Upgrade from previous versions of phpBB 2

How to upgrade your phpBB 2 forum to the new branch of the forum software phpBB 3 you can find in this tutorial. The instructions below refer to upgrading from one version of the phpBB 2 to another phpBB 2 release. If you are currently using a stable release of phpBB 2, updating to the newest version is straightforward. You would have downloaded one of three packages and your choice determines what you need to do. Before the upgrade we heavily recommend that you do a full backup of your database and existing phpBB2 source files!Please find detailed instructions how to backup your phpBB system here.

MySQL Users Please Note:

Changes introduced in 2.0.4 may increase the size of your database, more specifically the search_wordmatch table. There are other changes in that release which are designed to reduce the database size. However these additional changes may not apply to all types of forum (particularly non-English boards). For the sake of this tutorial we will assure that you are upgrading from 2.0.21 to 2.0.22 phpBB.

Using the Full package.

Download the “Full package” package (“phpBB-2.0.22-files.tar.gz” in this example) from http://www.phpbb.com/downloads.php First you should make a copy of your existing config.php and keep it in a safe place! Suppose that your forum is installed in the forum folder and your domain name is yourdomain.comYou should find your config.php file in your public_html/forum folder. The next thing to do is to delete all existing phpBB 2 files. Do not leave any in place or you may encounter errors later. You can leave alternative templates in-place but you should note they may not function correctly with the final release. It is therefore recommended you switch back to subSilver template if you are currently using a different style. When ready you can upload the new phpBB 2.0.0 files. Once the upload is complete, please copy back your saved config.php and replacing the new one with the old one. You should now run yourdomain.com/install/update_to_latest.php which, depending on your previous version, will make a number of database changes. You may receive FAILURES during this procedure. They should not be a cause for concern unless you see an actual ERROR, in which case the script will stop. RC-2 and below MSSQL users RC-2 and below MSSQL users, please note that during the update procedure your existing forums table will be dropped and re-created. All data in standard fields will be retained. However if you have modified the forums table and added additional fields or altered existing ones these changes WILL be lost. If this is a significant issue for you we advise you comment out the “DROP FORUM TABLE” section in update_to_latest.php and instead, manually alter the forum_id column to remove the IDENTITY setting (if it exists).Once the update_to_latest.php has completed you MUST proceed to the Administration General Configuration panel and check all the values in General Configuration. This is essential if you were running any version before RC-3 since extra information needs to be entered to enable correct URLs to be output in emails.

Using the Changed files only

Download the changed files only package (phpBB-2.0.22-files.tar.gz in this example) from http://www.phpbb.com/downloads.php This package contains a number of archives, each containing the files changed from a given release to the latest version. You should select the appropriate archive for your current version, e.g. if you currently have 2.0.21 you should select the phpBB-2.0.21_to_2.0.22.zip/tar.gz file.Please, exctract the archive to your local computer. Then upload the files to your hosting account. More information on how to upload your files via FTP can be found here. The directory structure has been preserved enabling you (if you wish) to simply upload the contents of the archive to the appropriate location on your server, i.e. simply overwrite the existing files with the new versions. Do not forget that if you have installed any Mods these files will overwrite the originals possibly destroying them in the process. You will need to re-add Mods to any affected file before uploading. So lets say that your forum is installed in the forum folder and your domain name is yourdomain.comYou should upload all the files in your public_html/forum folder and overwrite the existing files.As for the other upgrade procedures you should run the install/update_to_latest.php after you have finished updating the files. This will update your database schema and increment the version number. Once the update_to_latest.php has completed you MUST proceed to the Administration General Configuration panel and check all the values in General Configuration. Please, feel free to contact us if you have any questions or recommendations about this tutorial .