Upgrading to Nova 2.7

The update process for moving to Nova 2.7 is a more involved and manual process than previous versions of Nova 2. Unfortunately this couldn't be avoided due to upgrading CodeIgniter (the underlying framework Nova is built on) to version 3. The process explained below only needs to happen one time when you first upgrade from any version prior to 2.7.0. After you've gone through this upgrade, any future updates will use the normal update process.

What you'll need

Before you get started updating Nova, make sure you have the following things ready to go:

• An FTP client for accessing your server
• The latest copy of Nova downloaded from the Anodyne site and unzipped
• A solid, recent backup of your site
• The database connection information you received from your web host (you can also find this is your current database config file)

Updating Nova

Step 1: Update application files

Under normal circumstances, we don't ask Game Masters to update any files in the application directory. However, the update to CodeIgniter 3 required that many of the files in the the application directory be updated.

To start, rename the following directories in the application directory:

• config to config_backup
• controllers to controllers_backup
• core to core_backup
• libraries to libraries_backup
• models to models_backup

Next, rename the following files at the root directory:

• index.php to index_backup.php
• message.php to message_backup.php

With the directories and files renamed, you can now upload the new copies of the following directories from the application directory in the Nova zip archive to your own application directory:

• config
• controllers
• core
• libraries
• models

Next, you can upload the following files from the Nova zip archive to your own root directory:

• index.php
• message.php

Step 2: Rename the Nova directory

Once you've finished backing up your site (because you already did that, right?), rename the nova directory to nova_backup on your server. (This ensures that if the update goes awry you still have a copy of the working Nova core from before you attempted the update.)

Step 3: Upload Nova

With the nova directory renamed to nova_backup, you can now upload the nova directory from the zip archive you downloaded from the Anodyne site. (This will give you the code for the latest version.)

Step 4: Run the update

Navigate to {your-site}/index.php/install in your browser and you'll be guided through the update process. For this update, you'll be prompted to configure your database connection again. After completing the database config file wizard, you'll be able to run the update. Once the update process is complete, you'll be directed back to your site and will be ready to use Nova again.

Step 5: Update the Sendmail path

The way that sessions (data about the current visitor) are handled was completely re-written in CodeIgniter 3. Due to these changes, Nova 2.7 has to ship with the session driver set to files instead of database. There is no way around this due to how pervasive sessions are in web applications. Doing this prevents unrecoverable errors from happening the moment a user hits the site.

This change, however, prevents Nova from being able to easily pull who is currently online. In order to fix this issue, you will need to make a change to the main config file located at application/config/config.php. Add the below line at the end of the file to change the session driver from files to database:

+$config['sess_driver'] = 'database';  
 $config['mailpath'] = '/usr/sbin/sendmail';
 $config['mailpath'] = '/usr/sbin/sendmail -t -i';

Step 6: Update the session driver

The way that sessions (data about the current visitor) are handled was completely re-written in CodeIgniter 3. Due to these changes, Nova 2.7 has to ship with the session driver set to files instead of database. There is no way around this due to how pervasive sessions are in web applications. Doing this prevents unrecoverable errors from happening the moment a user hits the site.

This change, however, prevents Nova from being able to easily pull who is currently online. In order to fix this issue, you will need to make a change to the main config file located at application/config/config.php. Add the below line at the end of the file to change the session driver from files to database:

+$config['sess_driver'] = 'database';  

Step 7: Remove the backup directories

With the update complete and your site back up and running, you can now delete the nova_backup directory from your server as well as all of the backup directories in your application folder.

Step 8: Update default skins (optional)

We've given both the Pulsar and Titan skins a much needed visual refresh. If you're using either skin and are happy with them, you don't need to replace them, but if you'd like to use the updated versions, you can delete the default and titan directories from application/views and replace them with the versions in the Nova zip archive.