Problems upgrading to Sugar Pro 4.2 from Sugar Suite

[3v3ntiq]

Hello,

I have a few questions to ask all over Sugar users here. It pertains to upgrading Sugar Suite to Sugar Professional 4.2.

Has anybody ever tried to upgrade from Sugar Suite to Sugar Professional 4.2? I will say that I have and it has been the most difficult experiences I have ever encountered. What we were trying to do was incorporate our data from Sugar Suite 3.5.1d and upgrade into Sugar Professional 4.2. The problems were endless it seemed. There were huge MySQL-related errors whenever I tried to access any of our prior data at the bottom of the screen. Typically, the bottom of the screen is supposed to display the horizontal bars for History, Activities etc. I also had problem getting the emails to download into Sugar Pro, but I can send email from inside Sugar Pro...

One possible reason suggested by Sugar was that our data has been altered to the point that Sugar Pro does not recognize our pre-existing data. And the recommendation is that we install a fresh instance of Sugar Professional, create the necessary custom fields (which we don't have) and then migrate the Sugar Open source instance...

Anyways, I'll keep my question limited, I do not want to bog down the rest of my message with error message unless requested... I just need some feedback for this problem.

Ming

[3v3ntiq]

Hello again,

I am slightly surprised, nobody has ever upgraded SugarSuite 3.5.1x to Sugar Professional?

I just wished to add that I decided to scrap what I had last week and try to re-install Sugar Professional from the beginning, Sugar Suite 3.5.1d to be exact.

I tried installing a fresh copy of Sugar Professional, then drop the Sugar Professional database and then import the Sugar Suite database into the Sugar Professional database. The result was a blank white browser screen when I tried to access the Sugar Pro system instead of the login screen. No error messages, just a blank white screen.

My 3rd attempt, I decided to retry the original instructions to upgrade Sugar Suite 3.5.1d to 4.0.1Open Source, then 4.0.1 Open Source to 4.0.1 Professional and finally 4.2 Professional where the change is that I check every screen. With my extra sleuthing, I found a few error messages that I corrected by copying the appropriate .php files into the appropriate locations according to the error messages. The problem now, is that I can't upload any of the Sugar updates to upgrade my Sugar Suite (in a test environment environment). Altering the /usr/local/php.ini file and adjusting the value for upload_max_value is not being applied.

Feedback is most appreciated from the Sugar experts...

Thanks...

Ming

[clint]

Hi Ming -

I suggest you create a support case for the SugarCRM support team at http://support.sugarcrm.com. Because you are a customer of SugarCRM Inc, you will be able to see the "Submit a Case" link in the support portal.

They will be able to help you out with any questions. Many folks have successfully upgraded from Sugar Open Source to Sugar Pro.


Regards,
Clint

[3v3ntiq]

Hi Ming -

I suggest you create a support case for the SugarCRM support team at http://support.sugarcrm.com. Because you are a customer of SugarCRM Inc, you will be able to see the "Submit a Case" link in the support portal.

They will be able to help you out with any questions. Many folks have successfully upgraded from Sugar Open Source to Sugar Pro.


Regards,
Clint

Hello Clint,

First off, thanks for the response. It is reassuring to hear somebody respond back, I was beginning to assume that I was asking a newbie question and this was the reason why I have not received any responses.

Working with Sugar Support (and quickly surfing over to http://support.sugarcrm.com), I saw my case already created by the SugarCRM Support agent I have been working closely with.

I was only posting here just to see if anybody else has encountered the same problems or something remotely close to upgrade to Sugar Professional from Sugar Suite. I am not a developer nor a database administrator, so that's why I was seeking any information to resolve these upgrade problems with my skill set. From the gist of things, I am guessing that a lot of Sugar users do not really try to perform the upgrade themselves and they would consult other experienced Sugar Admins to deploy. Hence, the lack of responses

Anyways, thanks again Clint for the response. I have already followed your suggestion as indicated. And of course, I will still welcome any sort of meaningful feedback. Until then, I will just try to troubleshoot to the finest of details starting with restarting the upgrade process as originally planned and troubleshooting from there. I am not sure whether the problems start when from SugarSuite 3.5.1x-->4.0.1 Open Source or 4.0.1 Open Source -->4.0.1 Professional or 4.0.1 Professional -->4.2 Professional, so it seems worth looking into.

Ming

[3v3ntiq]

Here is an update on this topic.

The general gist of the situation is this: we have acquired the trial version of Sugar Professional 4.2 to see how our data behaves in the new Sugar Professional system Prior, we have been using Sugar Suite 3.5.1x with several of Mr. Milk's module plug ins and one of Mr. Milk's upgrades. The main reason for seeing how our data behaves in the trial copy of Sugar Pro is to verify to us that this is the system to go on and to ease our fears that our data is not compatible with the new system. Plus, I have learnt that prior to me starting at this company, there was great difficulties in getting the Outlook Plugin to work with the Sugar Suite system and the fear this company wants to avoid is to purchase software without fully understanding that the tool will work. This is one of the tough points about Open Source software that comes from experience and one that i had to pick up through these experiences.

After my second attempt to deploy Sugar Professional, the end result was many error messages whenever I try to access the SugarSuite data through Sugar Professional. This led me to start over in the upgrade process and this time, to do a thorough test of all the screens and data entry before I proceed to the next upgrade steps. In addition, here are the upgrade instructions I was given:

Step 1: upgrade 3.5.1x to 4.0.1 Open Source
* The associated file can be found at: http://www.sugarforge.org/frs/?group_id=6

Step 2: Apply 4.0.1 hotfix
* http://www.sugarcrm.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9204

Step 3: 4.0.1 -> 4.0.1a OS patch
* See attached file (SugarSuite-Patch-4.0.1a.zip)

Step 4: Apply 4.0.1a hotfix
* http://www.sugarcrm.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9393

Step 5: MIGRATE 4.0.1a Sugar Open Source to Sugar Professional 4.0.1a
* See attached file (SugarSuite_to_SugarPro-Patch-4.0.1a.zip)

Step 6: Upgrade Sugar Professional 4.0.1a to Sugar Professional 4.2
* This file is available in Download Manger, follow instructions sent in separate email.

First thing I encountered was that there were many errors that occurred after uninstalling the modules and extra updates to the Sugar System. These error messages were along the lines of files going missing because the uninstallation process removed them from the system. My solution for this problem was to copy over the necessary files from the production system and back into the appropriate location of the test system. As I think about it now, another solution is to uncheck the files when I am prompted to remove thie files...but then to remove the extra code that Mr. Milk has incorporated into those files... Anyways, copying over the appropriate files resolved most of the errors I was getting when trying to access the prior data.

Second thing I learnt to do was to BACKUP at every step. Whatever changes were made to the system and after verifying that there were no errors and/or the errors were resolved, I then proceeded with the upgrade to my test system. In my backup I would download the database through phpMyAdmin into the test Sugar root folder and then tar up the entire Sugar folder. The reason for the database backup was that I noticed that sometimes the upgrades can impact the database too and after upgrading. I also never encountered any incompatible database errors when I backup the database along with the Sugar root folder.

At this point, I have managed to upgrade my test system to Sugar Professional 4.2 with no error messages when I try to access the SugarSuite data. The only two errors that I have now is:


"Inbound Email cannot function without the IMAP c-client libraries enabled/compiled with the PHP module. Please contact your administrator to resolve this issue."
* This error comes up when I try to access the Inbound Email selection in the Admin Page.

The new Sugar Professional Tabs (Quotes, Products, Forecasts, Reports, Contracts) are not showing up in my Sugar Professional system.
* During my trial run with Sugar Professional 4.0, I recall using the following SQL statements to enable these tabs:
UPDATE acl_roles_users SET deleted=1;
UPDATE roles_users SET deleted=1;
*However, something in the Sugar system has changed from 4.0 to 4.2, so these statements no longer apply...

At this point, the Sugar Support still do not have an answer for me on these two issues. I have a meeting today with Sugar Sales to talk about these two problems and I am hoping they can be resolved.

So this is my update on the topic, just in case anybody else is wondering... In addition, I will be send Mr. Milk a quick message to inform him that his modules do not uninstall cleanly from a SugarSuite System.

Ming

[3v3ntiq]

Hi again,

An update to what's happening with my attempt to upgrade from SugarSuite 3.5.1x to Sugar 4.2 Professional.

We made the decision to upgrade our SugarSuite system from 3.5.1x to SugarSuite 4.2 Open Source. The only reason we kept our system on 3.5.1x was due to keep Mr Milk's update and modules working. We figured that if we can upgrade to SugarSuite 4.2 Open Source, half the battle has been won to upgrade to Sugar Professional 4.2.

We then obtained the patch to upgrade Sugar Professional from 4.2 Open Source to 4.2 Professional and applied it to our system. Our goal was to determine why the new Professional Tabs (Quotes, Products, Forecasts, Reports, Contracts) was not showing up after upgrading to Sugar Professional 4.2.

I had thought that we had won the battle until we learned of two problems: MySQL error displayed on the Documents Tab Page when you access a document from the Documents List. The error message is displayed where the Document Revisions Table should appear; and we saw that some of our archived emails uploaded using Outlook plugin were being displayed under the wrong tab pages.

We analyzed the production system Sugar Professional 4.2 database with a clean install Sugar Professional dB to see if there were any significant differences, but we did not find any other than some tables not having all the necessary fields because the clean install did not contain our pre-existing data. We suspected that somewhere in the Sugarroot folder, one of the many PHP files or other miscellaneous files are somehow different between it and the clean install; hence the reason why we are getting display errors on the Documents Page for instance.

Between the root directories for our Production system and the clean install, I compared the two directories using ExamDiff Pro to see what files are different. Our logic was that if there was soemthing different between any of the many files in the production Sugar system in comparison with the clean Sugar Professional folder, then all we need to do is replace the files in the production with the clean install. In addition with the seek and replacement method, I noticed some files differ by 500MB which we were fine with because the changes could be reflected in the comments section for instance. However, we were surprised with the files that differ by a great 1000MB! Now that's a huge difference! Also, whatever files appeared in the production system that did not appear in the clean install, I assume to delete it because it might be causing a logic problem of the Sugar system.

Afterwards, I logged into the Produciton system Sugar Professional and went through to see what has been resolved following the file replacement and deletions. I noticed that the MySQL errors were not appearing and the Documents Revisions table was correctly displaying instead of the MySQL errors. I still need to double check on the archived emails, but from my quick skim, it seems that all the archived emails are actually in the correct locations on Sugar instead of just being displayed on the Bugs Tab page. However, I am still not getting the 5 new tabs to appear in our system.

Questions that I am thinking:

1) What is needed to get those new tab pages to finally display? They show up in the clean install of Sugar Professional, but they do not in the upgrade to Sugar Professional. I know that they are not supposed to show up in 4.2 Open Source...that's for sure.

2) I am worried about all the file replacements from the clean install into our production system. If what I received from Sugar was supposed to be an upgrade, why couldn't the upgrade have taken care of all this? It doesn't make sense that I have to do so much just to upgrade, I am not a developer and I do not always work with the intricate code of Sugar; this is a big concern since the large amount of time I have spent on trying to upgrade...

3) If the upgrade DOES involve so many steps, why are they not included in the installation/upgrade guide? The basic instructions I recall reading was to upload the the upgrade patch file using the Upgrade wizard, but what also needs to be noted is that the apache:apache user and group has to own the config.php file.

Last note: I sent a quick note to Mr. Milk about his modules and patches not uninstalling from Sugar Suite systems cleanly. What I think is needed is instructions to take a copy of all the files that needs adjustments for Sugar modules and patches to work and then when uninstallation occurs, those copied files are then replaced with the original copies of the file...

That's it for my update here..

Ming

[frb]

The mysql errors on DocumentRevisions sub-panel were due to a missing Rebuild relationships
rgs
Franck

[3v3ntiq]

The mysql errors on DocumentRevisions sub-panel were due to a missing Rebuild relationships
rgs
Franck

I decided to give this a try as suggested, but no change. MySQL errors still showed in my Open Source instance.

With Sugar Support's help, it was their turn to see what can be resolved this past weekend

The Sugar Support took our SugarSuite 4.2 Open Source instance and attempted to upgrade to Professional.

When I checked this morning, I noticed that the instance was upgraded to 4.2 Professional, however he encountered the errors.

I do not expect the assigned engineer to help me until tomorrow at the latest...

Ming

[3v3ntiq]

It has been a while since I last updated this thread.

At this point, we are running on the Sugar Professional system. The upgrade process was hindered due to our past events of installing modules into our SugarSuite Instance. I won't outline all the details, but if you want to know more, feel free to send me a message.

1) Installing modules: the issue I suspect was that prior to me coming, there were many modules that were installed on the previous SugarSuite instances. They were uninstalled using the Uninstall button, however for some reason, the remnents of the code which made the modules still remained in our SugarSuite Instance. This meant that these remnants were carried on into the future upgrades and causing further problems. Lesson here: Before applying any modules to your Sugar instance, BACKUP the Sugar Program folder. Also, ensure that when you install these modules, make sure that you have the correct version. Even a module designed for SugarSuite 3.5.1b might not be designed for SugarSuite 3.5.1e and may cause huge amounts of problems.

2) This message goes more to the developers who designed modules for the Sugar Instance: it might be more effective to have these modules backup the Sugar files before actually affecting the Sugar source code. Let me elaborate: from Mr. Milk's patches, I see that the files were changed directly instead of backing up and then altering the copy file. Then, to uninstall the module, you would then select the Uninstall button and then script would execute itself to remove the copy file and restore the system back to the original copy. Take note, I am not a developer, but that's what I think...

3) Documentation: I found the documentation support to be very weak with Sugar. I was just thinking wouldn't it make sense to have some form of documentation the system build up of Sugar? After comparing my broken instance with a clean Sugar instance, I was suspecting that there were some coding errors, but due to my coding inexperiences, I could not accurately diagnose the problems until Sugar started helping. The comments listed in all the script files did not outline well at all.

Other than this...I am happy to say we are on the Sugar Professional 4.2 system finally. We are in the process of working things out with the licensing. It's been a fun journey!

Ming