Can we safely update after two years?

Hi Darlene,
In your position (and I am) I would create a test site and try out the changes there first.
Mike.

Thanks Mike. That’s too much work; client would not likely want to pay for. Can one of the developers of NextGen answer this post please?

@madriverweb – Thanks for taking the time to ask.

For the most part, I would definitely recommend updating the MySQL if possible and then work your way through the updates you need to make.

Create a full verified backup before doing anything then since you are starting from as old a place as you are I would also recommend deactivating all plugins before updating anything (it may help with troubleshooting if something doesn’t go well … whether it be NextGEN Gallery or another plugin).

Start with WordPress core, then (and I’m being biased) update and activate NextGEN Gallery … make sure things are working as expected.

Then carry on with the plugins you see as the most relevant first. Update, activate, test … rinse and repeat until done.

Hopefully all will go well.

Thanks, again!

– Cais.

I think I will just wait until the customer needs more major work done. No-one wants to pay for this kind of behind the scenes stuff. I was hoping your answer would be more definitive.

@madriverweb First, I would never pay a person like you that leave my site exposed to hacker attacks, and asks things that he/she should know.
Your client has a buggy version of WordPress, and this should be your first concern, themes and plugins comes after this, you should know it.
So, the very first thing to do is upgrade WordPress, here the instructions for upgrading from very old release, and here the WordPress versions.

Second, your PHP/MySQL are fine if they really are the ones above, because there’s a typo and it’s not – MySQL (at least 5.2.4)? – PHP (at least 5.0)?, it’s the opposite:
PHP version 5.2.4 or greater
MySQL version 5.0 or greater
See here.

For the rest, you can not expect that someone read in the future and tell you what will happen. Follow the right steps for manual upgrades as @cais noted and then update one by one the compatible plugins and remove those no longer compatible.
NextGEN is compatible but since you are coming from an old and different version, almost certainly you will need to fix some things.

Thank you, your answer was actually helpful, as impolite as it was.

@madriverweb I’m glad it was helpful. Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude but I felt a little pretence in your answers, maybe I was wrong, plus English is not my language so I have a limited vocabulary.

If clients don’t want to pay for what needs to be done, you need new clients, ones who are more reasonable. Demanding a plugin author could figure out what you need done on an entire system that is years out of date is a bit much.

Hey all, just a little closure on this thread.

1) I was hoping the plug-in author might say (considering I have no other plug-ins, just the question on the lightbox one) “no problem, the updates from that system to current system have been fine now that we’ve worked the bugs out,” or “no, expect problems related to…” I don’t believe I was “demanding” of the author.

2) The realities that we work in are not as easy as “get new clients.” We’re competing with systems such as WIX and Squarespace (who advertised on the Superbowl) as well. Sometimes you can educate clients as to why going with WordPress is better and sometimes you can’t. I’ve already put a couple hours into the research. If I update for them, more time. There is a risk/benefit in every decision we make. I will certainly inform them of this and I use the analogies of car maintenance for this work, and car accident when a site gets hacked. They get it. But they sometimes “find” other alternatives that they think are less expensive and we don’t always get to participate in that decision.

Can we please close this thread? I marked it resolved two responses ago.