Upgrade SmarterMail Enterprise Edition Version 16.3.6870 to Build 7090?

Question asked by Jade D - 6/5/2019 at 5:35 AM

Answered

I've delayed the upgrade of Smartermail 16 to the latest build after keeping a close eye on the amount of issues that were reported since the initial release of version 7xxx - how ever I havent had time over the last two - three months to keep an eye on the amount of reported issues - so excuse me if this has been discussed / asked.

This needs to get done as we've renewed support for the purpose of keeping our software up to date and have already lost months worth of support by not being able to upgrade in fear of causing havoc to our environment.

Is the current upgrade path seamless, should I try to do it during hours in which ST support will be available?

We have 4 servers with a few thousand domains that would be upgraded, and I cant risk having mail accounts not being imported, etc etc.

Should we proceed, ie is Smartermail Build 7XXX production ready?

Jade

https://absolutehosting.co.za

6 Replies

Reply to Thread

JerseyConnect Team Replied

6/5/2019 at 6:18 AM

We upgraded from v15 to the current builds in late March. The upgrade was seamless and users seem to have adjusted to the new UI fairly well.

However, since the upgrade we've run into a number of bugs. More than the sum total of all bugs we have ever encountered since starting with SmarterMail v5. To their credit 99% of the bugs have been resolved quickly with a fix in the next build. Though we are currently experiencing one bug that we've been working with support on since the end of April. While we wait for development to implement some detailed debug logging to find the root cause, we've developed our own workaround to mitigate the issue.

Overall I don't regret moving to the current builds and was very happy with the upgrade process.

Kyle Kerst Replied

6/5/2019 at 2:02 PM

Employee Post Marked As Answer

Hello and good afternoon. This is my opinion, but it does originate from the support department! My personal recommendation on this would be to attempt a test upgrade of your servers in a dev/test environment to give you the opportunity to test before you roll this out to production. To move a copy of your domains to a new server for testing purposes you can use the KB article linked here:

https://portal.smartertools.com/kb/a3161/migrate-smartermail-to-a-different-server.aspx

Once you've completed your test upgrade, you can check on the status of the domain conversions by navigating to the link below (modified for your hostname):

https://mail.example.com/interface/convert-status

If this completes successfully in your test environment you should be good to upgrade in production! With that being said, you can ensure a smooth upgrade with a couple of steps taken beforehand:

1. Pre-install .NET 4.7.2 (or the latest available) on the server to shorten the install time required.

2. Set up a backup MX with a free SmarterMail install to handle incoming mail spooling until the primary comes back online.

3. Take a full backup of the installation directory and domains, and don't panic! With a proper backup anything can be reverted safely.

As always if you need any help along the way - we're here for you - and would be happy to help get you on to the new version. On that front, planning your upgrade during our business hours definitely helps ensure someone is available to support you, but we also have emergency support available should you need help in the middle of the night. If you have any outstanding questions, or see anything I missed in my response please let me know.

Kyle Kerst IT Coordinator SmarterTools Inc. www.smartertools.com