Upgrade SMF to 1.1.10 disaster

[yardbird]

Yesterday I ran the SMF update to go up just one version from 1.1.9 to 1.1.10.
TP version 0.983

I did not uninstall Tiny Portal first. Big mistake, apparently. Boards went into permanent maintenance mode. Changing SMF's settings manually to take it out of maintenance mode got me just the message board header and then errors. During the update, I got a mySQL error that there was an incorrect syntax in the file.... presumably the SMF update script.

Just.... disaster.

I finally regained control of the boards by running SMF's repair_settings.php file. This sets the boards to SMF default with no TP or other mods, but at least it worked very well and got me running again.

I just wanted to tell my disaster story in case it helps someone else.
Before updating or upgrading SMF, I should have uninstalled mods.
Before updating or upgrading SMF I should have made a complete backup.

I should know better. I have become complacent about backups and testing and proper procedures because I have gotten away with it.

This time it bit me where I sit..... really hard... and I will be going a bit slower in the future.

[Skhilled]

Repair_settings.php should not disable any mods. It only repairs/resets the urls to your forum. Something else must have screwed it up.

[IchBin]

Before updating or upgrading SMF I should have made a complete backup.

You got that right. Perhaps the biggest mistake anyone will make when an upgrade or update goes bad. You shouldn't have to uninstall your mods either. I've updated every forum I have my hands in without uninstalling any mods. Who's knows what went wrong on your update, but its good that you got things back together.