Long Update Paths: Best practices in dealing with /custom folder conflicts

💬 General Discussion
1

I’ve recently updated from v.6.4.1 to v.7.10.9 (on a system that originated as SuiteCRM CE 6.1.x (if I remember correctly)

I’m finding that most issues I encounter after the upgrade are due to files in the /custom folder, some of which haven’t been changed in 4+ years.
Finding the right files to remove seems to be a question of simple narrowing down the folder hierarchy since suitecrm.log doesn’t help here.

I’m thinking some of you SuiteCRM experts out there must have some experience with this kind of thing and have developed a best-practice workflow?

Instead of just picking out individual files in the custom folder that are causing obvious individual issues here and there, should I be removing whole subfolders from the /custom folder by default, because we know that things have changed too much and are bound to cause issues?
And then re-integrating those custom changes that I really need?

any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

2

I don’t have any organized advice (a workflow) to provide you with, I am afraid.

Just a few things that come to mind:

  1. If you’re confused about which files SuiteCRM is searching for, and what is happening during the Rebuild, this helps: https://pgorod.github.io/Audit-File-Accesses/

  2. Make sure you understand which files generate other files during the quick Repair and Rebuild, so you can make all your decisions regarding the original files, not the generated ones.

  3. If you start with a clean system and then add your customizations one be one, you will probably end up with a cleaner installation, with less left-overs. It’s a good time to get a full map of all your custom changes.

Good luck and share your findings when you’re done…