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If you can't perform the upgrade yourself, reach out, we can assist you!


Here's an updated version of a blog post that Chris Hammond has posted a couple of different times over the past 19 years.

Upgrading DotNetNuke is actually fairly easy, you can do so with ease in most cases, though occasionally you may run into a problem or two. If you follow the steps below you should be able to recover from any issues and get your website back up and running in its original state.

If you're upgrading your DotNetNuke (DNN) instance, here is a list of simple steps to follow during the upgrade process.

First tip, test the upgrade on a staging site first, pull a copy/backup of the database and files down, try the upgrade, make sure all your functionality is still there. Then upgrade production (backup everything first!!!!!)

Here's the video, the text based tutorial can be found below:

Here’s the steps to upgrade

  1. Backup the database.
  2. Backup the file system.
  3. Make sure you did 1 & 2.
  4. Extract the latest DNN ZIP file somewhere, you should download this zip file from DotNetNuke.com, and start with the UPGRADE package. (this assumes you are upgrading from DNN 4.6.2 or greater, if not you should use the Install package but there are additional steps required.)
  5. Go into the INSTALL folder in the package you just extracted, navigate into the SKINS folder, and delete any ZIP files in the SKINS folder. No need to install any skins for your upgrade.
  6. Create an APP_OFFLINE.HTM (the name is very specific, but not case sensitive) file in the root of your website. This will take the site offline, any HTML you put into that file will be displayed while the site is offline.
  7. Copy the contents of the extracted UPGRADE package over the existing site files.
  8. Rename or delete the APP_OFFLINE.HTM file
  9. Load the website in a browser, this will cause the upgrade wizard to load. You can either type in your SuperUser (host) username and password, OR you can change the URL from upgradewizard.aspx to install.aspx, that will fire off the upgrade automagically.
  10. At this point you should be done with the upgrade itself, and now it is time to do some testing to make sure that the upgrade worked and doesn’t cause any problems on your website.
  11. Like I said, test first, just to be sure you have everything working properly.

 

Another thing you might check out is this blog post from Will Strohl that has a recommended upgrade path. While you should be able to go from 4.6.2 straight to the current release, sometimes it is better to do it in steps as Will's post lays out.