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Upgrading with GoDaddy as Host (step by step)

Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 7:53 am
by dgu56
Carl Galloway was kind enough to help me here on another thread, and he warned me that upgrading Serendipity when using GoDaddy might prove troublesome. I managed alright, and thought I'd give a step by step for other newbies like me.

1) download Serendipity 1.03 (latest version) to your computer. Extract files.

2) Remember where the Serendipity folder is, leave them there; then go to your GoDaddy account.

3) After logging on, go to my account, go to hosting, then to manage, then to Ftp file transfer. (GoDaddy users will know how to do this). Click on that, and two boxes will open. There is a warning above that the Ftp will not work on large file transfers. Have faith. I did it somehow, and so can you.

4) You will see the Serendipity folder in your uploaded files (in right box). Perfect, no problem. Now go to the left side box and search through your computer files till you find the Serendipity folder with all the extracted files. NOTE: this is not the Serndipity_1.03 folder, but the one inside that, just plain Serendipity (just like the folder on the right side of the screen).

5) Now you have one Serendipity folder on the left side, and one Serendipity folder on your right side. Click on the little transfer arrow symbol that points right. The transfer (upload) will begin.

6) This took about 10 minutes at DSL upload speed. There will be lots of flashes and little messages as the process continues. Finally, it will say transfer complete.

7) Log off GoDaddy. Go to your browser favorites and click on your blog address. It will not come up. Your website is destroyed and..No, wait-It's a message from Serendipity stating just a few more things need to be done. It will walk you through. The first message says it knows you are attempting to upgrade, which made me feel uncomfortable enough to draw the blinds tighter. I wish they wouldn't watch all the time...

8) Everything should be fine after the walk-through. A few tips (notice how the newbie gets cocky, now): Godaddy likes to limit your time at the control panel, so only open it just before you upload. Don't anger the upload gods by staying too long onsite. It flashes a message saying your time is up, and I wouldn't want to annoy them.

Also, if you modified a template that you are using, and never bothered to use the "save as" function, as I didn't, and the template still retains its original name, upgrading will override it again. So if you are using MT-Georgia Blue, for example, with your mangled mods in there, you better delete the Mt-Georgia Blue from the upgraded version before you upload.

Or, you can just upload and start fresh and clean. Of course, there is no chance you'll remember any of your changes because, if you are like me, you wrote nothing down.

This post was probably excruciating to experienced programers, but if I saved the life of just 1 newbie, it was worth it!

My Php training (pretty helpless, practically) has been interesting. Its like a different language or something :D

Thanks again, Carl, for your help. And to Bexter for that awesome template I mangled, but only a little.

Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 4:24 pm
by mgroeninger
The first message says it knows you are attempting to upgrade, which made me feel uncomfortable enough to draw the blinds tighter.
:lol: I enjoyed that... Thanks!

Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 4:27 pm
by azel
Thanks for this - it will be a great help to our GoDaddy users. :D

Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 6:04 pm
by carl_galloway
Excellent, I'm sure this will be a great help even though the procedures you describe are as they should be for any normal upgrade, but yet GoDaddy have their own way of doing things and considering they ship Serendipity 0.8 your guide is very welcome.

I'd like to make another request, can you install the backup plugin, and see if you can happily backup your database. Once again, I think GoDaddy users would benefit from your experiences.
My Php training (pretty helpless, practically) has been interesting. Its like a different language or something :D

giggles, yeah kinda similar to martian or one of those really weird languages like American :lol:

Posted: Sun Dec 10, 2006 3:56 am
by dogshed
I wanted to make a backup first. The web ftp client wouldn't let me do it. I did a google search for "ftp gpl" and then downloaded filezilla. -Jeff

Posted: Sun Dec 10, 2006 8:13 am
by dogshed
What does this mean? Did a file get corrupted? Did filezilla's automatic binary switch screwup?

Parse error: parse error, unexpected $, expecting ')' in /home/content/t/u/r/turtlebowl/html/serendipity/include/plugin_api.inc.php on line 96

Posted: Sun Dec 10, 2006 12:52 pm
by dogshed
dogshed wrote:What does this mean? Did a file get corrupted? Did filezilla's automatic binary switch screwup?

Parse error: parse error, unexpected $, expecting ')' in /home/content/t/u/r/turtlebowl/html/serendipity/include/plugin_api.inc.php on line 96
I somehow cut off the file when I unzipped it. I'm not sure how I did that.

I unzipped again but when I did the upload over it would not overwrite because I had it set to only overwrite if it was an older date.

I did it again and had it overwrite all. It worked.

Posted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 11:42 am
by dogshed
I just noticed in the faq that it says in addition to making a backup copy of the serendipity directory that you should also backup the database with a database dump. -Jeff