Script & Addon Updates

Updating by hand means downloading a ZIP, opening an FTP program and hoping nothing was missed. With this addon the admin panel asks the License Center what is new and installs it with one press, and before a single file is replaced it backs up your data and sends that backup to the License Center. Every time, so nobody has to remember to.

Switching it on

Script & Addon Updates is a premium addon: it runs when your licence package carries it, or when its own addon key is activated on this site. On Admin → Addons (in the System group of the sidebar) find Script & Addon Updates Addons and press Enable. If the card says Not included in your licence yet, use Buy this addon or I have a key (The licence key and addon keys).

The site needs an activated licence key. The License Center answers only a key that is active (or in its grace period) on a domain it knows. Without the addon you update by hand, as described in Updating to a new version.

The Updates screen

Admin → Updates (in the Addons group of the sidebar; the role needs Change system settings).

This installation shows your version and what the License Center said the last time you asked:

• Nobody has asked the licence server yet.
• You are on the newest version, or
• Version … is available. You are on …, with What changed: the release notes.

Under it are Last asked … and the Check for updates button. A check sends your licence key, your domain, the product code and your version, nothing else. When a check finds a newer version, the dashboard shows an Update available card as well.

Modules lists every addon the License Center has a release for, with the version available and its release date; a switched-on addon that is behind gets a newer badge. There is no separate button per addon: the addons that come with the script travel inside the script's update package, so updating the script brings their new files as well.

Running an update

When a newer version is available, a card Before you press this explains what will happen. Press Back up and update now and confirm. Do not close the page; on a large site it takes a few minutes.

1. Backup. Every table of the database and your uploads folder are packed into one ZIP (only the database, as a .sql file, when the host has no zip extension).
2. Sent away. The backup is uploaded to the License Center: Backup stored on the licence server (… MB).
3. Download. Only now does the License Center hand over the update. It refuses unless this site's backup arrived within the last half hour: Send this site's backup first — the update is handed over once it is safely here.
4. Unpack. The new files are written over the old ones. Never touched: config.php (it holds your database password), .htaccess, the uploads folder and install.php. Files the update does not ship are left alone.

What happened then lists each step with a tick or a cross and its message. Finish with Run the database update, which opens db_update.php and adds whatever the new version needs in the database.

If a step fails, the steps after it do not run, and the message says why: no connection to the License Center, a backup larger than it accepts (That backup is larger than this server accepts.), files the server may not write, or This host has no zip support, so the update cannot be unpacked here.

If something goes wrong

There is no rollback button. The Your last backup card shows when the last pre-update backup was taken, its size, and that it is kept On the licence server. Open a support ticket (Admin → License → Contact the script author) and quote that date: support can send the backup back.

A copy of the same package also stays on your own server, in uploads/backups/, named pre-update- with the date and time. If you have Backup & Restore, download that file with cPanel's File Manager and upload it on its Restore card like any other backup.

The addon's settings

The addon's settings have one box, Look for updates once a day. In this version nothing checks by itself: open Admin → Updates and press Check for updates now and then, and whenever you hear of a new release.

Tips

• Run an update at a quiet hour, when nobody is in the middle of an invoice.
• Take a backup of your own with Backup & Restore as well if you have it; two copies in two places are better than one.
• If an addon's page says it needs setting up after an update, press Repair this module there, or run the database update again.