Smartermail upgrade v16.6915 to v17/build 6985 and data conversion

Question asked by Christian Schmit - 2/18/2019 at 3:10 AM

Answered

Currently we are still on version 16.3.x of Smartermail however we are planning to upgrade to version 17/100. To prepare that upgrade did run several upgrade/conversion tests on a VM to which we have copied our 16.3.x production data (without the grp files) using robocopy:

robocopy c:\SmarterMail\Domains z:\SmarterMail\Domains /MIR /ZB /R:1 /W:3 /xf *.grp
robocopy c:\SmarterMail\Service\ *.xml z:\SmarterMail\Service

During the upgrade the conversion of the legacy .xml files to the .json files seemed to have worked fine according to the output of https://mail.example.com/interface/convert-status. No errors or warnings were reported and all domains seem to have been converted successfully. There is however one thing that makes me wonder if the conversion did really have no issues which is:

The legacy .xml files in the domain folders are not cleaned up and moved to the "Domain\Archived Data\Legacy Config Files.zip" file for all domains. In our case the "Archived Data\Legacy Config Files.zip" was
only created for roughly 30% of the domains while for the other domains both .xml files and the .json files remained in place. I do not know if this is a problem or if the presence of the legacy .xml files
could trigger another conversion of .xml to .json upon Smartermail startup.

I would be interested to know what people who already have upgraded see regarding the "Domain\Archived Data\Legacy Config Files.zip".

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Rod Strumbel Replied

2/19/2019 at 1:07 PM

I randomly spot-checked 5 domains, and I see the same sort of thing.

1 of the 5 DID NOT have the Legacy Config Files.zip

But... it also does not have the .xml files in the Archived Data folder either (but does have the .json)

All the others did have the Legacy Config Files.zip

In all cases I see the .json files in the Archived Data folder.

Looks to me like the final cleanup process was inconsistent during the upgrade run.

Rod Strumbel Replied

2/19/2019 at 1:09 PM

Checked 5 more, this time 2 out of 5 did not have the Legacy zip.

Don't see any pattern to it, just seems it didn't create the Legacy for some and did for most.

I DO NOT see any instances of the XML files floating around still in the folder though.

Steven Belsha Replied

2/20/2019 at 2:21 PM

I looked at several domain and found the same problem. Not sure what is going on there. Screenshots below show what I found on two different domains:

This one clearly shows that .xml files still exist in the domains directory

And there is no legacy Config Files.zip in the archived files directory

This one from another domain shows a legacy Config Files.zip and the domain directory appears to be "cleaned up"

I too am wondering whether or not the conversion process did in fact complete on some of my domains.

Rod Strumbel Replied

2/21/2019 at 7:21 AM

Going to poke around some more on this when I get a moment today, will run through all 200 or so of our domains and see how many fall into each category.

Derek Curtis Replied

2/21/2019 at 10:48 AM

Employee Post

Those files are there in case an issue occurs and they're needed to help finish a conversion of a domain or users. Once the conversion finishes, those files can be deleted. If the conversion page says things are all clear across your domains, then the conversion completed without errors. If nothing else, those can be moved to a secondary folder if it causes concern.

Derek Curtis COO SmarterTools Inc. www.smartertools.com

Rod Strumbel Replied

2/21/2019 at 11:07 AM

Thanks Derek, I think the questions are... if the conversion completed... why are they still there?

And why inconsistently?

Derek Curtis Replied

2/21/2019 at 3:18 PM

Employee Post Marked As Answer

Just so everyone is on the same page:

If you don't see any errors on the conversion status page, you don't need the conversion files. Just to be safe, we took a look at Rod's conversion log and his conversion worked just fine.

We built the conversion process to fail on the slightest thing, to be on the safe side. In addition, the conversion process was tested more than any part of SmarterMail and we have seen very few issues since release.

But, there was a small bug with the backup process which the devs knew about (but I didn't) but because the conversion process has been so solid… this wasn’t an urgent fix. The "leftover" XML files don't mean the conversion failed and they won't cause any issues post conversion.

Within a month or so, we will be releasing a cleanup process that will look through backups and orphaned files. This will really benefit customers who have been running SmarterMail for years and years and have more files than a newer install, etc.

If you want to clean your files manually and remove some of the backups we made… go ahead! All that matters are the results from the conversion status page.

Derek Curtis COO SmarterTools Inc. www.smartertools.com

Rod Strumbel Replied

2/22/2019 at 7:22 AM

Thanks again Derek, glad I could help out.

And for those wondering... my results were:

148 domains that have the XML and JSON files (and no Legacy.zip)

85 domains that the cleanup process completed fully (and have a Legacy.zip)

All my domains fell into one of those 2 buckets.

And NO new client issues following the update.

Cenk Keylan Replied

4/3/2019 at 12:07 AM

We have a problem, one of the domains didnot convert, we still have xml files in it and on web interface says 0 users for the domain. Help needed. How to manually convert this domain?

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