Updating all extensions

Valeyard

If you want to update all extensions/plugins at once, the easiest way is to make a list of all the package maintainers (other than core) that you use (this is the first part of the extension name given to composer to the left of the forward-slash) and do this:

composer update fof/"*" acpl/"*" askvortsov/"*" clarkwinkelmann/"*" datlechin/"*" the-turk/"*"
php flarum migrate
php flarum cache:clear

Make sure you're using the composer update command and not composer require. Some extensions recommend running the migrate command when you update, but typically nothing will happen so it's fine to run that command whether its required or not.

Core extensions are updated when you update Flarum, it's probably best not to try and update them manually.

luceos

Valeyard you can run composer update like this:

composer update -W --prefer-dist --no-dev -a

This updates everything at once, including all dependencies.

Valeyard

luceos Yeah but that will update any non-Flarum stuff as well that's managed by Flarum will it not?

CyberGene

luceos do I have to temporarily stop the forum from being accessible before doing that? I mean, is there any risk in just doing this thing live, followed by migrate and clear while people are actively browsing the forum, is there any risk of DB corruption or something?

luceos

Valeyard that is intentional and recommended. But I guess it depends on what you want to achieve.

Your command only updates extensions for the current Flarum version, whereas mine updates everything including Flarum itself. If you just want a simple command to update your Flarum installation my command is recommended, then run php flarum migrate && php flarum cache:clear.

As we suggest everyone to upgrade as soon as possible to the latest Flarum versions, my command would suit that need.

Valeyard

luceos Yeah that's right, but there's two different things to achieve there.

You don't want to run a command to update plugins and suddenly find unwanted behaviour because a new Flarum version has just been released which you haven't seen and haven't had time to check compatibility with your system, plus you need to take a full backup of your forum including the database before upgrading core.

luceos As we suggest everyone to upgrade as soon as possible to the latest Flarum versions, my command would suit that need.

While that's ideal indeed, most people won't do this. Remind me again how out of date is the blue forum?! vB 4.2.2 Patch Level 4 released in 2015 and incompatible with PHP version 5.5 or later. People are sometimes determined to run obsolete stuff for as long as possible, forum software is not immune to that. I reckon most people will take at least a couple of months to update core, and many will take a LOT longer than that, some will just continue running the version they first installed forever unless something breaks.

At some point you should probably think about putting a persistent nag notice in the forum admin area for when the major version is out of date by more than a month or two.

luceos

CyberGene make a backup first and then run those commands. In most cases this won't be an issue, especially between minor Flarum versions. You can put flarum into a maintenance mode by adding (or updating) the key maintenance in your config.php and giving it a value true, use false to disable it again, eg:


return [
    "debug" => false,
    "maintenance" true,
    // .. the rest comes here
];

Valeyard At some point you should probably think about putting a persistent nag notice in the forum admin area for when the major version is out of date by more than a month or two.

This is the plan, Extiverse Mercury can already send the admin an email about updates: https://github.com/extiverse/mercury#cronjob