Plesk 8.3 Upgrade Disaster

[johnham]

I upgraded to Plesk 8.3 from 8.2.1 and it blew up. It would not install. It rolled back (or so I thought) and then gave an exception.

When it was said and done the event log was full of messages about not being able to find php_pdo.dll

Upon further research, I found that this file was part of a newer PHP 5 Package. When I looked closer I found that the PHP 5 for sites was PHP 5.2.1 and Plesk's PHP 5 was 5.0.2... but they were using the same PHP.INI. So when plesk would try to start and load the new extensions included in Plesk 5.2.1 it would say it could not find the extensions.

So I went and I copied the PHP5.2 files from the Common PHP install into the Plesk\Admin\Bin folder.

This solved the PHP error but now I get "The file index.php is part of Plesk distribution. It cannot be run outside of Plesk environment." when I try to open the control panel.

I submitted a ticket ($75 for a buggy 8.3 install). This is not what I call a proper distribution. I've NEVER had a problem before (since Plesk 7.5). It was only after I installed that I came to the forum to see that a WHOLE HEAP of people were having the same problems with 8.3.

I am very disappointed in "Parallels". If this many people are having server which become completely inoperable then they should remove the 8.3 version from their site until they can get it right.

Meanwhile I'm stuck. My websites are active but webmail and plesk are screwed. Anybody have ANY insight?

 

[LeaUK]

Have you tried running the Plesk reconfigurator? Make sure you run this before any upgrade.

Can you manually uninstall PHP, then reinstall via the Plesk Add/Remove option?

Lea

 

[johnham]

What will the reconfig do? Can you be more specific? There are so many things the reconfig does. I mean you can't want me to move the web root or change my ip's...

Plus... I have NEVER had to do any of that before.

 

[LeaUK]

What will the reconfig do? Can you be more specific? There are so many things the reconfig does. I mean you can't want me to move the web root or change my ip's...

Plus... I have NEVER had to do any of that before.

Welcome to the real world.

The reconfig resolves many issues and I recommend using it regularly let alone just before upgrade.

Of course I don't want you to change your IPs, use Repair Plesk Installation.

Lea

 

[samuelpereira]

How can i use reconfiguration tool?

Thanks
Samuel

 

[samuelpereira]

I already found the application, but dont solve the problem

Samuel

 

[johnham]

Just to close this up. It took tech support from Friday Morning until Monday Morning to fix this problem (I had to pay $75 for it). It turned out to be a bug in the installer caused by hMailServer. They fixed it and said for me to wait on upgrading my other servers. They are releasing 8.3.1 very soon

My advise is to STAY CLEAR of 8.3. It has been nothing but headaches for me.

 

[LeaUK]

I'm using SmarterMail 4.3 and the upgrade from Plesk 8.1.1 to 8.3 wasn't without issue, but to be fair most were due to our internal configurations and not Plesk. All domains and email were propagated across OK.

I had two issues, ClamAV bundled with SM4.3 is NOT compatible. It causes extremely long load times of the system panel, desktop and login (if you have Desktop + system info). Support was excellent and tracked it down to ClamAV very quickly.

DrWeb didn't update - quickly resolved by support, but now doesn't appear to actually trap...currently being looked at by support.

Due to the sheer complexity, volume of third party integration and platform support there will ALWAYS be issues, so I would thoroughly recommend you purchase the annual support as their 2nd line is excellent - not excluding 1st of course, but the majority of my queries go to 2nd immediately.

Just to close this up. It took tech support from Friday Morning until Monday Morning to fix this problem (I had to pay $75 for it). It turned out to be a bug in the installer caused by hMailServer. They fixed it and said for me to wait on upgrading my other servers. They are releasing 8.3.1 very soon

My advise is to STAY CLEAR of 8.3. It has been nothing but headaches for me.

 

[johnham]

I do have to say support was great. They were effective and in contact at least every 4 to 8 hours while they solved the problem.

Another follow up to this issue is that after everything was said and done, webmail (Horde) no longer worked.

I went to add/remove programs and selected plesk and it looked as if the webmail feature was not installed. I turned it back on. Let it do its thing (which I wasn't sure it would after the last fiasko) and still no webmail. I went into the Plesk Control Panel under Server and Components and turned off webmail and then turned it back on. This simply made the webmail on domains point to the plesk default page.

I then went to one of my working servers running Plesk 8.2 and looked at the IIS config. The webmail is hosted by default on port 8425 and then aliased to the various webmail.*.com websites.

I looked at my broken server again and checked if webmail was installed in IIS. First I tried pulling it up at http://serveraddress:8425. IT WORKED. Then I checked IIS. The site was installed and working but there were NO aliases for the domains I was hosting.

I went and checked a sample domain and sure enough webmail was turned on but it wasn't in IIS. So what I know is uninstalling or reinstalling the webmail does not validate the alias list.

Then I thought of Lea. I ran the plesk reconfig tool and ran a full repair. NOTHING. So the install doesn't validate the alias list and the repair tool doesn't validate the alias list.

I wanted plesk to try to fix itself but it seemed there was no hope of this so I went back to my sample domain and tried turning OFF webmail. Then I turned it back on and viola! The webmail worked on that domain.

So I crossed my fingers and went over to the domains list and selected all my domains. Then I went to group operations hoping that there was a webmail setting there that I could tweak with. There was!!! So I flip all webmail off then turned it all back on.

PROBLEM FIXED!!!

I also contacted SWSOFT about the issue (since my ticket was still open). They said that the install deletes the alias list and this is a known issue. There will be a patch to resolve it soon.

 

[LeaUK]

Hi John

Glad to hear you fixed it in the end - good detective work. This is how I generally proceed by trying everything I can think of, then resorting to support. Take the annual support, you won't regret it. I have carried out two updates 8.0 to 8.1.1 and then to 8.3and I wouldn't dream of it without support.


My web mail is even tricker as I integrate with SmarterMail (straight out of the box) but I insist it runs on port 80 not the SM default, so every upgrade my webmail fails. I have 'jiggle' IIS each time.

Oh, then ASP began failing...but that's another 5 hours of story! Tracked that down to VMware or at least partially!

Take care
Lea

 

[johnham]

I'd be interested in hearing the VMWare tail. I use VMWare ESX right now for some of my production servers and it's pretty solid but I have had a few quirky things with one ASP application.

What are your experiences with it?

 

[LeaUK]

I'd be interested in hearing the VMWare tail. I use VMWare ESX right now for some of my production servers and it's pretty solid but I have had a few quirky things with one ASP application.

What are your experiences with it?

Not strictly VMWare ESX, but VMWare for servers - the baby version.

http://forum.swsoft.com/showthread.php?t=50994

BTW I run Virtual Iron

PM me and I'll send you my email if you're interested?

Lea

 

[funky123]

Have you tried running the Plesk reconfigurator? Make sure you run this before any upgrade.

Can you manually uninstall PHP, then reinstall via the Plesk Add/Remove option?

Lea

what shall exactly be done while plesk reconfigurator - > check permission , check componenets ?

is there any documentation for same in pre upgrade steps