Moving databases from 7.14 version to 8.8 version

📦 Install & Upgrade Help
1

I am trying to upgrade the server I am running SuiteCRM on and at the same time trying to upgrade SuiteCRM itself at the same time. I was able to install 8.8 on my new server with the upgrades to the server I needed, but I cannot figure out how to get it to access the database that was used by 7.14.

I tried both installations, 7.14 crashes on this new server and I cannot get it to run, but 8.8 completes and I can get into the webpages on my new login, but I cannot figure out how to get the old database into it.

Does anyone know how to do this?

2

This is not a good strategy, you need to use the migration scripts to move data for mv7 to v8.

Never migrate at the same time you upgrade. You need to choose one to do first, and only then the other.

This is a bit outdated but should help think about strategy:

https://docs.suitecrm.com/blog/larger-upgrades/

Then use this

3

I wanted to do it that way, but things are not working out for me.

I tried installing 7.14 on the new server and it crashes on the installation setup.
The logs showed it was crashing on a table that did not exist in the database for sending external emails. We were not going to use that feature, but I manually created it anyway to stop the error. Now it just gives me a generic 500 error page with no log details on why it is crashing.

I just tried to upgrade the current live site from 7.14 to 8.8, but the upgrade instructions is pointing to legacy migration packages that are not in the zip file I downloaded.

The closest I have gotten on this was installing 8.8 on the new server and it installed cleanly and I can login to it, I just need our old database into it.

I see there are pages for importing contacts, accounts, cases, etc.
I was just hoping there was a faster way than to do a export of each section on the old server and import each of them back into this.

4

Do you use PHPMyAdmin? Maybe you can try below steps on the dev server.

Step 1: Export from SuiteCRM v7.14

  1. Open phpMyAdmin.
  2. Select the SuiteCRM v7.14 database from the left panel.
  3. Click Export.
  4. Choose Quick or Custom (custom gives you more control).
  5. Select SQL format.
  6. Click Go to download the SQL file.

Step 2: Create New Database for v8.8

  1. In phpMyAdmin, go to the homepage.
  2. Click New in the left sidebar.
  3. Enter a name like suitecrm_v8.
  4. Click Create.

Step 3: Import into New DB

  1. Select the new suitecrm_v8 database.
  2. Click Import tab.
  3. Choose the .sql file exported earlier.
  4. Click Go.

For v8.8, you need to configure database in the .env file.

5

This is really not a good idea.

If you had problems with the normal installers or upgraders, that’s what you should be looking to fix. Normally broken initial installations are caused by issues such as PHP settings, PHP modules missing, insufficient permissions. When the installer work as intended, you don’t end up with missing tables. If you do, you shouldn’t be creating the tables manually to fix it, because you don’t know what else the installer was about to do when it crashed…

And trying to move the database from v7 to v8 is going to get you into ten times more problems, and some of them you won’t even know initially - you will just see those problems popping up later when you already have users using the CRM.

Who said the database schemas were compatible across a major-version upgrade? They’re not guaranteed to be so. At least you should be inspecting the migration scripts and see what they’re doing. You will conclude that it’s not worth the effort to replicate that manually…

6

I do not have PHPMyAdmin installed, but I have been able to do mysqldump to backup the old database & created a new database on my new server with it. I tried to change the config files to point to it and on a previous load tried to restore the database on the one SuiteCRM was connecting to but both crashed on me.

Configuring the .env file sounds like what I need to finish this setup.
Any tips on what I should be looking for in the .env file?

7

I think it difficult to SuiteCRM understand your database, since you must have lots of new custom columns in your database.

I don’t know if you try to do quick repair and rebuild. Maybe CRM will try to read DB.