Upgrading Moodle on a Shared Server/Hosted Service Provider
Moodle upgrade steps from 1.9.5 to 2.4.1
These notes are provided in an effort to make the upgrade process easier for others having to go through the same process as I did. Several people over time helped on the forum site and in particular Ken Task was an incredible help! I kept notes on the process for reference and to then share in the forum to help others as I had wished someone else had done this. I’m sharing this info “in the spirit of sharing” (just like Ken says).
**Very important note: these steps worked for me and I can't guarantee they will work for you; and likewise these notes are focused specifically for people in my situation that are on a Shared Server/Hosted Service Provider, otherwise there are probably more efficient steps for people who are own their own local server that they own and have access to a Linux command prompt using putty or something similar. For the rest of us that are on a shared server provided by a hosting service, we are greatly limited on what we can do and what we have access to - these notes are intended for that audience.
These upgrade notes started when I was upgrading from 1.9.5 to 2.4.1. I was behind on my versions because I am on a shared server with a hosted service provider and therefore had many restrictions (mainly based on the versions of PHP and MySQL that I could run) so I was ultimately forced to move to a new hosting provider that supported the latest versions. I was on Network Solutions and couldn’t upgrade, looked into Godaddy and had the same restrictions on a hosted server. I opened a new account with JustHost.com and they offer the latest versions of PHP and MySQL and I was able to upgrade to the latest version of Moodle which at the time of this writing was 2.4.1. Justhost.com has great service and support and I recommend them as a service provider.
These notes are unique to this situation of being on a shared server with a hosted service provider and due to the restrictions you will run into with a hosted service provider you can not do a lot of the steps people talk about in other blog posts like using git, ssh and command level steps. The process steps below will get you upgraded in this restricted environment.
The versions of Moodle that I upgraded to are as follows in this order:
1.9.5 (the version I was already on)
1.9.19
2.2.7
2.3.4
2.4.1
The upgrade process was extremely frustrating (as you can see from posts for so many people) and there didn’t appear to be any detailed list of what to actually do - most notes were missing steps or didn’t apply to being in the situation of being on a hosted server which is so much more restrictive. These notes may not work for everyone and are probably not perfect but ideally it will really help someone else out that is going through the headaches I went through. The important steps were keeping copies of the old installations for reference, doing a MySQL dump to move the database and importing that sql file into an empty database. I upgraded to 1.9.19 to 2.2.7 to 2.3.4 to 2.4.1 and I used these notes for each upgrade and updated them when necessary so ideally they are pretty accurate and should work for you. Note that if you are upgrading from 1.9.5 like I was, then you need to upgrade to 1.9.19 first as there were significant changes to moodle that are needed to jump to 2.x.
I used a couple of tools to complete this process:
- FileZilla - to move the major directory structures
- moodle: all versions are uploaded using FileZilla
- moodledata when transferring from the old server to the new one (only this initial time).
- phpMyAdmin - used to perform MySQL dumps and imports
- Hosted Service Provider’s “File Manager” - this is useful when moving files around on the server itself and especially when you want to create a “copy” of a whole directory structure as a backup.
Starting Steps:
- download moodle zip file for the version you want to install
- uncompress zip file locally
- upload to new server (public_html directory - should have 755 permissions recursive)
- copy moodledata directory from your old serer to your local computer (I copy the moodledata directory to another name to have a backup. I use the version number in the name like moodledata1_9_19)
- rename the actual moodle directory as you are upgrading from one version to another. This way you have access to old files if needed like the config.php file (this is a very important file you need during upgrades; don't loose it). I rename the "moodle" directory to something like “moodle1_9_19" and then FTP the new moodle directory structure onto the new server.
- upload moodledata directory to root location (one level above public_html with permissions set to 777)
- install book plugin if you use it and you are on a version prior to 2.3
> download book plugin
>> pay attention, there are different book versions out there so make sure you install the right one
> unzip locally
> ftp to new server installation in /moodle/mod/
- make sure the php.ini file contains “register_globals = Off”
- old server:
- use phpMyAdmin to perform a MySQL Dump (I used instructions found in WordPress http://codex.wordpress.org/Backing_Up_Your_Database in the "Using phpMyAdmin" section). This produces a .sql file
- edit the .sql file to comment out the first create statement which is one to create the database but the database will already exist.
- if necessary, change the "use <database name>" statement to reference the new database name on the new server.
- if you are moving your site to a new server (hosting provider) and have not moved your DNS yet as you want your existing site to still run while you are setting up the new site (which was my scenario), then edit the .sql file using a tool like “Notepad++” (needs to be an editor that can handle large files) and perform a search and replace looking for your old site name/DNS (like “www.abcorp.com”) and replace it with the new one which is probably an IP Address and sub-directory name (like “111.254.22.111/newsubname”). If using Notepad++ then use the “count” feature in the search and replace window to see the number of items. After you make a change, do a “count” on some other deviations of your domain name to make sure you got all the “URL” references (don’t change any email addresses).
> new server:
Step1:
- create a new empty database, make sure MySQL setting is unicode
> write down the database name, username and password for the admin account (needed for the moodle install)
Step2:
- using phpMyAdmin (MySQL)
- click databases
- click on database name
- click on operations tab
- go to collation group and set to utf8-unicode_ci
>>note that there are two levels of this setting, a top level and bottom level, make sure the bottom level is set
Step3:
- Make sure php is using "PHP 5.4 (single php.ini)" if you have that option
- change php.ini (most likely in /cgi_bin/php.ini) setting to "register_globals = off"
- database / MySQL
>> if you had issues previously and are running through this process again, then make sure the database is empty. if there are any existing tables, then drop them all otherwise you'll end up with conflicts when the SQL dump is imported again.
>>> in dropping existing tables, I did this using Notepad++. Using the left sidbar in phpMyAdmin I copied all the tables into Notepadd++ (pay attention to whether you have more than one page of tables as there could be more tables on a page 2), used column editing (Alt+Shift+arrow) to select "structure" and delete it. Then did the column highlight again and added "Drop table " to the front of every line. Then used "search > replace" and put $ for the "find what" and put ; for "replace with" (this will put a semicolon at the end of every sql statement) and selected "regular expression" for search mode. You should now have a list of Drop table statements for each table. Now copy and paste this entire list into the SQL tab in phpMyAdmin and execute it. This will drop all the tables. Do a reload on the database and all the tables should disappear and your database is empty.
Import MySQL dump from previous database using the sql file (this will set it up just like the previous database that will now be upgraded but this process keeps and old version for you to fall back to if necessary):
- go to the Import tab and specify your sql file to recreate tables which also brings in all the data for the courses.
moodle config.php
**With a new installation, check to see if there is a “config.php” file in your moodle directory. If there is one then rename it because the installation will not run if there is a config.php file present already.
run upgrade
- in a new browser tab, access your moodle installation which will kick off the installation/upgrade
basically something like <url>/moodle/install.php
> for me I basically take all the defaults; I’m not doing anything fancy with my classes so all the defaults work.
Password salting:
- Password salting was introduced in 1.9.19, so if you are going from this version to a 2.x version (I jumped from 1.9.19 to 2.2.7 based on a recommendation) then you have to carry over the salting from the 1.9.19 config file. Only do this step when you are doing the upgrade to 2.2.7 (the first 2.x upgrade version). Do the following:
- Open the 1.9.19 config file and copy the $CFG->passwordsaltmain line = ‘xxxxx’;
- Paste this into a text editor like notepad and edit it to use “passwordsaltalt1” instead, so it would look like:
$CFG->passwordsaltalt1 = 'xxxx';
You can keep up to 20 previous salts. Note in my example the “xxxx” would really be the actual encoding
- Open the config.php file in the new installation
- Keep the existing $CFG->passwordsaltmain line but now paste in the $CFG->passwordsaltalt1 = 'xxxx'; line
This is very important, without the previous salting you won’t be able to log in. To read more see:
http://docs.moodle.org/22/en/Password_salting
<optional> Database stuff:
Ideally this doesn’t happen if you are creating all new tables when going to 1.9.19 and 2.2.7 but if you get any errors:
- if you get an error "illegal mix of collations" this is an issue where there was a change to some tables from utf8_unicode_ci to utf8_general_ci
- ran alter statements on every table listed in the join statement that is shown in the error message. a statement like this:
"alter table 'mdl_wiki_pages_old' convert to character set utf8 collate utf8_general_ci;"
- if moodle upgrade is successful, when logging into the site remember to use your old admin password from the other site since that is what you just restored.
Upgrade continued:
- Once logged in, click on “Site Administration” and complete the upgrade
Optional steps
- <optional based on moodle version> verify book plugin is installed properly by logging into Moodle and going to "site administration > notifications" to finish install
- <optional> if using paypal, set it up for the courses. Go into "users > enrollment methods > Paypal" and make sure your settings are correct.
- <optional> I had some videos in my classes that I stored in a separate directory in my file system not in the moodle directory which I had to move to the new server. Originally the videos did not display. The way I figured it out was to switch over to the HTML mode in the editor so I could see the code and noticed the path for the video and realized I had not moved that directory over. Once I did the videos played.
- <optional> run the “Assignment upgrade helper” found in the “Site Administration” at the bottom of the list. This will update any assignments you may have.
- <optional> if you have quizzes, then in the run the upgrade. In “Site Administration” click on “Question Engine upgrade helper” and click on “List quizzes still to upgrade” and then click the “convert attempts” link and click the Yes button to convert it. Then click the link “List quizzes still to upgrade” to get back to the list and convert the rest. Once done click on “List already upgraded quizzes that can be reset” and reset the quizzes if you desire.
Run the Maintenance script:
- Run the cron maintenance script by clicking “Site Administration” and then click on “Notifications”. In this window you will see a link for “cron.php maintenance script” click it and let it run.
- While logged into your site as an admin, open a new browser tab and enter in this url:
<IP Address to your site>/admin/tool/health/index.php
This will run a health script. Ideally you get the message “There is no health problem found!” which is what I get. If not address the issues.
Final Important Step after each upgrade:
Although this can be super tedious, I highly recommend you now go through your courses page by page to make sure they are working correctly. I originally found issues with images not appearing, videos not appearing and alignment being center justified when it was supposed to be left justified. I would not have known about if I hadn’t gone through the courses. If there is an issue, you want to fix it now before you move on to the next upgrade otherwise you could make a simple problem more difficult later on.
In the beginning my process wasn’t the steps I have listed above, as there wasn’t a good reference and I ended up doing a bunch of processes mixed together versus a completely “clean” install which includes moodle directory, moodledata directory copy and importing a MySQL dump into an empty database. When I did these things everything went smooth and clean; if I didn’t I got all sorts of messed up results. After doing it cleanly I probably found 5 minor things that needed to be done at each upgrade and 1 important directory move of my own that I had forgot about one the first upgrade (that was the one I had my videos stored in - I forgot to copy that directory to the new server; I caught this by going through the classes and seeing the videos were not loading). Worse case if a problem is found, you can just fall back to Moodle 2.2.7 and do a full refresh based on the steps done above because you have a backup of all the code and data if you were following my steps.
Overall I found maybe 5 alignment issues after each upgrade in total across my six classes. The final upgrade to 2.4.1 actually affected one of my classes with fonts that I had to adjust and one class had an issue with the quizzes in it.
- Fonts: Not sure why but randomly fonts were changed from Veranda 12 point to Arial 14pt. So take the time to go through your classes. Changing the font is a little time consuming but overall a minor issue to deal with after the long upgrade process.
- Quizzes: Not sure why this happened as another class that had quizzes was fine. I resorted to deleting the quizzes and recreating them. Like the fonts, it was more of a minor issue to deal with in order to get to the latest moodle version.
Upgrading to next Moodle version:
I repeated this process going to 2.2.7 which went very smoothly.
Version 2.2.7:
Do this step when upgrading to 2.2.7:
Now back in phpMyAdmin, drop all tables in the database, import the edited .sql dump into the database and you should now be up on the latest database engine.
After upgrading to 2.2.7 then do this set of steps (don’t do this until you are at 2.2.7)(Note that I didn’t realize this and did this step after getting to 2.4.1 and it was successful):
Once you have upgraded to 2.2.7, then you should upgrade your database from MyISAM to Innodb.
- Using phpMyAdmin perform a new MySQL dump and save it off with a name like “localhost227_MyISAM.sql” (this is important so that you have a backup).
- Then download this sql file to your local computer so you can use Notepad++ to make some changes.
- Once it is downloaded I renamed it to something like “localhost227_Innodb.sql”.
- Now open it up and do a “Search and Replace” where you search for 'ENGINE=MyISAM' and replace it with 'ENGINE=Innodb'. I also used the option “Match whole word only” in order to make sure nothing gets changed except for this engine line statement. This file will be big so there’s always a chance there could be something else so I isolate the change to this. It should basically make a change for every create table statement so there will be a lot.
- Save the file when done.
- Upload the file back to your server.
- Using phpMyAdmin drop all your tables (follow the steps earlier in this document if you need help here). Make sure all tables get dropped; I had two pages worth of tables and ended up only dropping the first page and was confused why it didn’t drop all the tables and that is when I realized there were more tables I missed, so I dropped these ones too. The entire database should be empty now.
- Now import the “localhost227_Innodb.sql” file. Your database should be upgraded to Innodb now.
Upgrading to 2.3.4 and 2.4.1:
I was told the jump to 2.3.4 and 2.4.1 was less difficult and only the code base needed to change. So the process was a lot easier but backups are highly recommended in case you need to fallback due to unforeseen errors (I had none).
**Note that this last approach for 2.3.4 and 2.4.1 is up to you. You may want to follow the same process above like I did for all the other courses. One interesting twist I ran into was that one of my course’s quizzes didn’t work in 2.3.4 that worked in 2.2.7. The only thing different was the upgrade approach so keep that in mind. Otherwise the rest of the course looked fine for pages, content, alignment, images and videos. Not sure what the deal was with the quizzes in that one course (quizzes in another course were fine). So I decided to just delete the quizzes in the one course and recreate them when I was completely done with the upgrades. Minor task to deal with in order to get successfully to the latest and greatest version of Moodle.
The steps I did for this upgrade were as follows:
- Performed a MySQL dump of the database for a backup and named it accordingly (putting on the version name at the end of the file so it looked like: localhost2_2_7.sql)
- Copied moodledata to another directory and renamed the copy to “moodledata2_2_7”
- Uploaded moodle 2.3.4 onto the server as “moodle2_3_4”
- To switch/upgrade versions I now renamed my current moodle directory (which was 2.2.7) to “moodle2_2_7” and renamed “moodle2_3_4” to “moodle” which now put the 2.3.4 code base as the main moodle version now.
- Now I ran the install: <IP address>/moodle/install.php
- This ran through the install and everything was successful. At the conclusion I was presented with the moodle login window. Before logging in you have to update the config.php file with the previous password salting.
- Opened the old config.php file from the “moodle2_2_7” directory and copied the passwordsaltalt1 line and the passwordsaltmain lines to a text file (like notepad) and renamed passwordsaltmain to passwordsaltalt2.
- Opened the new config.php file in the moodle directory and before the passwordsaltmain line I added the two passwordsaltalt lines so now I have three password salt lines in the current config.php file:
passwordsaltalt1
passwordsaltalt2
passwordsaltmain - Save and close the config.php file and now you can log in.
- Go through your courses making sure they look fine.
- Repeat this shortened upgrade process to go to Moodle 2.4.1
- Finally you are done!
Run maintenance script:
Once you are doing your upgrade and verified your courses are fine. Then I recommend going to “Site Administration > Notifications” and clicking on the link to run the “cron.php maintenance script”. This will do some import cleanup work and other stuff. It may take a little while to run. Once complete it will dump a log to you and it should have executed successfully.
Good luck! Hope this helps!
