Hello, community. I’m trying to upgrade 1.6.4 to 2.0.2, and I’m getting the following error:

“The update script failed without returning an error. Please contact tech-support.”

I had the blank screen / “Use of undefined constant AJAX_REQUEST - assumed ‘AJAX_REQUEST’” problem, but fixed it with a code change suggested somewhere here in the forums. The next upgrade attempt started working, but it eventually threw a dialog box with the above error.

I was on this screen:

ExpressionEngine Installation and Update Wizard

Please Stand By…
We are currently updating your ExpressionEngine installation.

Do not close your browser until the update routine is finished.

Mac OS X 10.6.3
Server version: Apache/2.2.14 (Unix)
Server built:  Feb 10 2010 22:22:39
MySql 5.0.5

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I’ve added

onto line 60 of /system/expressionengine/core/EE_Exceptions.php to see the error being reported (per this thread).

I got this:

A PHP Error was encountered
Severity: Warning
Message: mkdir() [function.mkdir]: Permission denied
Filename: updates/ud_200.php
Line Number: 265

A PHP Error was encountered
Severity: Warning
Message: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /wpsystem/core/Exceptions.php:166)
Filename: core/Common.php
Line Number: 428

An Error Was Encountered
The template folder is not writeable, make sure permissions are set to 777 on /wpsystem/expressionengine/templates/myshortpath/

The permissions *are* set to 777. These are templates that are saved to files in my current EE install. I am going to unmark them as saved to file and give the upgrade a try again…

Argh. Upgrade got much further after I changed templates to not be saved to files (in my original 1.6.4 install).
It ran though a couple million updates and then failed again (see screenshot).

Please Stand By…
We are currently updating your ExpressionEngine installation.

Do not close your browser until the update routine is finished.

2.0.0: Converting Database Table exp_weblog_titles: 2200 of 2261 queries

A popup came up with “The update script failed without returning an error. Please contact tech-support.”

When I hit OK, the screen changed to:

Please Stand By…
We are currently updating your ExpressionEngine installation.

Do not close your browser until the update routine is finished.

2.0.0: Converting Database Table exp_wikis: 0 of 1 queries

... and stopped. I’m officially stumped now because there is no real error message.

Hi echeng,

Is this a continuation of an upgrade problem that exists after your post to this thread?

Cheers

Greg

Greg—yes. I fixed the AJAX_REQUEST problem, discovered and found a workaround to the template “save to file” problem, and hit a wall…

Hi echeng,

So we are now up to this point? If you go to Admin > Utilities > PHP Info in your CP (1.6.x) what is set for memory_limit and max_execution_time?

Cheers

Greg

Hey, Greg. The upgrade is failing silently, so I can’t get to the control panel at all. If I go back to the admin area, it just goes to an upgrade option (but, of course, fails because database tables have already been altered).

echeng,

Do you have full backups?
How much of an effort would it be for you to roll back everything and start with just an upgrade to 1.6.9 and once we are there, then attempt the upgrade to 2.x? I realise you have spent quite a bit of time on this already.

John - I do have full backups. This is all on a dev machine. I’ll do the upgrade to 1.6.9 and give the upgrade a try from there. My existing website is running 1.6.4 with code changes to support unified login with Invision Power Board (the database is untouched, though—it’s just cookie stuff), which is why I haven’t upgraded the production site to 1.6.9. I should be able to do the dev site easily, though. I’ll report back once I try it.

Also, I was thinking—do you guys accept customer databases for testing? It would probably help you track down all of these little obscure bugs…

echeng,

I should be able to do the dev site easily, though. I’ll report back once I try it.

Great stuff. Let us know how you get on.

Also, I was thinking—do you guys accept customer databases for testing?

Only when we exhaust our troubleshooting in via the forums do we request a login. 99% of the time issues are resolved this way.

I did the upgrade to 1.6.9, and I have the same problem (same stopping point).

Here are more details.
STEPS TAKEN TO UPGRADE 1.6.4 to 2.0.2pb01

  1. Uncheck “save to file” in all templates
  2. Upgrade 1.6.4 to 1.6.9
  3. Optimize tables (per 1.6.9 upgrade script)
  4. Modify 2.0.2pb01 code per this thread
  5. Modifiy system/index.php with: 
 
    error_reporting(E_ALL);
    @ini_set(‘display_errors’, 1);
    ini_set(‘log_errors’, 1);
    ini_set(‘error_log’, dirname(__FILE__) . ‘/error_log’);
    set_time_limit(0);

  6. Copy 1.6.9 config.php to 2.0.2pb01 system/expressionengine/config/
  7. Attempt upgrade to 2.0.2pb01

Upgrade screens, June 16, 2010, 13:57, Google Chrome 5.0.375.70 on Mac OS X

Please Stand By…
    We are currently updating your ExpressionEngine installation.
    Do not close your browser until the update routine is finished.”

(no AJAX updates)
After about 13 minutes, a popup appeared:

The update script failed without returning an error. Please contact tech-support.

I restored the database to 1.6.9, copied config.php over, and tried again:

Please Stand By…
    We are currently updating your ExpressionEngine installation.
    Do not close your browser until the update routine is finished.
    2.0.0: Converting Database Table exp_captcha: xxxxxx of 795657 queries

    ... counts up by 200 queries at a time
    ... continues to convert databases (each database is shown as it is converted)
   
At “exp_weblog_titles: 2200 of 2261 queries”... AJAX update stops (12 minutes into upgrade)
Popup appears with “The update script failed without returning an error. Please contact tech-support.”
Same stopping point as when I tried upgrading directly from 1.6.4.

echeng,

Place a simple PHP file somewhere on the server with

and run it. Let us know what is set for memory_limit and max_execution_time.

Brandon:

memory_limit 128M
max_execution_time 30

(although I put set_time_limit(0) into system/index.php to account for the max_execution_time)

Hey, moderators. It has now been 6 days since I first tried to upgrade to the product I paid for, 2.0 beta. I sure would love to give it a try. Do you have any more tips, or should I give up?

There is nothing fancy going on in my install of Expression Engine, and an upgrade really should be trivial.

echeng, thanks for the detailed information. Let’s try a few more things on your 1.6.9 installation:

1. Go to Admin ›  Utilities ›  SQL Manager ›  Manage Database Tables, select ‘Select All’ at the bottom, and choose ‘Repair selected tables’.
2. Could any of the last 60-or-so entries have ‘unusual’ characters or content? This shouldn’t really be an issue but obviously something is choking around there.
3. 128MB should be fine, but are you able to up this limit (and verify via phpinfo) just to rule it out?

Thank you, Brandon. I changed memory_limit to 256M and verified via php_info();

The entries could certainly have unusual characters or content, but nothing that was illegal in EE1.6.x, since that’s what we used to get all the content in there.

Maybe I’m being too ambitious in the way that I’m attempting the upgrade. I’m planning a big redesign in conjunction with moving to 2.0 and would like to upgrade my existing database while starting the files over from scratch (migrating only upload directories). So what I’ve done is:

1. unzip the paid 2.0b distribution
2. point it to my EE1.6.9 database to begin the upgrade

Can you see any reason this would have a different effect on upgrades than uploading the files from 2.0 over the 1.6.x install on my dev server?

In the meantime, I’ve repaired all tables and and am attempting an upgrade again…

echeng - 17 June 2010 10:24 PM

2. point it to my EE1.6.9 database to begin the upgrade

EE determines the upgrade path based on the $app_version variable in your config.php, not the database, so that specifically wouldn’t work. The documented upgrade method should work, so we’re trying to narrow down possible causes. Thanks for your patience and keep us posted.

Oh, I’m copying the config.php over from 1.6.x to 2.0, which is what is written in the update docs. That’s the only file that is necessary, right?