Updating from 3.7

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Rumbles
Posts: 16
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2014 1:31 am

Updating from 3.7

Post by Rumbles »

Hello,

I am trying to update a Timetrex install from 3.7. The website is hosted on an external web server.

Before I update our current install I need to do a test run with a copy of the website to ensure it doesn't break anything.

I tried exporting the database, creating a new database and importing the export in to it. Copying the main folder, and the folder with the tmp, storage and logs folders to new folders (preserving the permissions). I then updated the timetrex.ini.php file with the new database details, and new folder location of the tmp, logs and storage folders. Created a new subdomain and pointed it to the new folder on the host machine.

When I try to load the page, the apache logs show a GET request, but that's it. In my web browser I get nothing but a blank page

Sadly, the web host doesn't allow me to see the apache error logs.

Is there anything glaringly obvious I haven't done that needs to be done?

I also tried deleting the tmp folder contents, in case something in there was causing a problem, I still get a blank page.

Also, I notice in this document:

http://help.timetrex.com/index.php?titl ... _Questions

It mentions running backup_database.bat, and then deleting everything down to line 97 which should contain:

\connect timetrex

Is doing an export from MySQL going to have the same effect? Since I didn't see any reference to \connect timetrex in the exported database, can I assume this is only relevant when performing a backup on a Windows install?

Thanks for any help
shaunw
Posts: 7839
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 2:22 pm

Re: Updating from 3.7

Post by shaunw »

Since you can't see the Apache error logs, I assume you are using a shared hosting provider which isn't supported. This is just one of the many reasons, its virtually impossible to fix errors that you can't actually see.
Rumbles
Posts: 16
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2014 1:31 am

Re: Updating from 3.7

Post by Rumbles »

So can I assume even if we were paying for support the support team wouldn't be able to help us update?
Rumbles
Posts: 16
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2014 1:31 am

Re: Updating from 3.7

Post by Rumbles »

Also, yes we are using a shared hosting platform, it's been set up on there for a number of years, prior to me taking over the management of the service
shaunw
Posts: 7839
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 2:22 pm

Re: Updating from 3.7

Post by shaunw »

While you can purchase a support package to have us assist you, it wouldn't make financial sense, since without being able to see the error logs, what should be less than an hour to fix would likely take several hours or even days, costing thousands of dollars. It would make more sense to pay a few extra dollars per month and move off a shared hosting environment.

Of course you could always consider our free cloud hosted service as well.
Rumbles
Posts: 16
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2014 1:31 am

Re: Updating from 3.7

Post by Rumbles »

I have found and fixed the issue (.htaccess file didn't copy over, my mistake I tried to copy * without realising someone had added a htaccess file to handle the varying php versions available on the server), but running the install.php process seems to have killed the server, I'm waiting for the hosting provider to fix it now. I think the install might have eaten all the resources available to the user on the server... but I have no evidence to back that up...

I'm guessing updating from 3.7 to 7.7.4 probably wasn't a great idea, but I don't see any other point releases between 3.7 and 7, so I don't believe it is possible to run each point release in turn to update to the latest version.

I noticed this post:

http://forums.timetrex.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6646

Which says there is no method to migrate our data from an on site install to a cloud version, is that correct? If so, migrating to the cloud platform wouldn't be an option as we need to retain our data.

Also, this part of your website:

https://timetrex.com/store.php?product_ ... p=software

Quotes the cost (for ~60 users) at $164.75 a month. I see no mention of a free version of the hosted platform. Can you send me a link?

Thanks
shaunw
Posts: 7839
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 2:22 pm

Re: Updating from 3.7

Post by shaunw »

Shared hosting providers often severely limit the available resources to any one customer (that is their business model after all), so trying to perform an upgrade that may need to make large modifications to the database schema is likely to exceed these restrictions and fail. Again, one of the reasons why we don't support shared hosting environments, they are simply not designed to run an enterprise class application like TimeTrex and you are pretty much guaranteed to run into problems that are not fixable due to these restrictions.

Below is the link to sign-up for the free cloud community edition:
http://www.timetrex.com/cloud_community.php
Rumbles
Posts: 16
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2014 1:31 am

Re: Updating from 3.7

Post by Rumbles »

Thanks for the response, can you confirm whether there is no method to migrate our data from an on site install to a cloud version? If so, migrating to the cloud platform wouldn't be an option as we need to retain our data.

Also, since you only test upgrades from the previous year of versions, is it possible to go from point release to point release? In other words can I download a 4.x version, 5, 6, and then 7 and update from 3 > 4 > 5 > 6 > 7? If so is it possible to get these point releases from somewhere, I can't see any full archive on sourceforge.

At the moment, since you've recommended we update, I am looking at ways around this issue, one of them being copying the database and other files onto a local machine, and updating everything on that machine, then copying the files back on to the remotely hosted platform. If that fails for some reason I would like to know whether it would be possible to try what I have suggested above.

Thanks
shaunw
Posts: 7839
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 2:22 pm

Re: Updating from 3.7

Post by shaunw »

That is correct, at this time there is no automated way to migrate data to/from our cloud hosted service.

Older versions of TimeTrex are not available for download anymore, we always recommend upgrading to the most recent version.
Rumbles
Posts: 16
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2014 1:31 am

Re: Updating from 3.7

Post by Rumbles »

So if you have an old version installed what is the recommended way to move forward?

You can't move your data to the cloud, updates aren't tested to work with older versions and the older versions which have been tested cannot be downloaded.

Is there any way to update to the newer version then? Or are you just stuck on the old version forever?
shaunw
Posts: 7839
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 2:22 pm

Re: Updating from 3.7

Post by shaunw »

The latest version of TimeTrex (v7.4.4) will attempt to upgrade all older versions of TimeTrex, however we do not test upgrading versions older than one year, that does not mean it won't work with versions older than one year. The upgrade may work, if so great, if not then additional measures will need to be taken of course.
Rumbles
Posts: 16
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2014 1:31 am

Re: Updating from 3.7

Post by Rumbles »

What additional measures are you referring to?

How do you know if it hasn't worked? Is there any way to test to make sure the data in your database hasn't been ruined except for waiting for someone to find something is missing/corrupted, or checking every data entry?
shaunw
Posts: 7839
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 2:22 pm

Re: Updating from 3.7

Post by shaunw »

Rumbles wrote:What additional measures are you referring to?

How do you know if it hasn't worked? Is there any way to test to make sure the data in your database hasn't been ruined except for waiting for someone to find something is missing/corrupted, or checking every data entry?
Additional measures meaning further troubleshooting.

If the upgrade works, the data is unlikely to be corrupted, its only if the upgrade fails that data corruption is possible (especially if you are using MySQL), however thats where further troubleshooting can help determine what happens and how it can be fixed.
Rumbles
Posts: 16
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2014 1:31 am

Re: Updating from 3.7

Post by Rumbles »

Okay, well I have managed to make a copy of our company data to a local machine (CentOS 5), I used php53 (even though I am told, the old timetrex(3.7) install had to run on php51 (or <php53) for compatibility reasons, since the new TT relies on >php53 I felt there was no other choice) and MySQL5 (the host it will be going on only supports MySQL, so I cannot use postgreSQL).

I copied the database over, and then copied the logs, tmp and storage directories over to the new server, unzipped the Community Edition to the web space, used httpd to serve the webpages, I ran the Install procedure as described in the README, which completed quite quickly and reported no errors.

I tried logging in with my own admin login, which worked fine. I then asked payroll to check it out, they told me the password they had on the other site didn't work for them, which is strange, I've asked them to confirm that they were definitely using the right password (as we have 2 companies and 2 installs) which they said they were. I then reset their password to something new for them, and they are able to get in without issue. This isn't a major problem, as long as we can reset passwords if and when this issue pops up, it's just slightly worrying that this could be a sign that there is something bigger amiss.

However, a more worrying issue, if I log in and browse to Employee > Employees, and double click on a user record I get the following MySQL error. The next time I load a record up I don't get the error again, if I log out and back in, I get the error the first time I load a record up. I have asked payroll to do the same as I did, and they advised they did not get an error. Can you explain what this error means, and whether there is anything that can be done to fix the issue:

Code: Select all

ERROR: Failed calling method: getPolicyGroup as part of serivce: policy.APIPolicyGroup! Exception: mysqli error: [1064: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '* )
					from	policy_group_user as a,
							policy_group as b
					where	b.id =' at line 1] in EXECUTE("
					select	count( a.* )
					from	policy_group_user as a,
							policy_group as b
					where	b.id = a.policy_group_id
						AND a.policy_group_id = 1
					")
 Arguments: array(1) {
  [0]=>
  array(2) {
    ["filter_data"]=>
    array(2) {
      ["id"]=>
      array(1) {
        [0]=>
        string(1) "1"
      }
      ["company_id"]=>
      string(1) "1"
    }
    ["filter_items_per_page"]=>
    int(1)
  }
}
 BackTrace: #0.Debug::backTrace()
#1.ServiceMapper->invokeService(policy.APIPolicyGroup, getPolicyGroup, Array(1), Array(1))
#2.call_user_func_array(Array(2), Array(4))
#3.SabreAMF_CallbackServer->invokeService(policy.APIPolicyGroup, getPolicyGroup, Array(1), Array(1))
#4.SabreAMF_CallbackServer->exec()
#5.ServiceMapper->exec()
Thanks for your help
shaunw
Posts: 7839
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 2:22 pm

Re: Updating from 3.7

Post by shaunw »

That is a known issue that only affects MySQL, it will be resolved in the next release which should be out in a day or two.
shaunw
Posts: 7839
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 2:22 pm

Re: Updating from 3.7

Post by shaunw »

v7.4.5 was released this evening, which fixes the issue you described above.
Rumbles
Posts: 16
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2014 1:31 am

Re: Updating from 3.7

Post by Rumbles »

Thanks,

I'll look to try it out on my test box next week.

Since this issue has been discovered within a month I am worried that I am updating to some unstable software here, so I am now averse to updating to the latest version until it has been out in the wild for an extended period. Can you confirm if there is any kind of Trac, or otherwise so I can see if any other bugs have been discovered/reported in the current version of the software, or whether there is a stable release of Timetrex I can use rather than a bleeding edge release?
shaunw
Posts: 7839
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 2:22 pm

Re: Updating from 3.7

Post by shaunw »

Rumbles wrote:Thanks,

I'll look to try it out on my test box next week.

Since this issue has been discovered within a month I am worried that I am updating to some unstable software here, so I am now averse to updating to the latest version until it has been out in the wild for an extended period. Can you confirm if there is any kind of Trac, or otherwise so I can see if any other bugs have been discovered/reported in the current version of the software, or whether there is a stable release of Timetrex I can use rather than a bleeding edge release?
We don't recommend using TimeTrex with MySQL and I believe its less then 1% of our install base now, and about 99.99% of those are community edition users, therefore we rely almost solely on reports from this tiny community user base to help find and report MySQL specific bugs, that is one reason why this bug wasn't caught earlier. Combine this with the fact that upgrades on MySQL are much more error prone than PostgreSQL, MySQL users are less likely to upgrade often too.

If you want to help contribute to the stability of TimeTrex on MySQL you could help by upgrading as soon as possible after a release. The longer people wait to upgrade the more likely bugs are to persist for longer periods of time and more likely we are to get them fixed sooner as well. If bugs start persisting for longer periods of time it simply tells us there is a lack of interest in TimeTrex supporting MySQL and we're more likely to remove support of MySQL completely. So we urge people who use MySQL to upgrade as soon as possible and be vocal about any issues that do arise.

Having said that we continue to upgrade our automated unit tests to help catch bugs like this in an automated fashion before they are released, unfortunately this particular one squeezed by, but we have since further improved these unit tests to catch such bugs in the future. There are fewer issues with MySQL then there ever have been in the past, but issues still do crop up from time to time.
Rumbles
Posts: 16
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2014 1:31 am

Re: Updating from 3.7

Post by Rumbles »

I downloaded 7.4.5 last week, but I went on source forge earlier to check whether it had been superseded since only to find that 7.4.5 isn't listed on sourceforge any more. Nor is it listed on the changelog. Has this version been withdrawn for some reason?
Rumbles
Posts: 16
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2014 1:31 am

Re: Updating from 3.7

Post by Rumbles »

I'm going to assume the answer for that would be yes, as I see that 7.4.6 has been released overnight... I'll have a test with that when I get a chance...
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