Best way to upgrade !

[nicksab]

I have an old site in needs of serious update.

It is on ZC 1.5.6 with server running PhP 7.3

I tried (well took a glimpse) to go the winmerge option but so much as change from ZC 1.5.6 and ZC 2.1.

I have been looking at the changes on the old site and started to migrate them to the new ZC 2.1 but it is honestly a nightmare.

To anyone who did such update, what would you recommend?

Should I just scrap the old site and build a new one?

I know upgrading the database should not be an issue as Zen cart is pretty efficient for this part. It is the whole template and SEO changes and tiny other things that have me concern as I don t want the site to break or end up with missing pages and such.

Any tips on how to do an easy upgrade?

Thank you

[balihr]

Your best option is to start fresh and figure out which template to start with (hint: ZCA Bootstrap). Whatever template you're using on 1.5.6 is most likely outdated and needs A LOT of rework to run smoothly on 2.1.0. There's tons of stuff that has changed so you might not be able to simply migrate other changes - it would probably be best to take note of changes on the current site (ie. compare your site with a vanilla 1.5.6) and then see how to migrate *that* to the new site.

The database upgrade really is simple, Zen Cart handles that extremely well. Everything else - buckle up, you're in for quite a ride, but it will be an amazing learning experience.

Of course, the new site needs to be temporarily deployed on a subdomain or a different domain so you can test it and make sure everything works before you replace your current live site. Don't even think about doing it on the live site because there will be broken stuff for sure...

[pilou2]

You can use this method here: https://docs.zen-cart.com/user/upgra..._only_upgrade/
You will have to redo your customization but will keep your data and have clean new ZC.

[torvista]

Should I just scrap the old site and build a new one?

Yes.

MUCH easier to start with a working, new site and add in the "old" mods one by one and fix things as you break them.
Some of which you'll probably decide are not really needed, and you've more experience now and will do some things differently, and most mods can be used with some tweaking.

It's an opportunity to spring clean and use the much-improved possibilities of overriding core cores/using observers instead of modifying core files.

[dbltoe]

Your host may not allow different PHP settings for your test site unless you put it "above the root". cPanel instructions for setting up such a test site are available at https://myzencarthost.com/index.php?...th-cPanel.html

[swguy]

> Your host may not allow different PHP settings for your test site unless you put it "above the root".

... or they might. Ask if you can use your .htaccess file to set the PHP version. If so, you're good to go.

https://docs.zen-cart.com/user/upgra...er-your-domain

[nicksab]

Thank you all for the suggestion

Scrapping the old and starting fresh seems to be the way to go

It definitely looks like I got my work cut out on this one. I can only blame myself for holding on doing the updates as they become available.

I couldn't agree more about Spring cleaning as the old site has a lot of unused plugin /mods

[nicksab]

> Your host may not allow different PHP settings for your test site unless you put it "above the root".

... or they might. Ask if you can use your .htaccess file to set the PHP version. If so, you're good to go.

https://docs.zen-cart.com/user/upgra...er-your-domain

Php version should not be an issue. I don t remember how exactly i did it but my hosting is currently set to PhP 8.3. ( because of another site using ZC 2.0 on same hosting)

I did some kind of override on the old site that trick the server to be on PHp 7.3.

I am more concern about the new site getting indexed before it is ready and if the update takes awhile to complete

What s the best way to avoid indexing until the new site is fully operational?

For example: if i set the site to www.oldsite.com/upgrade/newsite and this url gets indexed, it could be a problem.

when the new site goes operational, the url mentioned above would return a 404 error

[swguy]

> What s the best way to avoid indexing until the new site is fully operational?

Password protect the new site using .htaccess. DO NOT rely on robots.txt.

[nicksab]

Thank you