Table of content

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Manual update

Doing a manual update is a long and detailed process, which should only be use used out of necessity – for instance, if you cannot make an automatic update.

Therefore, manual updates should be reserved to experts, meaning : those who know how to use development tools such as WAMP, phpMyAdmin, etc. If this is not your case, you should ask a friend or pay a developer to help you. Do anticipate spending one or two hours, maybe more: take the time to do things right.

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From the start of the process, your online shop should be disabled (in "maintenance" mode") so as to make sure that your clients will not lose their carts and orders during the update process. In effect, this means that your shop will be closed for business during the whole process (one to two hours).

Quick instructions

This short section is aimed at those who are already familiar with installing and updating PHP/MySQL web applications on a server. Should you not feel comfortable with their the lack of details, you will find detailed instructions in the section sections following this one.

The steps of the upgrade process are:

1. Save and Backup Your Current Store:
   • Deactivate your store ("Maintenance" page of the "Preferences" menu).
   • Back up your files to your desktop, using your FTP client in a new "prestashop-prod" folder. This will be a complete copy of your production site.
   • Back up your database ("Advanced Parameters/DB Backup" page, or using phpMyAdmin).
   • Back up your customized translation ("Export a language" section in "Tools/Translations" tab).
2. Getting ready for the new version:
   • Download and unzip the latest version of PrestaShop: http://www.prestashop.com/en/download, and unpack it in a new "prestashop-prep" folder.
   • Copy your personal files (images, logos, photos, translations, modules, etc.) from "prestashop-prod" to "prestashop-prep" on your computer. A detailed list is available further down in this guide.
   • Copy the "prestashop-prep" folder to the web folder on your local server (/htdocs, /www, or any other name used by the server package you chose). This is the folder where you will first try to upgrade your PrestaShop, keeping your original backed-up files (prestashop-prod) and the files you prepared (prestashop-prep).
   • Recreate the production database on your local server: using phpMyAdmin, create a local database in which you will put the data from your production shop, using the SQL files that were backed-up at the start of the process.
3. Starting the Local Update:
   • Launch the update script on your local server by accessing it with your browser. In version 1.5, that script is located at /install/upgrade/upgrade.php.
   • Verification of all parameters before the update: follow the instructions on screen and make sure your server conforms to the new version technical requirements.
   • Finishing the update: once the updater has finished, delete the /install folder and access both your front and back-office to make sure it works.
4. QA and Testing:
   • Import your translations ("Import a language pack manually" section in "Localization/Translations" page).
   • Check that your theme is still working as expected. If this is not the case, you will have to edit its files.
   • Test your shop thoroughly: create accounts, buy products, cancel orders, check the invoices, etc.
5. Start the update on your production web server:
   • Using your FTP client, replace the files for your online shop with those from your "prestashop-prep" folder.
   • Launch the update script on your production server by accessing it with your browser. In version 1.5, that script is located at /install/upgrade/upgrade.php.
   • Verification of all parameters before the update: follow the instructions on screen and make sure your server conforms to the new version technical requirements.
   • Finishing the update: once the updater has finished, delete the /install folder and access both your front and back-office to make sure it works.
   • Import your translations ("Import a language pack manually" section in "Localization/Translations" page).
   • Check that the main domain name is correct ("Preferences / SEO & URLs" page, "Shop URL" section).
   • Regenerate your robots.txt files ("Preferences / SEO & URLs" page, "Generate robots.txt" section).
   • Check that your theme still works as expected. If not, you will have to edit its files.
   • Test your store thoroughly: create accounts, buy products, cancel orders, check invoices, etc.
6. Going live with your up-to-date store
   • Activate your store ("Maintenance" page under the "Preferences" menu).

You're done! Enjoy all the new features brought by this update!

Step 1 – Save and Backup Your Current Store

Deactivating Your Store

Go to your store's back-office, open the "Maintenance" page under the "Preference" menu, then select "No" for the "Enable Shop" option.

In the "Maintenance IP" field, located just below the "Enable Shop" one, enter your own IP address, so that you can keep on using your store during the update. This will allow you to test the front-office of your store, while still making sure visitors cannot access the website.
In order to find out your IP address, visit this page: http://whatismyipaddress.com/

Backing Up Your Files

You must back up all of the files related to your PrestaShop store, and store them on your computer.

There are two main ways of backing up your files:

• Ask your hosting company to back up your files.
  Make sure that this backup is fully functional, recent, and more importantly that it reflects the content of your current store.

...or...

• Copy all of your files from your server to your local computer using an FTP client.
  This method is only possible if your hosting provider has provided you with an FTP access to your server. Create a "prestashop-prod" folder on the Desktop of your computer, then, using an FTP client (such as the free FileZilla client, which you can download at http://filezilla-project.org/), select all the PrestaShop files and folders on your server (use the Ctrl-A command) and copy them to that local "prestashop-prod" folder.

Backing Up Your Database

You must absolutely back up the whole database for your PrestaShop store.

There are three different ways to back up your database:

• Ask you hosting provider to back up your database.
  Make sure that your database backup is functional, recent, and especially that it contains all of your data for your PrestaShop Store.

...or...

• Download a database backup from your PrestaShop back-office.
  Go to the the "DB Backup" page, then follow the instructions on the page.

  Info
  This page is available from: PrestaShop 1.4: under the "Tools" tab, in the "DB Backup" sub-tab. PrestaShop 1.5: under the "Advanced parameters", in the "DB Backup" page.

  This process will take between 1 and 20 minutes depending on the size of your database, after you will see a link appear on the page, titled "Download the Backup file (size)". Click it, and make sure this backup is functional, recent, and especially that it contains of all the data of your website. Open the zip file and make sure that there are absolutely NO ERRORS in the .sql file it contains before proceeding to the next step.

...or...

• Download a copy of your database via phpMyAdmin.
  Be sure that your database backup is functional, recent, and especially that it contains all of your data for your PrestaShop Store. If your database is too big, you might receive an error. If that is the case, you will need to contact your hosting provider.

Keep that backup in the "prestashop-prod" folder on your computer, which you should have created in the previous step and should contain your files.

Backing up Your Customized Translation

If you did not edit the available translations or add new ones (either PrestaShop's or your modules'), please proceed to step 2.

To save your translation changes:

1. Navigate to the "Translations" page in your back-office.

   Info
   This page is available from: PrestaShop 1.4: under the "Tools" tab, in the "Translations" sub-tab. PrestaShop 1.5: under the "Localization" menu, in the "Translations" page.

2. In the section "Export a Language" select the language to which you have made any modifications, then select your current theme, and click "Export".
3. Save the downloaded file into the "prestashop-prod" folder on your local computer.

Do this for all your custom languages, both those you created/added and those you modified/corrected.

Step 2 - Getting Ready for the New Version

Downloading and Unzipping of the Latest PrestaShop Version

Visit http://www.prestashop.com and download the latest version of PrestaShop (click the "Download" button on the homepage, fill in the form then validate).

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In that "/prestashop-prep" folder, select the "/admin" folder and give it the same name as the administration folder of your production store. For instance, if you're "prestashop-prod" uses the name admin123, give that same name to the /admin folder in your "prestashop-prep" folder.

Copying the files that were backed up in "prestashop-prod" to the new "prestashop-prep" folder

Now comes the part where you will copy the files that are unique to your production shop into the folders of the new version. In practice, the idea is to build a "prestashop-prep" folder that would contain both the latest version of the standard files for PrestaShop, and all the files that you created and put online since you installed PrestaShop: images, logos, pictures, translations, modules, etc.
This is an important step, because it enables you to safe-keep all the customizations from your store. Take the time to follow these instructions.

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• /mails. Has all the mails templates, including those that you have modified.
  If you have never made any mail template modification, do not worry about this folder.
• /img. Contains your logo and all the pictures of your store (categories, products, etc.). Take good care of these specific files and folders:
  • logo.jpg - your store's logo
  • favicon.ico - your store's favicon
  • logo_stores.gif - your store's logo for the Store Locator's map
  • /c - your categories' images
  • /cms - your CMS page's images
  • /co - your attributes textural colors
  • /m - your manufacturers' logos
  • /p - your products pictures
  • /scenes - your categories' image-maps
  • /st - your physical stores' photos
  • /su - your suppliers' logos
  • ...basically, copy all folders except /img/admin and /img/jquery-ui.
• /modules. Only copy the modules that you have added since you installed PrestaShop for the first (and which where therefore not part of the default installation).
  • Some of these modules might not be currently enabled or even installed: it is up to you to determine whether they are still useful to you, and thus deserve to be copied to the updated installation.
  • Also, do note that you will most probably have to update the modules that were not built with the new PrestaShop version in mind.
• /themes/themeName. Only copy your current theme.
  • If you use the default theme from PrestaShop (unchanged), do not copy its folder (/themes/prestashop): you must use the one from the new version (/themes/default).
  • If you have made changes to the default theme, do copy its folder.
• /download and /upload. Contain all the downloadable products, the attached files and the customizable products. If you do no use any of these functionalities, do not copy these folders.

• /classes. In case you have added customized classes to this folder, copy them to the new /classesfolder.

  Warning

  When updating from a version below 1.4, you must manually edit these classes that you have customized. You do not have to edit classes that you didn't customize. In order to function properly with the latest version of PrestaShop, all these class files need to have their class name suffixed with "Core". Do not attempt these if you are not comfortable with PHP files. Here is how to you should edit the customized files that you want to keep: Copy the class files that you have customized into the /classes folder in "prestashop-prep". Open each and every one of the class files, and find the ones where the class name is not Core-suffixed. If you are upgrading from PrestaShop 1.4.x, you shouldn't have any (except for custom classes). Rename the class name, adding the "Core" suffix. For instance, "MyClass" becomes "MyClassCore". Only change the name in the PHP class within file, not the name of the file itself! If all the files already have "Core" in their classname (such as "class AttributeCore extends ObjectModel"), then you do not need to change anything. Save the edited files.

• /config. You only have to copy one file, but it is essential: the settings.inc.php file.
• /translations - if you are using another language than the ones available in the default installation, you will have to copy that language's folder in the /translations folder of the new installation. Failing that, the update will not work properly.

Your "prestashop-prep" folder is now ready. You are not to touch it again, and will only work using a copy of it from now on.

Moving the "prestashop-prep" folder to your local server

The "prestashop-prep" folder, which you initially unzipped from the archive of the latest PrestaShop version, now contains all of your customizations from the "prestashop-prod" folder (and therefore, from your shop, which is currently running online – and should still be in maintenance mode). In this next step, you will copy this folder to your local web server, in order to test that the update does run without any issue.

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Put the "prestashop-prep" at the root of the web folder of your local web server.

Recreating the production database locally

The local files should now be up to date, but the database also needs to be updated. This is what the update script is for. It is part of the files from the new PrestaShop 1.5 version.

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1. Open the phpMyAdmin tool, which should be available on your local server. Most of the time, it is located at http://127.0.0.1/phpmyadmin, or sometimes http://127.0.0.1/mysql.
2. If it is not already the case, create a new database especially for this project. Give it a distinctive name, like "prestashop_update" or even the database name for your production store, for instance.
   If you have already created a database for a previous local update test, just delete all of its tables.
3. Open de database, and click on the "Import" tab, located at the top of the screen.

4. Click on the "Browse" button and select the backup .sql file from your production store, which should be in the "prestashop-prod" folder.
   Check that the "Max." value displayed by phpMyAdmin is higher than the .sql file's size. If not, you will have to edit your local server's php.ini, particularly the upload_max_filesize value, the post_max_size value or even the memory_limitvalue as a last resort. This being done, restart the local Apache and MySQL servers in order to apply your modifications.

   Tip
   Instead of changing the server settings, you can also try compressing the .sql the file using a Zip tool, such as http://www.7-zip.org/. phpMyAdmin should accept .sql.zip files, and will take care of uncompressing the file before importing the data.

5. Click on the "Go" button to import the SQL file's content.

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PrestaShop can now access your production database on your local server, all you have to do is to start the update script.

Checking everything before going any further

Did you follow these steps?

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If you did do all that, then you can continue to Step 3.

Step 3 – Starting the Update

Launching the update script

Visit your store's update script URL; for instance: http://127.0.0.1/prestashop-prep/install/upgrade/upgrade.php (Replace "prestashop-prep" with the actual name of the folder that you have copied in your local server's web folder).

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For the most part, the update script takes care of updating the SQL database, which can prove a very arduous task in itself. It also handles the update of the config/settings.inc.php configuration file, depending on your configuration and environment, as well as other aspects of PrestaShop's inner working.

Finishing the local update

Once the update is finished, a XML file should be displayed in your browser. This is expected, but can surprise you, since it doesn't look like any regular web page, and each browser has its own way of displaying it. For instance, Firefox will first display a warning message, "This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below", above the content of the XML file itself. This will be improved in later versions of the script.

It should begin with the following line:

<action result="ok" error="">

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On your local web server, inside the /prestashop-prep folder, you should delete:

• The {{/install} folder, which contains the install script.
• The README files, which contain information about the PrestaShop install.
• The CHANGELOG file, which contains information about the latest changes in PrestaShop.

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Now go to your store's administration page, using your customized /admin folder name. You will have to log in using your usual credentials. Browse through the various administration page and check if the content is indeed there and that all the back-office pages do work, then take the store out of maintenance mode in order to explore the front-office pages the way a regular visitor would, and make sure that they all work.

If the update fails

All of the updates do not run smoothly, and for very different reasons. In order to help you, the update script displays an error code at the beginning of the XML result. In case of an error, the page starts like so:

<action result="fail" error="27" />

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• Delete all the files from the local web folder, and replace them with those from the "prestashop-prep" folder, which are pristine because they were kept untouched.
• Delete all the tables from the test database, and replace them with those from the original installation.

Step 4 - QA and Testing

Import your Translations

If you did export your custom translations during step 1 (Backups), import them back into your new store by going to the "Localization" menu, then the "Translations" page, then use the "Import a language pack manually" section.

Tests to be done on your local test store

To make sure that everything is working properly on your updated local store, you should perform a few tests:

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If every test is successful, congratulations! Proceed to step 5.

Step 5 - Starting the Update on your production store

Now that you've reached this stage, you should have succeeded in updating your shop on your local server. In doing so, you get a better guarantee that performing the update on your web hosting will go smoothly. Your "prestashop-prep" folder contains all the necessary files, because you have changed its content based on issues noticed during your tests from the previous step.

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1. Using your FTP client, replace the files in your online store with those from your "prestashop-prep" folder.
   You should have nothing to worry about, because all your files have been backed up at the beginning of the process in the "prestashop-prod" folder, so you can return to this backup at any time. Ditto for your database, which has also been saved in the "prestashop-prod" folder as .sql file.
2. Run the update script on your production shop, by accessing it using your browser. In version 1.5, the script is located at /install/upgrade/upgrade.php.
3. Check all settings before updating: Follow the on-screen instructions and make sure that your server meets the technical requirements of the new version.
4. End of update: Once the update is complete, remove the /install and browse your front-office and your back-office to make sure everything works.

Step 6 - QA and Testing

You need to again perform all the tests already carried out locally, to ensure that nothing fails despite the change from a local environment to a production environment.

Import your translations

If you did export your custom translations during step 1 (Backups), import them back into your new store by going to the "Localization" menu, then the "Translations" page, then use the "Import a language pack manually" section.

Check the main Domain Name

You should verify that the domain name assigned in the database is indeed the one that you are working with. To do so, visit the "Preferences" menu, then the "SEO & URLs" page.

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Tests to perform on your updated production store

You must make sure that everything is working properly on your update store. These are a few tests to perform:

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If every test is successful, congratulations!

Step 7 - Activating your store

Great! You are now at the end of the update process!

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