Upgrade from 4.0.7 to 4.1.1 plus patch

[rodneep]

I have been reluctant to upgrade it because of the *terrible* experiences I have had with Actinic in the past doing upgrades and applying patches. They have *always* caused *huge*
problems, with the shopping cart ending up being offline for too long.

But... with morte and more people using Norton, I need to fix that old problem "Error deleting file..."

I have until now left it alone, on the basis that:
a. it works and therefore don't fix it
b. I know it will cause me big problems to upgrade.

However.... today I took the bull by the horns... backed everything up
(belt and braces stuff) and went to do the patch download....
(I am running 4.0.7.0.2.0BASA)

a. cant apply the patch before upgrading to 4.1.1
b. go to download 4.1.1
but it tells me that I *must* install 4.1.0 first
(Not upgrade... install! Which is bad news for me given my
experiences with the damned thing)
c. so... go to download 4.1.0
and it wants a user name and password to download it.
I tried the username and pwd which I know
but the site won't accept it.

<Sigh> Might have known that I would have problems again :-(

Do I *really* have to go through the process of:

1. install 4.1.0
or can I *upgrade* to 4.1.0
2. upgrade to 4.4.1
3. then apply the "Norton" patch

Thanks
Rod

[cbarling]

From recollection, 4.1 had such a large set of changes that it wasn't possible to just to install a patch. Rather the full product had to be installed. I'm afaid that there's no way around that.

This probably isn't very helpful to you but we are very aware of problems with upgrading and things have improved a bit with more recent releases. We're now working on some changes (which won't see the light of day for around a year) which will make upgrading totally straight-forward, once people are on that version.

The other information is that we're considering offering an upgrade service at a reasonable price - i.e. you send Actinic a snapshot and we upgrade it for you. Not 100% certain about this but it might be offered in around 3-5 months time, and obviously it would only apply to upgrading to the latest release. So I guess that this isn't relevant if you're completely happy with v4 functionality.

Chris
Actinic

[rodneep]

Let's assume therefore that I will install the latest version of Actinic business 6 (I have 4.0.7 business)

Hmmm .... one of the problems that I have with 4.0.7 (business) is that it won't let me do a snapshot of the site (themes snapshot is OK)..... click to do a snapshot... and Actinic terminates immediately :-(
(with no error message).

With about 1500 products, each with photo and description, that would make re-entering data a bit of a chore if I was to start from scratch with v6 business. Let's assume that I will start from scratch, (and on a different machine, as that PC is getting a bit old anyway), as I am not completely happy with v4, then I would have to leave v4 up and running until it was done, and then one day delete the whole of the v.4 site on the remote server and upload v6. I might add, with a little trepidation as I can't afford to have the site down.

Your proposed "upgrade service" certainly looks attractive under those circumstances.... if I could get v4 to do a snapshot :-(

Hey.... if I was happy that I was dealing with someone who *really* knew what they were doing, I'd even pay them to come down here to Gloucestershire and do it! ;-)

So... is this the best way for me to go...?
a. leave v4 running
b. start afresh with v6 on a new machine (new purchase of v6?)
c. replace the site on the remote server entirely.

Thanks
Rod

[Jan]

If you do decide to start afresh with V6 you can copy your V4database into the V6 site directory and it will upgrade. This means that you would just need to port your template changes over manually.

Regards,

[cbarling]

Please excuse the slowness in responding to your query. My embarrassment at the poor quality of snapshot in v4 is partly to blame.

The issue is whether you have made extensive changes to the templates for your site. If not and/or you can use one of the standard templates (and they are more and better in v6) then Jan's approach is the complete solution.

Chris
Actinic

[rodneep]

Originally posted by Jan
If you do decide to start afresh with V6 you can copy your V4database into the V6 site directory and it will upgrade. This means that you would just need to port your template changes over manually.

Regards,

Thanks Jan.... just to clarify for me please....

A. Set up v6 on the new machine first.... and then copy (the v4) ActinicCatalog.mdb into it ?

Or...

B. get the V4 transferred to the new machine first, and then do the v6 install over it?

If (A) works, then that would be the easiest way... I think?

I think I could do without the minor template changes that I made previously in v.4

Thanks
Rod

[Jan]

(A) should work, the database file is called ActinicCatalog.mdb and will automatically upgrade to V6, occasionally it will not you will get errors on upgrade if the changes between versions are particularly complicated, so you might need to upgrade your V4 site (or copy and then upgrade) first to something like 4.1.1 and that will definately upgrade to V6.

Regards,

[pinbrook]

I personally would go for option B. Install V4 and then upgrade it to V6. This should then upgrade your templates too.

Option A will not touch your template so you will have to re-apply any design.

The best thing is to try which ever approach you fancy, because it will be in a new folder and the old V4 can continue to run until you are ready to upload v6 to the server.

if you want to PM me we have an upgrade service