How to upgrade DotNetNuke

Last Updated Tuesday, June 29, 2010 5:32 PM

By: Chris Hammond

This is a new post, based on information I originally posted on my blog at DotNetNuke.com a few years ago.

Upgrading DotNetNuke is actually fairly easy, you can do so with ease in most cases, though occasionally you may run into a problem or two. If you follow the steps below you should be able to recover from any issues and get your website back up and running in its original state.

If you're upgrading your DotNetNuke instance, here is a list of simple steps to follow during the upgrade process.

First tip, test the upgrade on a staging site first, pull a copy of the database and files down, try the upgrade, make sure all your functionality is still there. Then upgrade production (backup everything first!!!!!)

Here’s the steps to upgrade

1. Backup the database.

2. Backup the file system.

3. Make sure you did 1 & 2.

4. Extract the latest DNN ZIP file somewhere, you should download this zip file from DotNetNuke.com, and start with the UPGRADE package. (this assumes you are upgrading from DNN 4.6.2 or greater, if not you should use the Install package but there are additional steps required.)

5. Copy the contents of the extracted UPGRADE package over the existing site files.

6. Load the website, this will cause the upgrade to begin when the page loads. Make sure the upgrade process completes successfully.

7. At this point you should be done with the upgrade itself, and now it is time to do some testing to make sure that the upgrade worked and doesn’t cause any problems on your website.

Like I said, test first, just to be sure you have everything working properly.

Another thing you might check out is this blog post from Will Strohl that has a recommended upgrade path. While you should be able to go from 4.6.2 straight to the current release, sometimes it is better to do it in steps as Will's post lays out.

For some more advanced upgrade scenarios, such as disabling your site before upgrade, check out the Wiki entry on DotNetNukeDocs.com for upgrades.

Tags: Administration, upgrade, upgrades

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Recent Comments

hi Thanks for the timely article. "this assumes you are upgrading from DNN 4.6.2 or greater, if not you should use the Install package but there are additional steps required." Ha. I'm about to upgrade from DNN 4.5.5. Can you point me to some advice regarding the extra steps required? Thanks Ian

Posted By: Ian S on Friday, November 27, 2009 12:33 AM

Ian, check out the Wiki link at the end of this blog post with information about performing an upgrade from previous versions.

Posted By: Chris H on Friday, November 27, 2009 12:43 AM

This assumes autoupgrade="true" in web.config, right?

Posted By: Ken Robbins on Friday, November 27, 2009 9:35 AM

Thanks for the great links and suggestions. I had issues with the Blog module not making it through the upgrade. My CATALookStore also did not upgrade gracefully. I am sure it was due to specifics with original installation, etc., but could not find any reference to issues with the Blog module or CATALookStore.

Posted By: Sheila B on Friday, November 27, 2009 9:30 AM

@Ken, yes, but that is set to true by default. @Sheila, the blog module I believe did have some problems, I'm not sure if they have been resolved or not. I do not know about Catalook

Posted By: Chris Hammond on Friday, November 27, 2009 11:01 AM

Thanks for the post - one question: is step "5" missing or are the steps mislabled?

Posted By: Jim W on Monday, December 07, 2009 5:19 PM

Jim, they were just mislabeled, I've corrected the post, thanks for pointing that out.

Posted By: Chris Hammond on Monday, December 07, 2009 5:21 PM

What about web.config changes? are those handled within DNN now?

Posted By: Jeff Martin on Friday, December 18, 2009 10:37 AM

As long as you are on DNN 4.6.2 or greater all web.config changes are handled automatically by the upgrade process now.

Posted By: Chris Hammond on Friday, December 18, 2009 10:39 AM

What do yo umean by "Load the website"? Thanks!

Posted By: Steve Boyduy on Friday, February 26, 2010 7:53 AM

"Load your website" Load the URL of your website up in a web browser, such as Internet Explorer or Firefox

Posted By: Chris Hammond on Friday, February 26, 2010 10:57 AM

Hi Chris, would you please elaborate on step 5. Copying the contents of the zip file will end up overwriting the portals and desktopmodules folders that each have data already present. Am I missing something? I can't find any documentation on the this.

Posted By: David Lee on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 2:09 PM

@David, I actually just replied to your forum post on this matter as well. Basically, when you copy over the PORTALs and DESKTOPMODULES folder, ONLY the files that are in the UPGRADE or INSTALL package will be replaced in the existing folders. The 0 folder, and any other files/folders underneath of Portals that aren't included in the INSTALL/UPDATE packages WON'T be overwritten by anything, as they aren't in the copy/paste.

Posted By: Chris Hammond on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 2:13 PM

////Hi Chris, even though I replied to the forums post, I wanted to also reply here in case others stumbled across this issue here first. //// Thanks, Chris. You're right -- but I can see how other people would have the same question. I think the confusion (at least for me) was when I selected all the folders/files in the zip file and dragged them over to the root of my DNN install Windows alarmed me that some folders/files already existed and asked if I wanted to "overwrite" with the new folders/files. I knew that would be OK for the files at the root, but was concerned about the "portals" and "desktopmodules" folders. After your advice, I selected "overwrite existing? Yes to all" and as you specified it worked -- MY stuff is still there. Thanks again! David

Posted By: David Lee on Wednesday, March 17, 2010 12:59 PM

Hi Chris- What will happen to the web.config file if you've modified it for specific modules. E.G. We use a shortcut/redirect module that allows us to use shorter urls (domain.com/asdf/asdf/asdf.aspx becomes domain.com/whatever). We had to add a line in the web.config file for this module to work. Will the auto upgrade see this change and carry it over or are we stuck with the manual upgrade process ? thanks!

Posted By: Curtis Eidson on Thursday, July 01, 2010 12:45 PM

Curtis, you should always backup everything before an upgrade, but if you use the UPGRADE package you shouldn't lose any other web.config changes you've made

Posted By: Chris Hammond on Thursday, July 01, 2010 12:58 PM

Thanks for the article. Worked like a charm.

Posted By: Malcolm E on Saturday, July 31, 2010 1:48 PM

Hi Chris, noyce artice. Do you know if upgrades have to be performed incrementally? eg. can I upgrade from 05.02.01 straight to 5.05.0, or should I perform each minor upgrade in between?

Posted By: Pat M on Friday, August 20, 2010 9:11 AM

@PatM I would upgrade straight from 5.2.1 to 5.5

Posted By: Chris Hammond on Friday, August 20, 2010 10:40 AM

Chris, am I correct in that this procedure leaves old files from the previous version in place and additions, deletions and changes to the baseline web.config file are not rolled forward?

Posted By: Ed Zappulla on Tuesday, November 23, 2010 8:18 AM

Ed, the upgrade procedure that runs is designed to remove unnecessary files, and would also make any web.config changes necessary for the upgrade. Assuming you are starting from DNN 4.6.2 or newer, old versions won't upgrade web.config properly.

Posted By: Chris Hammond on Tuesday, November 23, 2010 8:46 PM

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