Thursday, August 7, 2008

Upgrading WebTrends from 8.1 to 8.5

The upgrade from WebTrends version 8.1 to 8.5 did not go smoothly. The big difference between the 8.1 versions and 8.5 is that instead of using mysql databases 8.5 now uses SQL databases specifically running on SQL Server 2005 Express Edition. During the upgrade 8.5 installed SQL 2005 Express and converted the mysql databases to SQL databases. This all seemed to go fine except when the WebTrends site came up it still pointed to the old mysql databases even though the SQL databases were created and converted successfully.

Support had me first uninstall 8.5 and then reinstall 8.5, after this we tried restoring the converted databases over the empty 8.5 databases. This did not succeed as when the site was browsed a SQL error was displayed. So support had me uninstall 8.5 and reinstall 8.1 specifically 8.1.0.5164. After we had a blank 8.1 installation running I stopped the WebTrends services and made copies of the storage, wt_sched and wtmaster folders that exist within the WebTrends folder within Program Files. I then copied in my backup folders of these (I made backups of these before doing any upgrade, apparently all the data is stored in these folders). I then restarted the WebTrends services and browsed to the WebTrends site. Success, the site came up, I was able to login and all my analysis data was there.

After we verified some of the data in the 8.1 version, we upgraded to 8.1a which I believe is 8.1.0.2048. After the upgrade we again logged into the WebTrends site and verified the data. Just a note here, one of the many technicians I spoke to told me that the upgrade would only be successful from 8.1a to 8.5. This explains why my 8.1 to 8.5 upgrade didn’t go well. The data was correct so we then upgraded to 8.5, we logged into the WebTrends site again and finally the data was all there.

You can verify version and database platform by logging into the WebTrends site, going into the Administration area and then into Install Components. On that page is a link to About WebTrends which displays the version number and database platform.

Lessons learned: Upgrade to 8.1a before attempting to upgrade to 8.5.

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