Revision as of 13:42, 20 November 2013

The below documentation is designed to allow you to both confidently and successfully update your WHMCS installation. We always recommend staying up-to-date with WHMCS in order to benefit from the latest development and improvements, and you can do that either by having us perform the upgrade for you or by updating as per the steps below.

Performing an Upgrade

The steps needed to upgrade WHMCS always the remain the same from version to version. However some updates may require additional steps which are unique to them. Should these be required you will find them in the Release Notes. Please always refer to the release notes for a version before attempting any upgrade.

You can upgrade from any WHMCS version later than 3.2.0. If you have missed a few upgrades, you can always upgrade to the very latest version using the full release distribution (More Info on our Release Types can be found here. You never need to perform multiple incremental updates.

Downloading the Latest Version

1. Begin by logging in to the members area @ https://www.whmcs.com/members/clientarea.php (Note: If you do not have a login for our members area, this indicates your key has been obtained via a reseller and they should provide the latest WHMCS files to you)
2. Navigate to Services > Licenses & Services
3. Select one of your active license keys and click View Details
4. Now select the Downloads tab
5. The latest stable release can then be downloaded using the large green "Download Now" button

Upgrade Steps

Make a Full Backup - We cannot stress enough how important it is to *always* take a full backup before attempting any kind of upgrade. Both for WHMCS and any other software you use. A full backup should be taken of both the WHMCS files and the database.---

1. Begin by obtaining the latest full release download of WHMCS as described above
2. Unzip the contents of the WHMCS zip file download to a folder on your computer
3. Upload the new files to your existing installation folder replacing any existing folders & files (If you have customised your WHMCS admin folder name, be sure to upload the admin folder updates to your custom folder name. Similarly, if you have customised the location of the /crons/ directory, be sure to upload that to the custom location.)
4. Next visit the admin area as you normally would to login and you will then be automatically redirected to the upgrade script. If you see a message saying WHMCS is not installed, this indicates you have overwritten the configuration.php file for your installation. Stop and restore that file from your backup before continuing.
5. Agree to the WHMCS End User License Agreement and follow the steps on screen to upgrade your database.
6. When prompted, delete the install folder from your server.
7. Your upgrade is now complete.

At this stage, typically in any Feature or Maintenance releases you will need to apply any of the new or changed template files to your custom template folder(s). Please refer to the Release Notes of the version you are upgrading to for an itemized list of template changes.

Helpful Hints

Customisations

If you have customised templates, please ensure you always follow the recommended method for creating a custom template folder to ensure your changes aren't overwritten during upgrades. Similarly for language file customisations please ensure you use the Language Overrides feature vs editing the language files directly.

Bad Formatting

If when you first login you see a display where formatting is mixed or unclear, this can indiciate your browser cache has not updated. Try clearing your browser cache or performing a hard refresh (typically Ctrl + F5) and delete the contents of the template cache directory (templates_c by default) to ensure you see the new templates and styling.

Need Help? We're here...

We offer a professional upgrade service where our staff will upgrade your WHMCS installation for you. Please refer to http://www.whmcs.com/services/upgrade-service/ for more information and to order.

And of course our support team is always available to answer any questions or concerns you might have about performing the upgrade process yourself. Simply open a ticket @ www.whmcs.com/get-support/ and a member of our team will get back to you.