Moodle Update

Moodle Update

by Gabriela Maccarini -
Number of replies: 4

Guys, I currently use Moodle on version 2.7 where I work, and we're planning to update our moodle to the one of the latest versions released so we can use the best out of the platform, but our biggest concern is that this update may cause us some bugs or stuff, because the version we use is too old, it would be a big update.

Can someone tell me if it's ok to update or if we're going to have some trouble doing it? I've never done such thing, actually, I think they've never updated Moodle here.

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In reply to Gabriela Maccarini

Re: Moodle Update

by Ken Task -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers

See ... another poster says 'pretty straight forward' ... and that's true.

... but ...

Considering ... 'never updated' and experience with ... going to have trouble question could be answered both ways ... yes/no ... much depends on your experience and I'll be so bold as to say what platform (OS) and how it's hosted.

Can't go from 2.7 to latest 3.7 in one step ... must marched through versions ... and at each step along the way backups - so you don't loose ground.

Then there is PHP/MySQL requirements for newer versions ... along the march you'll have to upgrade PHP/MySQL ... but not too far ahead of what moodle will run under.

The other route could also have catch 22's ... this route ... stand up a new 3.7.x, get it running, then restore backups of courses that contain user info/work, etc.

Number of courses?

Catch 22 - plugins used in the 2.7 may not exist in 3.7 - role conflicts if Admin level users also enrolled in courses.   Example: in 2.7 old assignments mod were used in courses and never converted to new assignments mod.

Hosting ... hopefully not remotely hosted on a shared system.

Need full control over server to be able to upgrade PHP/MySQL at appropriate times.

Can it be done ... yes it can.  If going the march route ... clone what you have to a test setup and test the march process there.  Strongly advise using git for a march ... which would be the first 'major task' ... getting your cloned 2.7 site under git.

You have a lot of work ahead.  Don't promise it will be done in 'short order' ... leave yourself plenty of 'wiggle room'! smile

'SoS', Ken


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In reply to Ken Task

Re: Moodle Update

by Gabriela Maccarini -
Ouch... guess that's a lot of trouble then... I'll talk to our IT department to see if they can clone our current environment.
Thank you very much for your answer, it helped me a lot!
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In reply to Gabriela Maccarini

Re: Moodle Update

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
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From 2.7 to current versions 3.5/3.7 is a double jump. I would upgrade to the 2.7 latest https://docs.moodle.org/27/en/Upgrading first and then upgrade to 3.1 https://docs.moodle.org/31/en/Upgrading because it was a LTS release too. Then run it for some time, couple of weeks or months, to trust that it works smoothly and only then consider moving to recent versions. If you decide to go for 3.5 https://docs.moodle.org/35/en/Upgrading, it is also a LTS version and still supported.

Very important: You need to master taking site backups https://docs.moodle.org/en/Site_backup and restoring https://docs.moodle.org/en/Site_restore them or some other backup/snapshot system to backtrack if the worst should happen.

Edit: Saw Ken's post. Yes, plug-ins are important. Also the increasing requirements of PHP are to be taken care of.
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