Passing By WordPress Version 2.9
As you may have noticed, it took some time before I upgraded to version 2.9.2 of WordPress. There was a very good reason why I hesitated in moving away from version 2.8.6 of WordPress, and today I am going to tell you a bit about the major change since version 2.9 was introduced.
Version 2.9 of WordPress requires mySQL version 4.1 to function correctly. In my case this blog had a database running under mySQL version 4.0.1, so the previous upgrade to WordPress 2.9 FAILED.
You read that correctly. For the first time in years, I was faced with one of the nost annoying things for any blogger: considering whether to CHANGE blog-software, or find the solution.
I had tested the phpAdmin system my webhost provided, and thought I could have copied the tables directly to another mySQL database running on a newer version of mySQL. That was mission impossible. I could do anything on each server, but couldn’t move any data across servers.
By now, my annoyance was almost FULL, COMPLETE, and I was truly p*ssed. Pardon my french. 🙂
I stepped back for a few days, and thought things through, and suddenly the way to solve this was found.
Write down settings for new server, download a backup of articles, comments, pages etc. using the Export function in WordPress. Download new version of WordPress. Enter new settings. Install WordPress, and THEN importing all articles, comments and pages again into the “new” version of the blog software.
Testing, and only minor details to change as a result of using a very special theme. But the main points were kept without any need to make any major adjustments afterwards.
Now, the only thing left is personalizing some of the details, but actually I am quite happy with the results — especially considering that the process took under half an hour once I got started.
But for beginners: be mindful to use a version of mySQL that is AHEAD of version 4.1. Don’t settle for minimum versions once you want to compare webhosts. It could cost you quite a lot to get your webhost to do the migration for you using THEIR advanced possibilities directly on their servers. And ruining years worth of writing could be equally humiliating, so don’t settle with anything less than mySQL version 5, if you want my honest advice.
But still, my favourite software is WordPress for blogging. I don’t anticipate that will ever change, and thought I would share this with you so you could pass by the 2.9 install also.