Help updating to version 5.5

Permalink
How do I update to the newest version of concrete5? I tried going through the dashboard, but it says I'm already up to date.

Also, how do I backup my site? I often read about the wisdom of backing up my site, but honestly, I'm not sure at all how to do that.

Thanks

 
mesuva replied on at Permalink Reply
mesuva
By the latest, I'm assuming you are referring to version 5.5?

That hasn't been enabled for automatic updating I believe yet. Although it has been released, it's called the 'latest version', not the 'latest STABLE version' because it's not quite ready to be a flawless update.

It's been released for brand new sites (as it should be pretty stable for that) and for others to test out, but it's probably not going to be until 5.5.1 (or even 5.5.2) before the recommendations to upgrade are going to go out, including the auto-updating is made available (or so I understand it).

For any major update of any web based system, it's always a good idea to take a full backup first and test out the upgrade on a development version. The bigger the version number change is, the more significant the update is and therefore more risky it is to do.

I've personally had no trouble updating from 5.4.1, through to 5.4.2.2 as the changes have been mostly bug fixes (I have still taken full backups beforehand though). The change to 5.5 is a significant one though and for the sites I will upgrade, I'll be doing a lot of testing offline first. I'm going to leave a lot of sites on 5.4.2.2.

Now, for the backup side of things I tend to do this on the server level. I know there are backup features within concrete5 itself, but I don't use them myself (someone else can inform you of them).

If you are using a host with something like cPanel or Plesk, you should be able to log in and find an area where you can download a backup of your site. This is effectively a big zip of all the files. This is normally JUST the files though and not the database. Sometimes in the backup section of your control panel there is a link to directly export a backup of your database, but often you have to find something like phpMyAdmin and do an export from there. So a backup consists of two thing; the files in a zip and the database backup (a zip of a big SQL script that recreates and populates the database).

If you're not sure about all this, and you have a decent host, you should be able to ring them up and they'll talk you through the process.
aprobert replied on at Permalink Reply
Thank you so much for your quick response. I'm always impressed with the c5 community. Your answer is very helpful. I'll wait to update my site until the next version comes out. I feel comfortable backing up my site now thanks to your help and I'll work with my host as well.

Thanks again!