Software Updates and Upgrades

This article (currently in progress) covers the following two operations:

updating

Bringing an installation of X2CRM to the most recent available version

upgrading

Converting an existing X2CRM installation to Professional Edition

Using the Web Updater

The web updater can be accessed using the link in the notification message at the top of the window in versions later than 3.5.5, or by going to the Admin page and clicking the "Update" button at the top, in earlier versions.

Advantages of using the web updater: it is generally quicker and easier to use, and it does not require shell/SSH access to the web server.

Disadvantages of using the web updater: it is not, recommended for use on large installations of X2CRM, i.e. containing over a million records.

Explanation: The inherent weakness of the web updater (or any web-based updater to any web application) is that it must always rely upon web requests to the server, and it thus must perform the necessary database operations for software updates all within the scope of a web request. Thus, if any operations take exceedingly long because of the dataset that the update needs to operate on, the web request may take longer than the configured server timeout (maximum request time), thus potentially cutting short the execution of a critical update stage and requiring manual recovery.