Hi allCan you advise me about ComfortUpdate please (before buying a license): at work, we’ve very old versions of LS (3.x). These sites are self-hosted and yeah, it’s really, really time to upgrade them. If think we’ve less than 10 sites (including DEV and UAT).Can you tell me if I can use ComfortUpdate to upgrade them to the latest version (probably by using intermediate versions). I understand that before reaching the latest version of LS, I’ll need to upgrade PHP version to 8.x during the process.Second question: can the key be used on more than one site at a time or should we buy one by site (10 sites = 10 keys)?

Thanks a lot! 

LS 3.x is still supported and receiving bug fixes and security patches. So as long as it is up to date, no issue with LS 3.

Afaik you can use your key with more than one site. I currently use mine with LS3, LS5 and LS6. But of course, you have to keep an eye on the number of updates you have per key. For example, the 3 month package contains "30 updates" ( community.limesurvey.org/comfort-update-extension/ ). So in a 3 month period, you can run 30 updates on 1 installation or 1 update on 30 installations. :-)
Let's say you run an update every week, this would be around 12 updates in 3 months per installation, so you keep 2-3 installations up to data with this. If you update every 2 weeks only, you might be able to support more installations. If you look here you can see the approximate frequency of updates ( community.limesurvey.org/releases/ ). Newer releases like LS6 who are in their beginning of their cycle receive updates more frequently, while older releases like LS 3 usually are almost EOL and receive updates less frequently (less bugs, no new features, etc.).

On thing you need to keep in mind is, that currently I don't think that you can upgrade to LS6 via Comfort Update. This might be possible in the future, but a couple of weeks ago the answer was "not yet possible".

To be honest, I mainly use "Comfort Update" for Updates, not Upgrades. When a new major version comes out I usually create a fresh install and then run them in parallel. Works of course because I don't have many users, and I need to keep older versions anyway, to help in the forum. So I usually have one installation for any of the currently supported branches of Limesurvey, which currently are LS3.x, LS5.x and LS6.x.

Hello @holch

Many, many, many thanks for your answer.

>LS 3.x is still supported and receiving bug fixes and security patches. So as long as it is up to date, no issue with LS 3.
Oh? This is a valuable information. I wasn't aware of this. I'll certainly keep looking at the migration (it's time to make the upgrade) but I know that v3 is still supported (congratulations, as it can't be easy to keep three major versions in the lifecycle).

>Afaik you can use your key with more than one site. [...]
Wow, nice to read this too. 

>On thing you need to keep in mind is, that currently I don't think that you can upgrade to LS6 via Comfort Update.
In fact, I could stop at v5 right now and wait. And make the upgrade when v6 is available.

>To be honest, I mainly use "Comfort Update" for Updates, not Upgrades.
I understand your use case.  On my side, I can't do this and need to upgrade the current instances and keep the URLs (the existing http // ipsolorem URL points to LS v3 and has to be kept after the upgrade).  My very first idea was to migrate all surveys (from instance 1, instance 2, instance 3, ... to the same, single LimeSurvey instance and work with user / group approach but this was not accepted)

What I'm thinking of doing now is installing a version LS v3 on my localhost DEV machine, restore a production database and then installing ComfortUpdate free (one month) to see if I can upgrade to LS5 and what will be the path (can I migrate from my old v3 to the latest v5 in one step? I suppose not).

So, once again, thank you for your previous post. Really appreciated.

As I don't know what version of LS 3 you are exactly on, I can't tell you if it is possible. But anyway, I would always recommend to upgrade to the latest LS 3 first, then upgrade from there to LS 5.

If you do a test run in an test environment, you could also try to upgrade directly from your current LS3 to LS5 and see what happens. But a test is for sure a good idea if you upgrade a production environment. Usually everything runs smooth, but you never know. Especially with a very old LS 3 no one might have tested the direct route to LS5.

Like always, create a backup of your current (working) installation, so that you can go back if something should go wrong. I have had good experiences with ComfortUpdate, but there is always a chance that something can get wrong.

Good luck and let us know how it went.

Here you can see the current versions of Limesurvey:

community.limesurvey.org/downloads/

For LS3 it says support ends in June 2023, but the latest release of LS 3 is 3.28.72 from 28.08.2023, so I guess the developers extended its life a bit.

The main issue with LS3 is the php version. It only supports up to PHP 7.4, which isn't officially supported anymore since end of 2022 ( prototype.php.net/versions/7.4/ ).

So yes, an upgrade to LS5 and eventually LS6 is highly recommended.

Hi!

>Good luck and let us know how it went.

Some news.. I'm quite impressed; it's really simple to upgrade by hand the site.

First ComfortUpdate : It was not possible to me to download a key for testing ComfortUpdate. When going to  community.limesurvey.org/comfort-update-extension/ and after a registration (I already have a free account), I click on the "Sign in free" in the "1 Month - Free" left frame. There is a redirection to my "Your account" page and there, below on the page, there is a ComfortUpdate area with a "Buy a new key" button. Clicking on it redirect me back to the offer page with the "A Month - Free" info, clicking on the "Sign in free" and tadaaa, back to "Your account" page. I've sent an email to the sales departments; no answer received yet.

So, let's try by hand.

The manual ( manual.limesurvey.org/Upgrading_from_a_p...any_later_version.29 ) is explaining the we just need to remove everything except a very few files.

Since I'm playing locally, I remove folders/files like this:  

```bash
(
  find . -maxdepth 1 -type f -exec rm -f {} +
  rm -rf admin assets docs framework installer locale modules  plugins tests themes third_party tmp vendor
  (cd application && rm *.* .htaccess 2>/dev/null; rm -rf commands controllers core datavalueobjects errors exceptions extensions helpers libraries logs models tests third_party views)
  (cd application/config && find . -maxdepth 1 ! -name 'config.php' ! -name 'security.php' -type f -exec rm -f {} + )
)
```

(compatible for LS3 up to 6)

Then, the next step is to download the desired version of LimeSurvey, I do this like this:

```bash
(
    DOCKER_LIMESURVEY_VERSION="5.6.35+230822"
    DOCKER_LIMESURVEY_VERSION_SHA256_CHECKSUM="3f9e6616681e4108dc10c931e097c84109b8a5f3a69c86bd8952a34176803d4a"
    curl -sSL " github.com/LimeSurvey/LimeSurvey/archive...RVEY_VERSION}.tar.gz " --output /tmp/limesurvey.tar.gz
    echo "${DOCKER_LIMESURVEY_VERSION_SHA256_CHECKSUM}  /tmp/limesurvey.tar.gz" | sha256sum -c -
    tar xzvf "/tmp/limesurvey.tar.gz" --strip-components=1 -C ${PWD}
    rm -f "/tmp/limesurvey.tar.gz" 
)
```

Or, directly jumping to LS 6:

```bash
(
    DOCKER_LIMESURVEY_VERSION="6.2.4+230825"
    DOCKER_LIMESURVEY_VERSION_SHA256_CHECKSUM="6752d7cb272698b582b97b0374c9e394feb5a75f42e3d2d93e762b49cb30e278"
    curl -sSL " github.com/LimeSurvey/LimeSurvey/archive...RVEY_VERSION}.tar.gz " --output /tmp/limesurvey.tar.gz
    echo "${DOCKER_LIMESURVEY_VERSION_SHA256_CHECKSUM}  /tmp/limesurvey.tar.gz" | sha256sum -c -
    tar xzvf "/tmp/limesurvey.tar.gz" --strip-components=1 -C ${PWD}
    rm -f "/tmp/limesurvey.tar.gz" 
)
```

And it works... This is impressive i.e.

* step 1 I remove files/folders,
* step 2 I install LS 6 and
* step 3 I just need to start my admin interface, the system is asking for a database upgrade (in my case from version 359 to 612) and it's done.

Now, ok, the database upgrade is going to cause me problems because I've developed years ago a web service in PHP that interacts with the LS APIs (v3.22.6 at that time) but also directly with the database and, among other things, the structure of the 'questions' table has changed; I'm going to have to rework part of my web service.

Yes, for someone experienced in IT, a manual update is also quite easy. Now you just need to do this on a regular basis and not run an old version without updates for years.

Comfort Update is great for those that are not so firm with scripts, etc. It does the same thing as a manual update, just with a little bit more comfort (a couple of clicks, provides you with the option to backup your files and the database) and then creates the update.

Nothing one couldn't do manually. It has been done for years, before CU came out.

Not sure why you couldn't get a free test key. Maybe it has already been used with your account or it has expired. No idea. I have no affiliation with the Limesurvey GmbH, so I have no insights into their proceedings.