Hello:
Our last upgrade attempt in October '23 has failed, and it was beyond the hosting service’s scope to make code changes. However, they are agreeable to take a different route: by installing 3.4 on a separate server and move folders an files over to the new site.
I saw these instructions for backing up specific folders, files, and databases: https://docs.pkp.sfu.ca/faq/en/site-administration#how-can-i-create-a-backup-of-my-site. Will copying these files into the 3.4 installation work? Has this approach worked for anyone? What kinds of changes are necessary in the config.php file (email settings)? Thank you in advance for any pointers!
Did you have to change email settings in the config.inc.php file? Although we had not used PHPMailer at all; the main cause of the upgrade failure pointed to the PHPMailer in the error log. Back in 2019, our IT communications expert (no longer at the university) used a method other than PHPMailer or smtp to get authentication going. Will 3.4 require smtp for email settings?
You can choose what to use in config.inc.php; I’d suggest not touching email settings in this test install, the point is to check if the upgrade will occur without incidents; once everything is working you can check email settings and everything else in config.inc.php:
; Default method to send emails
; Available options: sendmail, smtp, log, phpmailer
default = sendmail