Posted By Toni Frisbie on 7/2/2024 2:06 PM
Thank you - I see it was Last Updated By Administrator Account On 6/1/2022 1:48:46 PM. I am logged in as the Administrator, and I am seeing this under Extensions:
Framework
DotNetNuke DotNetNuke Community Edition 5.6.2 Critical Update Available. [Click Here To Get The Upgrade]

So do I just need the upgrade package or do I need all of the packages from GitHub? Also, Is there a best practice to upgrading? There is not a dev site for this company, so I want to make sure I do not completely blow them out of the water. I am a sys admin by trait, not so much web app or SQL, but I am crash learning!

Thank you in advanced.

 

This is quite the old version of DNN, so you will want to go through upgrades methodically.  Here is a great document to get you started.

https://docs.dnncommunity.../upgrades/index.html

And here is a document outlining the suggested upgrade path.

https://docs.dnncommunity...rade-path/index.html

 

Yeah, that is quite an old version. Just to state the obvious don't forget to back at each of the steps in the upgrade path. Also when going for large version gaps like this, I usually like to:
- Remove any unused extensions
- Updagrade all used 3rd party extensions as per their supported DNN versions at each step

You have many breaking changes in your upgrade range so there might be some theme work needed at some version and maybe some 3rd party extensions may no longer be maintained, etc. We are help to help you through that but just make sure you backup at each version :)

Thank you for all of the responses.  I have read through everything.  I am an Infastructure person, not really a web/SQL person, so... to say I am out of my element, is an understatement.  I see I can download all of the packages I need to do the upgrade properly, I think the table below is the path I need to take.  I would love to learn and not blow up the user environment, is there a support network, that could walk through the upgrade process with me.  Like a screenshare type thing?  At least for the first one?  I did see that the Autoupgrade was set to True, so I am surprised it is this out of date.  I just do not want to break it more that it is already broke. 

05.04.04	05.06.08
05.06.08	06.02.08
06.02.08	07.04.02
07.04.02	08.00.04
08.00.04	09.01.01
09.01.01	09.03.02
09.03.02	09.13.03

Autoupgrade is meant for "once the files are there, start the upgrade for me" but it won't fetch updates automatically as this would not be supported in some environments.

If you are looking for more hands-on help you can visit https://dnncommunity.org/community/agencies to find an agency to take on that work.

If not, just make sure you backup at each step the database and web files. You are coming from quite far and there may be some themes or extensions that may no longer be maintained/supported. But we are here to help if you go step by step and can post details if you encounter failures along the way.

My usually flow is to:
1. Backup
2. Uninstall any 3rd party extension that is not used and can be made to be unused.
3. Check for updates to any 3rd party extensions that still are compatible with the installed DNN version
4. Backup again (nice step forward to revert to anyway).
5. Upgrade one step in https://docs.dnncommunity...rade-path/index.html
6. Check logs for anything unexpected and test the website parts to check everything works fine.
7. If everything went fine, new backup and repeat from step 1.
8. If there are issues, look at the Admin Logs (in the web UI), and files at portals/_default/logs, document the issues, and revert backup.