[TYPO3-english] [Rant, long] Update 4.5.35 -> 6.2.x

[Axel Joensson]

Hi Jigal,

Jigal van Hemert <jigal.van.hemert at typo3.org> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> Thanks for sharing your experiences. Upgrading a site to 6.2 can 
> sometimes be easy and sometimes be a real challenge.
> 
> There are a few things that will help or even make the migration a lot
> easier (depending on the particular installation).
> 
> - make sure the old installation is up to date and running smoothly. 
> That means no database updates when you check DB compare in the install
> tool, reference index updated, extensions up to date, core on latest 
> version of the branch, nothing worrying in the sys_log, preferrably 
> nothing in the deprecation log (turn it on for testing).

The 4.5 ver. is running smoothly, no difficult features included, no
news, little and only basic JavaScript features. The site has several
years ago been designed to deliver about the same view even in Internet
Explorer 5.x, while making use of valid XHMTL trans. and sufficiently
flattering the search engines by relevance and content. 

> - check all extensions if there are versions compatible with 6.2

While first attempting to upgrade, it was possible to update some of the
extensions still in 4.5 to a 6.2. compatible version. 

Having crushed that first upgrade (and at the same time the productive
4.5 version) and having had to bring 4.5 online by backup, the next
attempt to upgrade was difficult: Though by description running under
4.5 through 6.2.999, several (or all?) extensions refused an update with
the ERROR message mentioned in my first post. Only deactivating and
updating them after core upgrade seemed to work.
  
> - use the smooth migration extension to do further checks on the 
> existing extension and see what changes are necessary

Seriously, install another extension to check the integrated ones?
 
> - the 6.2 Install Tool has wizards to update the core records, but it
> can't do much for other extensions. The 6.2 Install Tool can check if
> extensions will crash the backend and can deactivate them to make the
> backend accessible again

After the first attempt, this routine found no problems, but they still
occurred later on. After the second attempt with deactived exts. being
upgraded later, a "gear wheel of death" rotated endlessly during
upgrade: The checking routine never came to an end until I changed into
another of the wizard's menus after 15 or 20 minutes. Nevertheless, all
extensions seem to run smoothly after having them updated. 
 
> - DAM isn't exactly replaced by FAL as a premeditated plan. As you 
> noticed with all the mysterious automatic copies of file (the original
> idea was that if a file was used on three places the copies would at 
> least ensure that these usages would stay working if the original was
> removed) the handling of files in TYPO3 needed to change. There were use
> cases for transparently handling files in remote storages so the FAL 
> concept was born. At the same time DAM development stalled and soon it
> was realized that many use cases for DAM could be implemented with FAL.
> There is a nice migration extension available to convert the DAM meta
> data into FAL meta data.
> 
> Maybe take a bit longer time to spread the upgrade work and ask for help
> here and there instead of trying to invent the wheel again?

I have often been given good advice here. But I think it should be
possible to upgrade a rather simple site in a reasonable time, instead
of spending dozens of hours with always new attempts facing always new
problems, which are plainly unforseeable. 

To me, this is an economical question, too, as Jan also pointed out: If
I wanted to completely bill my client for this upgrade, we would
probably end up in court. As a consequence, service providers like me,
who so far used T3, have to ask themselves if they can offer T3 services
any longer, because they can no longer guarantee for a real "LTS"
extending over a longer period than a T3 LTS version. Or they have to
accept working dozens of hours, for the price of maybe a handfull of
paid hours to finally get that stuff upgraded.

Regards.