB and files.



7. Go to host – Modules definitions and remove every module you can that you don’t use actually. Most important, remove modules that you installed in very old versions and did not upgrade or the developer does not have an upgrade versions for them. I know this is a tough requirement but this is necessary for successful upgrade.



8. If you do not use the XML core module, remove it if installed. If you use it and you can, export  its content (actions menu) and then remove it. At the end of the upgrade you can install it again with the last version and import the content. If you decide to keep it anyway, I am not sure how it will affect the upgrade. There was a problem with one of the xml modules versions that created upgrade errors. I can’t recall which was it. I always remove it.



9. Drop the 5.6.2 upgrade files on the dnn installation folder (or if you prefer you can first do it with  5.4.4 as Will says) then STOP! And don’t activate the site before you read the next steps)



10. Change the .NET version to 3.5+



11. Important! From here the instruction will make sure you use the correct web.config format and not the old one (in versions before 4.6.2 we had to do this anyway, but if you jump from 4.9.5 to 5+ you may have troubles if you only use the automatic mechanism to merge the web.config and release.config files)



12. Rename web.config to something else (remember the “App_Offline.htm”  )



13. Next you can either copy the web.config from the 5.6.2 install zip or Rename release.config you have in the DNN installation to web.config (I think starting at version 5.6.0 there isn’t a release.config file in the upgrade zip so what you have there will probably be the one from v 4.9.5)



14. If you have special code in the old web.config that you have to keep, copy it to the new one. Be carefull with that since in the past more modules used to change the web.config in order to function than it is recently. Modules like YAF (Yet Another Forum which is a ported .net application), Friendly URL modules and others I can’t remember now add their definitions to the file. Keep in mind that it is better to not include this code in the first upgrade call to the site and add it later. This means that in theses cases you should not do the first upgrade call to a page that has this type of modules in it.  When the site upgraded OK you can deal with them. Anyway, if you use these modules (that change the web.config) you should take a note when you install them and pay careful attention to them when upgrading (Go to the developer’s site and read what they say about changes to the web.config before you start upgrade)



15. Make sure you use the correct connection string (either for MSSQL or SqlExpress). Copy the 2 connection strings values from the old web.config to the new one (the release.config you renamed)



16. Copy the machine validationKey value and the decryptionKey value  from the old web.config to the new one



17. Check this post http://www.dotnetnuke.com/Resources/F... and if needed change the lines as described by Judy Vedder at the last reply. In summary you should add code lines that are required for the system to work properly with the changes of web servers and .NET since your first DNN installation of your site. I think if you copy the web.config from the 5.6.2 install zip in step 13 it will not be needed.

That’s it. Now rename the “App_Offline.htm”  and go to your site to activate your upgrade. Hopefully you will see the new version working.

Yehuda Tiram



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