[mythtv-users] Warning before upgrading

[Michael T. Dean]

Just a quick heads up to anyone who is upgrading to some version of 
0.22-fixes or trunk.

Please make sure you:

  a) Back up your database before upgrading ( 
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Database_Backup_and_Restore )

  b) If you need to restore your database, DROP the old database before 
restoring ( 
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Database_Backup_and_Restore#Database_Restore )

  c) I highly recommend using the restore script to do any DB 
restores--it does a bunch of sanity checks alerts you when something is 
wrong ( 
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Database_Backup_and_Restore#Database_Restore )

  d) Do not do a partial/"new hardware" restore--even if you're using 
new hardware

  e) If at all possible, do not change MythTV system host names (to keep 
the upgrade as simple as possible)

Mike




Details for those who want them:

If you're not doing an "in-place" upgrade (so you need to restore your 
DB backup), it is critical that you DROP any existing database /before/ 
restoring your database backup.  There have been several cases of users 
getting failed DB upgrades because they restored their 0.21-fixes backup 
on top of a 0.22 "blank" database provided by a distro/packages--meaning 
that MySQL incorrectly stuffs 0.21-fixes data into a 0.22+ schema 
version (thereby corrupting data).  Furthermore, after doing so, the DB 
schema changes will fail--in this case, the DB upgrade fails with the 
error, "Duplicate column name 'default_authority'."

Note that a full restore is recommended.  There's no real reason to do a 
partial/"new hardware" restore.  Definitely do not do "23.7 Moving your 
data to new hardware" at 
http://www.mythtv.org/docs/mythtv-HOWTO-23.html#ss23.7 .  Doing so will 
corrupt your data.  Even if you use the restore script to do a partial 
restore (so the data is not corrupted), a partial restore requires a 
very much more complex approach to upgrading and requires that you 
completely reconfigure your system after upgrade.  In short, don't do a 
partial restore.

If you change hostnames on a MythTV system, it is critical that you 
update all the data in the database to change the old hostname to the 
new hostname so recordings, settings, keybindings, jumppoints, and 
/much/ more are properly found for the host.  Doing so is not 
straightforward--do /not/ do so manually through SQL.  Instead, use the 
restore script to change the hostname ( 
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Database_Backup_and_Restore#Change_the_hostname_of_a_MythTV_frontend_or_backend 
).  However, it is critical that you change the hostname after restoring 
the database but /before/ running any mythtv applications 
(mythfrontend/mythbackend/mythtv-setup) on the host with the new 
hostname.  If you forget to do so, changing the hostname becomes /much/ 
more difficult--to the point that restoring your pre-upgrade backup and 
doing the upgrade properly, and using the script to change the hostname, 
is the easiest solution.