Upgrade process

The procedure of upgrading Tracker to a newer version is even easier then the initial installation.

But before starting with the update we recommend to backup your database and the conf.vars.php file (which is located in the main Tracker’s directory). In case if something will go wrong during the update process you will always be able to go back to the previous version of Tracker.

Update the files

First you should extract all the files from the distribution archive and upload them to the same directory where you have originally installed Tracker on your server. You should upload all files and directories except directory “install” (don’t upload it, it’s only required for initial installation).

Please note that as soon as you will upload the new files, Tracker will stop tracking automatically. When you will finish with the update, tracking will automatically start again. This is done to protect the data in your database from corruption because a new version of Tracker might require an updated database structure before it will be able to function properly.

Launching the upgrade wizard

Now you are ready to launch the upgrade wizard. Just open your browser and point it to the directory on your server where Tracker is installed. For example, if the tracker is located in a directory “tracker”, use an URL similar to the one below

http://www.your-site.com/tracker/index.php

Please replace “www.your-site.com” with an actual URL of your site.

Or, if Tracker is installed on a secure site, use an URL similar to the one below:

https://www.your-secure-site.com/tracker/index.php

Please replace “www.your-secure-site.com” with an actual URL of your secure site.

If you did everything correctly – you will see the first page of the upgrade wizard (similar to the one shown below). Please note that you should be logged in as an administrator in order to see the upgrade wizard and perform an update.

Updating process

To start the updating process just click on the “Update software to version” button and follow any additional instructions that a particular update might have.

If you have more then 1 update available for installation you will see an additional option “I'd like to run all updates in one step” that you can turn on to run all updates in one step, instead of going through them one after another.

If update to a particular version requires significant database structure changes you might be asked to perform an update via a command line script. In this case, please note, that you need to use a CLI version of PHP to run the script, otherwise the update process might not finish due to PHP killing the updating script when maximum execution time specified in php.ini will be reached.

You can find more information about PHP CLI in a corresponding section of this manual.

When installation of the updates will be finished you will see a message confirming this. You can go to the Tracker’s control panel after this, the upgrade process is complete.