1.4.1 to latest version
News and General
Hi all.
A friend of mine passed away recently. His website is using ExpressionEngine 1.4.1. I am in talks with his executor in regards to taking over his site. Currently his web host is charging him $50 a month to host it. I am looking at moving it over to my webhost where the cost will be much cheaper.
I’ve already downloaded the Server Compatibility Wizard for version 5 and ran it and it says I’m fully compatible. Is version 5 backwards compatible with version 1.4.1? Also does version 1.4.1 have a backup feature that version 5 can use without issues?
Or alternatively, is there a 1.4.1 version of ExpressionEngine I can download and install and backup / restore without issues?
Thank you for your time.
Welcome to ExpressionEngine and I’m sorry for the loss of your friend.
1.4 is ancient and I’d say highly unlikely to work on a modern server. PHP 7 didn’t exist when it was released and I doubt it will work on php 5.5.
So, my advice is to upgrade it where it is. Or pull it down locally, upgrade it there, then move that to your server.
The first thing to do is upgrade to the last v1 release- which was v1.7.
After that’s up and working, upgrade to v2. Then to v3. And once you’re on v3 you can get v5 and go to it.
Drop an email to support @expressionengine.com and we can get you the last version of 1.x. The instructions for getting updated to the latest 1.x are here: https://docs.expressionengine.com/v1/installation/update.html
Both the last release of v2 and v3 are available on github (https://github.com/ExpressionEngine/ExpressionEngine).
https://github.com/ExpressionEngine/ExpressionEngine/releases/tag/2.10.1
https://github.com/ExpressionEngine/ExpressionEngine/releases/tag/3.5.17
See the v3 (https://docs.expressionengine.com/v3/installation/upgrade_from_2.x.html) and v5 (https://docs.expressionengine.com/latest/installation/updating.html#updating-manually) docs on upgrading. There’s also a good overview of the upgrade process if you need a quick refresher: https://expressionengine.com/blog/make-upgrades-easy-with-these-simple-tips.
The biggest factor in how long and how difficult it is are the third party add-ons. All of those must be upgraded going from v1 to v2 and then again from v2 to v3 and many may need upgrading going from v3 to v5. You’ll want to get all of the versions you need collecting before proceeding with the upgrade.
The one good thing, if he was on 1.4 he may not have been using many third party add-ons. That’s going to determine how difficult the upgrade is.
Hi Robin,
Thank your that information.
I’m in the site now and there is a section called Modules.
Would these be 3rd party add ons or are they features that you can turn off and on within ExpressEngine 1.4.1?
If they are features, do you know where I could find the 3rd party add on’s within the menu? I’m not seeing anything outside of Modules that looks like a listing of Add Ons.
In v1 it’s a lot more difficult to spot the third party add-ons than it is in later versions. That module page may have both native and third party Modules listed.
But looking at the list, the only third party add-on I see is ‘Sections’ which- I’m not sure what it does and I doubt there’s a v5 compatible version. And I really hope that wasn’t native and I’ve just forgotten it!
Blogger and the Mailing List are native but have been removed by v5. There’s still the Metaweblog API that could be used for Blogger, but I also doubt you need it. The mailing list was removed because we really suggest folks use a dedicated mailing list service. You can leave it alone for now- when you get to where it’s removed it will offer you the option to export the data. You don’t have to do anything special as upgrading will take care of removing them, but ‘heads up’.
And there are some other places third party ‘stuff’ might be. There are ‘Extensions’ and ‘Plugins’ - both found in the Utilities section: https://docs.expressionengine.com/v1/cp/admin/utilities/index.html
Let’s see what you’ve got in there.
Hi Robin,
In the Admin section I see a Plugin Manager and Extension Manager.
The Plugin Manager has 6 things installed, all of which are done by pmachine.com. I am assuming they are add ons that I’ll have to be careful with. I did check out their pmachine.com and they are still active, but appear to be an SEO company now. On the plus side the author names (Rick Ellis and others on these plug ins) do appear to still be there at the company.
The Extension Manager is blank.
😉 pMachine was the precursor to ExpressionEngine, so those are all native. And a blast from the past! Someone took over the domain, so that’s not us any more.
Which just means you don’t need to worry about those. Some have been replaced over time- for example Magpie. But nothing there is going to cause a big issue with upgrading.
So aside from ‘Sections’ which I still don’t know what that does, you’re looking good.
Thank you Robin. 😊
Next issue is transitioning the data from their host to mine. Are there any best practices to avoid problems, or a whole lot of unnecessary work?