robbell wrote: ↑Tue Jul 16, 2019 1:45 pm
A question I find myself asking is why is there an Automatic Update package that phpbb recommend you use if it's not a good way to update the forum. It seems like they are asking for problems to arise... I quote the Auto Update page: "This is the package that most users should download to update their forums."
https://www.phpbb.com/support/documents ... n=3#update
4.i. Full package
Updating using the full package is the recommended update method for boards without modifications to core phpBB files.
Considering that modifications (as they were used in 3.0) requires editing the affected files with each update, this won't work out of the box. If your board has no modifications then THIS is the one to use.
4.ii. Changed files
This package is meant for those wanting to only replace the files that were changed between a previous version and the latest version.
The same applies to this package and it works out of the box with an unmodified board. The advantage of this package is that the donwload is smaller and it allows immediate identification of files that need to be edited (and don't need to be edited) in case your board IS modified.
4.iii. Patch file
The patch file package is for those wanting to update through the patch application, and should only be used by those who are comfortable with it.
As mentioned: only to be used by those who are comfortable with it. If your board is unmodified, there's no point in using this package since the 2 packages above are already "patched" correctly. A patch application may work but one has to realise that the more a board is modified, the higher the risk that the patch application will have difficulties in finding the correct lines to delete, modify, add - this is because phpBB has no control over what was edited and cannot guarantee that user modifications will or even can work with a new version. ONLY USE THIS if you can sort out problems yourself, and if you use it, DO NOT use it on your host install but only on a localhost installation where you can easily test and debug if necessary.
4.iv. Automatic update package
This update method is only recommended for installations with modifications to core phpBB files. This package detects changed files automatically and merges in changes if needed.
The same remarks as for
4.iii. apply here, with the added possible hickup that in some cases it can go seriously haywire (example: files with length 0) because of the way the host FTP is set up (transfer mode). In fact almost all of the boards I've had to fix, were boards that were updated using autoupdate.
If
4.iii. or
4.iv. is used, better have a full backup (files and database) because the results are not always pleasing. ONLY DO THIS IF YOU ARE ARE CAPABLE OF SORTING OUT PROBLEMS YOURSELF, in which case I would choose to do the file modifications by hand anyway.
Having said this, these methods can work but the risk of something going wrong is implicitly a lot higher that with
4.i. and
4.ii. (where basically nothing can go wrong).
Should methods
4.i. and
4.ii. continue to be available? YES, the responsibility lays with the user. phpBB provides the tool but cannot guarantee it works for all situations, simply because the number of situations increases each day, and is dependent on the host setup. There is no way to tell beforehand whether it will work, even with all the testing phpBB does, on various setups.
Are the warnings given by phpBB sufficient?
That's a difficult one. In my opinion yes, but perhaps for some they aren't. A balance has to be found between the amount of positive reading material given (e.g. the simplicity of setting up and updating phpBB) and the amount of negative reading material (e.g. all the possible problems). IMHO for
4.iii. and
4.iv. more emphasis could be put on the requirement that the user can identify and fix the (possible) problems AND that if the problem is unsolveable, the user can resort to using the other methods of updating with his backup.
Apologies for the long read but I've spent too much time on fixing boards which were autoupdated by people who never bothered to read the manual (or had the bad luck that the host autoupdated their installation).
Added: Modifications are seldom needed anyway. Quite a few extensions are available and if not available, a request can always be made. And quite a few modifications are easily manually reintroduced by hand - I tried patch file once on 3.0.x and it took longer than doing it by hand (at least I know exactly what I'm editing and why).
added: this text was autopatched so I had to correct all the
typo's editing mistakes by hand.