I needed to update my Drupal installation for The Nonprofit News Network site so I decided to tackle that this morning. I was in a bit of a hurry (first mistake) and so I backed up my sites/ directory first then ran the Fantastico update script (I did the original install with this tool so figured I should use it for the upgrade as well). It backs up your installation then runs the update. I copied the text message that gave me instructions on how to use the backup if things did not go so well. Well, they did not go so well. I hit my home page and pretty much nothing. I was able to get to the admin page so I started trying to figure out what went wrong. I took a peek in the sites directory and noticed that my modules and theme was missing. I untarred that directory to restore those files but I was still getting errors. A quick Google of the error (warning: array_map() [function.array-map]: Argument #2 should be an array) led me to the solution.
I needed to enable my theme and all of the modules I used for the site. After I did that the error went away and most of the site functioned. The next step was to reset the permissioning for certain content views. I just logged out and went through the site to see what was missing and then changed those permissions. The last step involved a few theme tweaks. So far it looks pretty good.
Lessons learned:
| 1. Don’t do this if you are in a hurry; also best done early on a Sunday morning or other low traffic time for your site. Put you site in maintenance mode first then get to work. |
| 2. If I had it to do over I don’t think I would have installed with Fantastico or other automated script. Probably would have been a bit easier or at least I would have had more control over the upgrade. |
| 3. Read the upgrade instructions and make sure you back up directories and files that you have customized. If you install your modules and themes in the sites/all directory it makes this process much easier. |
| 4. Check to make sure your modules and theme is enable after the upgrade. You might want to document what modules you have enabled, especially if you have a complex installation. |