Borked MODX 2.3 Installations

Given the issues raised previously regarding installations of MODX 2.3.x:

• Development Site In a Subdirectory
• MODX 2.3 Website breaks after resource save

I can see that there are many other 2.3.x issues besides. Not least the 2.3.x Extras Compatibility List not necessarily being a true reflection of an Extras compatibility. If an Extra is broken at the management end, the end user compatibility is quite frankly irrelevant as it will be a house of cards ready to collapse at any time.

I'm not convinced either that it is safe to simply blindly ignore Extra installation errors.

This whole exercise has raised the issue, in my view, of it clearly being necessary to set up (ideally) a 3-tiered system incorporating Development, Testing and Live platforms to avoid this sort of scenario in future. Does anyone already have such a system setup in place? If so, how was this achieved?

In addition I am wondering if there is any change management facility within MODX to provide an audit trail of all changes made to the MODX system - both management and end user changes. With any database backend solution where users, be they end users or management users, are entering data mistakes will always be made. Has anyone implemented such a system?

Also what would be the best approach for a backup strategy given a MODX system incorporating several additional external MySQL databases?

Lastly, I feel given it would be advisable as with other software developers to offer both stable and development versions as download options. The Extras Compatibility List should also be simplified using something like a traffic light system so that it is evident what the true compatibility status is.

In order for full compatibility to be met the Extra should have to be thoroughly tested both from the management and end user perspective. The matter of compatibility should also be incorporated into the Package Management system so that users are aware at the time of installation of any potential issues.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

MODX are not responsible for the extras, the developers of them are and there is no way that the MODX team can check computability for every extra ( in combination ) for every server on every host.

It is always advised that any major upgrade ( IE: 2.1, 2.2,2.3 ) is done on a test environment before being pushed to live.

There will always be issues because beta testing is no where near live deployment testing and the MODX team and several forum members have done a fantastic job of fixing the issues raised in the 2.3 release, If your looking for a fully stable system I would suggest sticking with 2.2.15 until the bugs on 2.3.1 have been completely ironed out and the extra developers have updated.

Quote from: ridgedale at Jul 23, 2014, 10:11 PM

Given the issues raised previously regarding installations of MODX 2.3.x:

• Development Site In a Subdirectory
• MODX 2.3 Website breaks after resource save

I can see that there are many other 2.3.x issues besides. Not least the 2.3.x Extras Compatibility List not necessarily being a true reflection of an Extras compatibility. If an Extra is broken at the management end, the end user compatibility is quite frankly irrelevant as it will be a house of cards ready to collapse at any time.

The issue with my forum post mentioned above is absolutely my own fault for being too eager to jump to the new 2.3 release, I agree with some of your comments on extras being tested, but as Paulp mentioned

MODX are not responsible for the extras, the developers of them are and there is no way that the MODX team can check computability for every extra ( in combination ) for every server on every host.

I wouldn't be so quick to call something a "House of cards" since I know software is an iterative process. We as partakers of software need to have patience and self control when using it (this is honestly my biggest downfall... a lack of patience). I have to give a huge amount of props for the work the MODX team is doing on this release and I applaud them for working so hard on working out the kinks, also to the community who have always helped out with us less patient ones.

That being said, I will be sticking with 2.2.15 for a bit until more kinks get worked out with the new 2.3.

You can put some of the blame on me. I waited to test my three-dozen plus Extras until 2.3 was released so I'd be testing against the real thing. I'm working my way through them now and hope to release updates for almost all of them within the next week.

As for complete testing of Extras, it's just not feasible (at least for me) to do full testing of all possible use cases. If I did that, the updates would take several months instead of a few days. There are just too many permutations in the ways they might be used. I do have unit tests for a few extras, but for the rest, I do a quick check and count on users to report any issues. I'm confident that in most cases, there won't be any.

MODX 2.3 is not all that different from 2.2 under the hood. In fact, the vast majority of Extras are either going to work fine in 2.3. Most of the rest will break in very obvious ways and require small fixes.

Most of the ones I've had to fix so far just required adding a return statement at the end of plugins and snippets -- something that's good practice to begin with. I don't think it will take long to get them all working fine in 2.3.

I suspect that 3.0 will be another story.

@Jesse,

I appreciate your thoughts and comments. I apologise for the unintended tenor of my post. In no way was there an intention to knock the developers for all their excellent work.

The House of Cards statement perhaps was unfair. My remarks related specifically to the Articles/quip installation errors. Although it is easy to say that they aren't an issue, these Extra installation errors are showing up whatever the MODX version is installed. It would be more helpful if there was some explanation as to what is causing the Extra installation errors, why they aren't an issue and why they won't be an issue with future versions of MODX.

It is interesting that each of the versions of the MODX system itself I have installed have completed without any hitched or errors whatsoever. That is a real testament to the work of the developers. However, I wonder how many MODX setups are running without any Extras installed? Is that even a realistic expectation?

I do feel it would be somewhat more genuine to people installing MODX to advise them that actually MODX 2.2.14 (2.2.15 has only very recently been released and does not show up as an upgrade in my host providers control panel) is the latest stable release both in terms of the apparent dependency of web developers on installed Extras, etc and the compatibility of the existing available versions of the Extras, etc with the installed version of MODX.

I do appreciate we can all be over-eager when it comes to installing new releases of software.

Thank you also for providing the MODX video tutorials. I've only managed to complete the first two so far, but they have been very helpful and informative.

BobRay,

Thank you for the update. It is much appreciated.
I'll keep an eye out for those updates.

I think I'll re-raise the questions about system setup, change management and backups in a separate thread with an appropriate title.

Thank you for all your work on the Extras, btw.

Just a note. An upgrade performed through cPanel is not necessarily the same as doing an upgrade with the file downloaded from MODX. The cPanel upgrade script may have been created by the host or by a third-party upgrade service and may or may not be up to snuff. It's unfair to blame MODX for this.

Hi BobRay,

That's a fair point albeit the v.2.3.0 installations that got messed up had been manually installed as per the instructions on the MODX website.

I have since ditched all my previous MODX installations and started afresh with one 2.2.14 installation installed via the Powweb control panel and another manually installed 2.2.15 version as per MODX instructions.

Both were seemless installs apart fom a temporary MySQL server connectivity issue during the 2.2.15 installation and logging in to the manager interface worked straightaway.

Do you happen to know if there is a way of comparing the installations other than checking the system information? The information shown on the system information is identical apart from the MODX version reference.

Thanks again.

I think that anyone migrating a production site to software that has only been out a few weeks needs there processes' looked at. (Even more so for agencies).

We as a business won't even consider migrating a site over to the latest version (with exceptions being made for security vulnerabilities e.t.c), and we run a strict two version behind policy - that gives plenty of time (normally) to address key issues such as this.

To completely contradict my self - I want 2.3. No really, I want it. Now, I'd like nothing more to migrate everyone over to 2.3 and for my eyes to rejoice in the MODX experience when logging in. However thats not the case.

Credit however, where credit is due, to the MODX team for churning out 2.3.1 in a blinding response time to answer some key bugs. That gives me great confidence in the software and the way it's going to progress in the next coming weeks/months.

I agree with you wholeheartedly on all counts.

Just out of interest, may I ask what version of MODX you are currently running?

I wonder also if you may be able to share some general thoughts (without compromising your business) on the questions I raised in my initial post regarding: a tiered MODX system implementation strategy, a changement management system to track all system changes, and a backup strategy?

Quote from: ridgedale at Jul 25, 2014, 11:16 AM

Just out of interest, may I ask what version of MODX you are currently running?

I wonder also if you may be able to share some general thoughts (without compromising your business) on the questions I raised in my initial post regarding: a tiered MODX system implementation strategy, a changement management system to track all system changes, and a backup strategy?

We basically operate on a 2 version prior release system, with SLA'd clients automatically being updated, and non-SLA'd notified with the option to purcahse our time to upgrade (extra potential revenue stream). So 99% of our sites are running 2.2.14.

We don't have a change management system per-sey, because I strongly believe that the content is of the clients concern, however when it's raised, version X is normally more than adequate, and couple that with a bit of custom uaergroups e.t.c and you have a fully blown editor -> published stack going on.

Regarding backups, we have something in house that we've been using now for some time with great effect, again SLA'd clients are automatically backed up once a week, non SLA'd have the option (again, another potential revenue stream).