Moving to new host and want to upgrade questions.

[Mark L.]

I found the article "Creating a Test Site" stickied here and I "think" this answers most of my questions. I'd like to ask a few to help me understand the process.

1. I have a vBulletin site up and running on host provider "A". Database is about 1 gig in size. I'm running vBulletin 4.2.2 with about 50 plugins. Big established site.

2. I purchased a brand new URL and host package from provider "B". I downloaded vBulletin 4.2.3 from my account here and installed it on this new location. created database, updated config file etc. I can enter my new url and see the new site and make threads/posts. It's a brand new fresh working vBulletin site.

Here's my first question. Can I follow the instructions in Creating a Test Site", extract my database from the old 4.2.2 working site, upload that database into the new site running 4.2.3, and have it work? Will an extracted database from 4.2.2 work in a 4.2.3 installation?

OR, do I have to install 4.2.2 on the new site, bring database over, then upgrade the new site to 4.2.3?

My main concern here is that I have 400+ users accessing the old live site daily. I want to make a duplicate site for testing using a copy of my live database. After some time of testing I will eventually shut down the old site, move everything over to new site and go live there and stop using old site for good. I want to get away from that provider and use my new one.

[Mark.B]

You will need to run the upgrade script. You can only use a database with the exact version it was designed for.

[Mark L.]

Thanks Mark. I will delete everything on the new host. Download 4.2.2 from here and install on new host. Once I have 4.2.2 installed and working I'll try and follow "Creating a Test Site". May have more questions later. I'll just keep this thread going as I go through the process.

[Mark L.]

Went to download 4.2.2 patch level 4. All that is available is 4.2.2 patch level 6. Is that ok to install patch 6 if we are currently running patch 4? Will the database be ok on different patch levels?

[Trevor Hannant]

Patch Levels are simply file changes, nothing database affecting so you will be fine running that. If in doubt, no harm in re-running the upgrade script though.

[Mark L.]

Hi Trevor and Mark. I'm back at this second install now that work has calmed down. OK So I have 4.2.2 patch 6 installed on new server with new url. I can access the site and make posts/threads. I now did the following:
1. turn live site off
2. in admincp setup I changed the url where needed to new one.
3. exported database without closing window
4. put URL's back to live site url and save. turn live site back on.
5. I now uploaded the database containing the new URL to my new host.
6. When I'm in phpMyAdmin I see both databases. New one from install and my large uploaded one. They have the same name except I added _1 to the uploaded one.
7. At this point if I leave it as new database site works. If I rename both database to _2 then remove _1 from the other site doesn't work. I'm basically adding and removing _1 from the names to switch between the two database. I hope that makes sense.

So the new database works but my old live site one doesn't. I'm going to guess this is because of the 50 plugins installed on old site correct? The new install have no plugins installed.

[Trevor Hannant]

If you have plugins on the current site and haven't moved those over to the new site, then yes you'll have problems. Are you looking to keep those plugins or remove them?

In the meantime, you can disable the hooks system to allow you to access the site. To do this, add the following to the top of your config.php file (immediately below the opening <?php tag):

define('DISABLE_HOOKS', true);