[ic] Upgrading production 4.6.5 to 4.8.1

[Mike Heins]

Quoting Mike Eheler (meheler@searchbc.com):
> I have searched the archives of this list, and found one topic about 
> upgrading, but dealt with just default/demo catalogs.
> 
> On our systems we have dozens of catalogs maintained by our users, and 
> we would like to provide the most seamless upgrade possible. Ideally we 
> want to completely replace our 4.6.5 server with 4.8.1, and as well 
> completely upgrade the administrative interface.
> 
> I have done some test upgrades using very basic default installs of 
> 4.6.5's "construct" demo, and every time I did it, the store would work 
> fine, but the admin would be broken.. either the colours would only be 
> half changed, or in one test case (the one closest to an actual 
> production upgrade), all of the toolbars in the admin interface were 
> completely broken. Each bar simply had the word "line" and there were no 
> images.
> 
> I have scoured the web for any kind of an upgrade doc from 4.6.5 to 
> 4.8.1, and have found nothing, other than a cryptic "Upgrade Guide" on 
> redhat's site, and the less-than-usefull UPGRADE file that comes with 4.8.1.
> 
> Any help/experience notes/anything is greatly appreciated.

95% of the problems are in variable.txt and mv_metadata.asc; both of those
might require some hand editing.

The most important thing is to remove all of the old UI_* variable
definitions (except maybe UI_TRAFFIC_STATS) from the variable.txt database
and add the new ones.

Also, you should make sure you get the new mv_metadata.asc
file in place, though you will have to hand-edit the lines that have
the __MVC_SOMESETTING__ things in them. You can make a blank foundation
which has these, and figure it out from there.

After that, it should be plain sailing. We are going to try and make this
process quite a bit more trouble-free in the next version.

I am afraid I do this without thinking, and I guess I shouldn't expect
it to be so natural for others. Better management of icmenu.txt,
mv_metadata.asc, and variable.txt is going to be at the top of the list
in the next version of Interchange.

-- 
Red Hat, Inc., 3005 Nichols Rd., Hamilton, OH  45013
phone +1.513.523.7621      <mheins@redhat.com>

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"too dumb for conditions".