Upgrading

This page explains in detail how to upgrade Moodle. For a summary of the process, see Upgrade overview.

Check the requirements

Check that your server meets all requirements for 2.6 in Administration > Site administration > Server > Environment.

New in Moodle 2.6 is the php_setting OPcache.

Note: You can only upgrade to Moodle 2.6 from Moodle 2.2 or later. If upgrading from earlier versions, you must upgrade to 2.2 as a first step.

Before you upgrade your site for real

We advise that you test the upgrade first on a COPY of your production site, to make sure it works as you expect.

Backup important data

There are three areas that should be backed up before any upgrade:

1. Moodle software (For example, everything in server/htdocs/moodle)
2. Moodle uploaded files (For example, server/moodledata)
3. Moodle database (For example, your Postgres or MySQL database dump)

See Site backup for more specific information.

Put your site into maintenance mode

Before you begin upgrading your site, you should put it into maintenance mode to stop any non-admin users from logging in.

Check for add-on updates

If you have Automatic updates deployment enabled, you will be able to update installed add-ons automatically during the upgrade. Just make sure you check for available updates (via the button for it) at the Plugins check screen.

If you are updating add-ons manually, it is a good moment now to check in the Moodle Plugins directory whether there is a 2.6 version available for any add-ons (including themes) that you have previously installed on your site. If so, download the add-on package. In the next step, you will copy it to the appropriate location in your Moodle code (see Installing add-ons).

The upgrade of the add-on will then happen as part of the Moodle upgrade process.

If an out-of-date add-on causes your upgrade to fail, you can usually delete the add-on code rather than uninstalling it from within Moodle so that the data associated with it is not deleted.

Install the new Moodle software

Standard install package

1. Move your old Moodle software program files to another location. Do NOT copy new files over the old files.
2. Unzip or unpack the upgrade file so that all the new Moodle software program files are in the location the old files used to be in on the server. Moodle will adjust SQL and moodledata if it needs to in the upgrade.
3. Copy your old config.php file back to the new Moodle directory.
4. As mentioned above, if you had installed any custom add-ons on your site you should add them to the new code tree now. It is important to check that you get the correct version for your new version of Moodle. Be particularly careful that you do not overwrite any code in the new version of Moodle.
5. Dont forget to also copy over your moodledata folder / directory. If you don't you will get a "fatal error $cfg- dataroot is not configured properly".

Linux

mv moodle moodle.backup
tar xvzf moodle-2.6.tgz

Next, copy across your config.php, any custom plugins, and your .htaccess file if you created one (check that custom plugins are the correct version for your new Moodle first):

cp moodle.backup/config.php moodle
cp -pr moodle.backup/theme/mytheme moodle/theme/mytheme
cp -pr moodle.backup/mod/mymod moodle/mod/mymod

Don't forget to make moodle/config.php (and the rest of the source code) readable by your www server. Ideally the files should not be writeable by your server.

If you use cron, take care that cron.php is executeable and uses the correct php command:

chmod 740 admin/cli/cron.php (some configurations need chmod 750 or chmod 755)
copy the first line from cron.php (if it looks like '#!/usr/local/bin/php' or '#!/usr/local/bin/php5.3', no need to copy '<?php')

if necessary.

Using Git

You can use Git for updating or upgrading your Moodle. See Git for Administrators for details.

Command line upgrade

On Linux servers, Moodle 2.6 supports running the upgrade from the command line, rather than through a web browser. This is likely to be more reliable, particularly for large sites.

Finishing the upgrade

The last step is to trigger the upgrade processes within Moodle.

To do this just go to Administration > Site administration > Notifications.

Moodle will automatically detect the new version and perform all the SQL database or file system upgrades that are necessary. If there is anything it can't do itself (very rare) then you will see messages telling you what you need to do.

Assuming all goes well (no error messages) then you can start using your new version of Moodle and enjoy the new features!

Note: If you are running multiple servers then you should purge all caches manually (via Administration > Site administration > Development > Purge all caches) after completing the upgrade on all servers.

After upgrading

The config.php file from your installation should work fine but if you take a look at config-dist.php that came with Moodle 2.6 there are more/different options available (e.g. database drivers and settings). It's a good idea to map your old config.php settings to a new one based on the 2.6 config-dist.php.

Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded...

If your server uses a main language other than English, you may encounter a 'Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded' when you try to upgrade it. You can increase max_execution_time = 160 on php.ini to allow the scripts enough time to process the language update. Otherwise, you can switch to English as the default language before doing the upgrade and back to your original language after a succcessful upgrade. See the forum discussion at https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=119598 .

Possible issues that may affect you in Moodle 2.6

Ghostscript

For the new Annotate PDF assignment feature to work properly, Ghostscript needs to be installed on your server. Check the path from Site administration > Plugins > Activity modules > Assignment > Feedback plugins >Annotate PDF. (Note that if is not enabled or the path is not correct, then the link 'Launch PDF editor' will not appear for teachers when grading PDF assignments.)

New Box.net API

To continue using the Box.net repository and Box.net portfolio, the Moodle site must use HTTPS and the plugins must be configured with a Box.net client ID and secret. See Box.net APIv1 migration for details.

Box.net repository users will no longer be possible to create a shortcut/alias to a file stored in Box.net.

IMPORTANT: The Box.net-alias-to-copy-conversion tool should be run as soon as possible. See Box.net APIv1 migration for details.

Theme compatibility

If your site has a custom theme, then you might run into an error during upgrade "Debug info: Unknown column 'cacherev' in 'field list'".

The solution is to temporarily switch your theme to "standard" theme during the upgrade. You can do this by adding "theme=standard" on the URL or by adding this to your Moodle config.php:

$CFG->theme = "standard";

After upgrade your theme might still work fine.

Another solution is to complete your upgrade via a CLI.

My Mobile theme removal

The "My Mobile" theme has been removed from Moodle 2.6 (MDL-40874). During the upgrade process, the theme will be uninstalled and all its settings will be deleted. The "My Mobile" theme and its extending themes will fall back to the mobile friendly "Clean" theme.

To keep the "My Mobile" theme and its settings, BEFORE UPGRADING files from the unmaintained plugin must be copied into theme/mymobile. The unmaintained plugin can be downloaded from the MyMobile theme entry in the plugins directory.

Backup and restore of assignments from Moodle 2.2 and older

The assignment activity module was completely rewritten in Moodle 2.3. Assignments from Moodle 2.2 and older (e.g. from Moodle 1.9) need to be upgraded in order to continue being usable in Moodle 2.6. See the section 'Restoring course backups from Moodle 2.2 and older' in Assignment upgrade tool for details of what to do.

MySQL dmlwriteexception error when using calculated questions in a quiz

If you're using MySQL or SQL*Server and you have a problem with duplicated keys with the question_attempt_step_data table when using calculated questions in a quiz (from entering a formula which uses variables with the same characters in different cases), it is recommended that you upgrade to Moodle 3.0.x or higher ASAP. Alternatively, the problematic unique index can be dropped or the collation of the columns changed to be case-sensitive, however this is not considered a complete fix. See MDL-29332 for more information.

Moodle 2.3, 2.4 and 2.5 improvements

Depending on which version you are upgrading from, please see the section 'Possible issues that may affect you' in the documentation

• Upgrading to Moodle 2.3
• Upgrading to Moodle 2.4
• Upgrading to Moodle 2.5

See also

• Using Moodle Installation problems forum
• Moodle 2.6 release notes
• Upgrade API