1. Type in update.php at the root level of your site URL. So, for this site we'll have the following URL to run our script: http://variantcube.com/fire/update.php

2. Click the Return button on your keyboard to load the update.php script.

3. You will see the following Drupal database update page (along with more parse errors):

4. Click on the Continue button to begin the update process.

5. A second Drupal database update page will load. You do not need to select the versions—Drupal will do this automatically. Click on the Update button.

6. The updates will run. You will see a progress bar and each core module will be updated in the database schema. Allow all the database updates to complete. Do not click your mouse during this process.

7. Once completed, you should see a final Drupal database update page load. A series of messages will be visible telling you the database update is complete. For example, on our site Drupal tells us that it now has separate edit and delete permissions. This is good information to read, as you know exactly what Drupal did during the upgrade process. You'll also see a long list of executed database queries. This list will tell you exactly what updates the Drupal update.php script performed in your database tables. For example, if the update script altered or replaced tables.

8. At this point your update page should show all green messages and gray query executed updates. You should also see green checks next to your upgrade list at the top left corner of the page—Overview, Select Updates, Run updates, and Review log.

9. Your core upgrade process is now completed from the database side.

10. Click on the Main page or Administration pages link to be taken back to your new 6.13 site. It's a good idea to first click on the Administration pages link to make sure the admin pages load correctly.

11. Once you click on the Administration pages link, you can then go to your Status report page through the Reports | Status report link.

12. The Status report should now show you the new version of Drupal 6.13 listed. It should also show you green checks next to the rest of your configuration. This shows you that you have successfully upgraded your core code to Drupal 6.13. Congratulations!

13. Run cron manually to make sure the Status report loads again without any errors. cron should run successfully.

14. We're now ready to complete the entire upgrade process by installing the new 6.x versions of our contributed modules, and our Zen theme and corresponding custom theme files.

15. We will then enable the update status module (that now comes packaged with Drupal 6.x) and that will complete the entire upgrade.

1. Download all of the contributed module tar.gz files corresponding to the latest 6.x stable releases to a folder on your desktop. You may want to create a folder called contrib._module_upgrades to put the new releases in.

2. Once you have downloaded all the tar.gz files, extract them into your contributed modules folder. This will create all of your module folders (one for each module).

3. Also, make sure you download and extract the Advanced Help module, so you can add advanced help documentation to your Drupal site (this is a large scale Drupal 6.x enhancement). The project page is here: http://drupal.org/project/advanced_help

4. You should by now have extracted all of your modules ready to upload via FTP:

5. Move your new contributed modules using FTP to your /sites/all/modules directory.

6. Go to your Modules admin list and re-enable the 6.x versions of the modules you just installed through their respective groups. For example, re-enable all of the Views modules and then run your update.php script. Then come back to the modules admin list and re-enable your Panels modules. Doing it in this way by enabling the modules as groups will help you to identify problems with your module upgrades and more easily diagnose problems than if you just re-enable all your contributed modules at the same time.

7. The only module you do not need to enable at this time is the Devel module. We're going to look at that module in detail in Chapter 3, so leave it disabled for now. Be sure to enable the Advanced Help module as well. Click on Save configuration.

8. You may receive a Fatal Error warning about your memory_limit size (in your PHP settings). If you receive this, go ahead to the next step and run your update.php script. We'll address our memory issue immediately after running update.php.

9. If you receive parse errors, immediately run update.php again. This time the script will update all of your contributed modules database schemas.

10. You will see your Drupal database update page again (at update.php). Click on the Continue button.

11. Click on Update on the next screen (the same as our update.php during core upgrade above).

12. When I run update.php, Drupal informs that there is not enough memory to run the upgrade. This is a performance issue due to the amount of modules we've added to our site and the resources these modules require. Before continuing our update.php we'll need to upgrade our memory_limit. We can do this by editing our site's settings.php file. These are screenshots of the two types of errors which may arise at this stage of the process:

1. Either login to your cPanel File Manager utility or to your site through FTP to edit the settings.php file that is in your /sites/default folder. If you do this via FTP, you will need to edit the file's permissions first in order to add or edit the file. It needs to have write permissions for editing purposes.

2. I've logged into my cPanel File Manager utility and I've browsed to my /sites/default directory.

3. I check the box next to my settings.php file and then click on the Change Permissions button in the File Manager admin screen. I add full write and execute permissions. I click on the Change Permissions button.

4. I then click on the Edit button in the File Manager utility.

5. This launches the settings.php file in edit mode. I look for the PHP settings section of the file and the array of ini_set settings. I add the following line of code to my file: ini_set('memory_limit', '96M');

6. I specify 96M as my new memory_limit value.

7. Save the changes to your file.

8. Refresh your site admin screen to see if the changes worked.

9. If you refresh your update.php screen, the updates should automatically begin because your memory limit is now working. If you receive any remaining parse errors, run the update.php script again until you see no errors.

10. Drupal will give you the following note/info when you run update.php to upgrade your modules.

11. You should now see a final Drupal database update screen with links back to your Administration pages (just like at the end of the core upgrade process). Click on the Administration pages link.

12. If you have installed the CTools module (to allow Panels to work) you'll see two messages appear at the top of the Administer page: The directory files/ctools has been created and The directory files/ctools/css has been created.

13. Load your Status report page and you should see everything in green mode with checks. You've successfully completed stage 1 of the contributed module upgrade process. Congratulations! Notice that on your Status report page you'll see the PHP memory limit is now set to 96M.

14. Run cron manually once more to make sure you do not receive any errors. The last items to address will be to re-enable your View for the photo gallery and your home page panel. Finally, we'll re-install and enable your custom Zen sub-theme.