Shane, thanks for replying so quickly and politely. Probably more than I deserve for letting my frustration hang out so unreservedly. A lot of the problem is indeed my newness to SQL. But the EE instructions on how to update are clearly missing steps, and no one has even acknowledged that. I am decidedly not an EE or SQL expert, but I’m a fairly fast learner, and I don’t need or want hands-on help, just clear answers to valid questions. I would be more than willing to give up my more or less paranoid vision of an EE Consulting Empire working off a badly supported and glitchy product, if it weren’t such an ordeal getting those questions answered. That’s what this forum should be about, answering questions, isn’t it?
I invite you to go over the thread from the beginning, count the questions I asked, and see how long it took to get each one answered, how many times I had to repeat questions, and how many of them weren’t ever addressed at all, let alone answered competently - including the last one, to wit:
I’ve followed the instructions in “Updating to a New Version” exactly and tried everything else suggested in this thread. I’ve run the prep steps, deleted the database, created a completely new, empty one, and restored (Imported) the old tables before running the Wizard, and when I run the Wizard, it still fails, returning a completely new error:
Error: The following error was encountered
MySQL ERROR:
Error Number: 1054
Description: Unknown column ‘can_send_bulletins’ in ‘exp_member_groups’
Query: ALTER TABLE `exp_member_groups` ADD `include_in_authorlist` CHAR(1) NOT NULL DEFAULT ‘n’ AFTER `can_send_bulletins`
Why is this happening? How do I fix it? The only reference to “columns” in Troubleshooting Upgrade Errors - including the Version Notes from 1.6 onwards - is (emphasis added)
2) Third-Party Modifications. Either an in-house developer or a third-party add-on added the offending elements to your database. Those offending tables, columns, or keys will need to be manually removed from your database before trying your upgrade again.
But the error message seems to indicate that the query is attempting to ADD “include_in_authorlist” AFTER “can_send_bulletins” - which would indicate that it expects that column to be there. On the other hand, it also seems to regard the presence of “can_send_bulletins” as an error. That doesn’t make sense to me. I’m perfectly willing to go into the table, delete the offending column, and run the Wizard again - but it looks pretty much as if it would just fail again with a new error message that “can_send_bulletins” doesn’t exist.
I don’t see any reason why some EE expert, right here in this Forum, shouldn’t be able to clarify for me exactly what’s going on, and make a sensible and relevant recommendation, rather than leave me to rely on blind trial and error. Sure, it’s a lot easier to fob this problem off on some consultant than face it and address it. But trying to justify that by generalizing that I’m supposedly “uncomfortable” with understanding and running the update process is pretty lame. I just want the process to work as described and get any problems with it explained, and as you have acknowledged, I’ve been hanging in there doggedly with that expectation for almost two weeks. But if this is the way EE is going to “support” the Update Wizard, it would be more honest to say, right out front, “The Update Wizard doesn’t really work, and we’re not really comfortable 😉with supporting it. So good luck updating from an earlier version - you’re probably going to have to pay an outside consultant to help you do that successfully.”
PS. Feb. 8: There’s no no column named “can_send_bulletins” in the table exp_member_groups. So why is the error message saying that column is “Unknown” instead of “Missing?” Doesn’t “Unknown” indicate that the the Wizard is finding the column, and not recognizing it? Damn straight I’m “uncomfortable” with the Wizard’s error message - it’s screwed up. It’s saying that there’s a problem with an unknown column, when in fact the column doesn’t exist. It’s trying to ADD a column after that missing column. Which means that Wizard is expecting that column to be there, so it can’t be an “offending” column “added by a third party or add on.” So please, answer this simple question: Where exactly in this table should I add this missing column, and what should be its type, null, key, default, and extra settings?
PPS. Dollars to donuts it was the Wizard itself that removed this column when updating to an earlier version.
PPPS. Tying to run the EE Control Panel on the site now returns an SQL error that the table “eedev.exp_sites” “doesn’t exist.” This is the same table that the Wizard complained “already exists” when I first ran it. Could be because of the aborted update, but given the context, disturbing.
Update 11:45 pm Feb 8: Apparently “unknown column” is standard SQL Errorspeak for “missing column.” I went into exp_member_groups and added the “unknown” column (Googled it to find proper placing) and the Wizard proceeded. However, it promptly gave me another 1054 error for another “unknown” column in exp_member_groups, and when I fixed that, another one of the same in exp_weblogs. This is getting really tedious. How about some standard description of the basic EE database structure - a list of tables and columns - for each version? If I had that, I could at least check and update the database tables in the backup before restoring the database prior to running the Wizard at each level. I’m at version 6 now, running the upgrade for 6.1,
Very, very tedious. I don’t really expect EE to fix the Wizard or its documentation before April) but there’s nothing even in the Version Notes for 1.6 about these repeated 1054 errors for “unknown” columns that are apparently standard EE structure.