Topic: Uninstall Errors

[FrizzleFried]

Attempting to uninstall to upgrade to 2.3.5... getting the following errors:

Of the 18 edits to subs.php that SimplePortal is attempting to remove... 17 of the 18 fail.  #17 is the only successful one.  I fully expected a number of those errors as I had to manually input some stuff when I installed SP... but only 4 or 5 edits...

What is the recommended course of action?   I am not really keen on attempting to find 17 edits to remove them individually if possible only to have to re-do some of the edits afterward... not to mention I am not sure of what the original edits were, etc.

[ccbtimewiz]

You have three options:

1.) Manually uninstall it by hand and check what the original edits were
2.) Revert your forum back to a state before you installed the mod (you can see the backups in your Packages directory)
3.) Ask for someone to do it for you (paid or otherwise).

[andy]

This is the price you pay for having many mods - there is always interference with others. I now keep to a minimum of absolutley necessary mods rather than adding fun mods. I avoid mods that require manual edits but often on uninstall it is ...unavoidable.
Hopefully in SMF 3 there will be more plugin style mods.
 
Some uninstall edits that fail do not cause problems but unless you know which ones it is dangerous to try that strategy. And you are leaving bit of obselete code in there.

For me, I prefer running the SMF large upgrade package and start over installing mods again - everything is clean that way and I make sure I put in all the latest versions of the mods.
I delete most of the directories except things I need in avatars and attachments. Keep the settings.php file and ftp the large upgrade files and clean theme files.  Run the upgrade and install the mods again.
It can be done very quickly after a few times. I have about 35 mods and I can have a clean version of the site with all the mods back in just over 30 minutes.

[FrizzleFried]

When you perform your upgrades do you do it online live or do you do it on a test site then move the completed form over?  If the latter,  what is the best way to accomplish that with as little disruption to the site as possible?

Thank you!

[andy]

Im lazy .... I do it live. Not so many online at once and if I send out a newsletter telling them it will be upgraded at a set time for 1 hour then its fine.

Basically the site is only down a few minutes. You can put it in maintenance mode too. If you extract the large upgrade files using cpanel file manager that is done in seconds. Run the upgrade script and in a minute your forum is back.
People can use it while you set the template again and install mods. I always set the dafault theme back to curve in case there are problems with and custom theme. After upgrade is done I test the site template again. Otherwise you might need to run the repair settings script... safer to reset to curve before upgrading.