In some cases, you might need to upgrade your Umbraco Cloud project manually. It's very similar to how you would upgrade any other Umbraco project but includes a few extra and very important steps.

Umbraco Cloud project uses Umbraco Forms and Umbraco Deploy, which means there are also some dependencies you need to consider when upgrading your Umbraco Cloud project manually.

Why and when would you do a manual upgrade?

By default, all Umbraco Cloud projects are automatically upgraded when we release new patches (e.g. 8.8.1) to the Umbraco CMS as well as Umbraco Forms and Umbraco Deploy. When we release a new minor version (e.g 8.8) the upgrade is applied to the Umbraco Cloud engine, and not to the individual projects - the same goes for the release of new major versions (e.g. 10.0). For these minor and major versions, there will be an option on your Umbraco Cloud Development environment to apply the upgrade. The Umbraco Cloud engine will take care of the entire process, and you only need to make sure everything works after the upgrade has been applied.

We always recommend using the automatic and semi-automatic upgrade options provided to you as part of your Umbraco Cloud project. With that said, it's also possible to upgrade your Umbraco Cloud project manually - this can be done with both patches and minor and major versions.

A reason for doing a manual upgrade of your Cloud project could be if you want to test out new features and functionality on your local machine before they are applied to your Cloud environments.

Product dependencies

When you are manually upgrading a Umbraco Cloud project it's important that you take into account the dependencies that exist between the products on Umbraco Cloud. To continue reaping the full benefits of Umbraco Cloud make sure to check for dependencies when you upgrade to a new minor or major version of Umbraco CMS.

Upgrade order

When you are manually upgrading your Umbraco Cloud project and you need to upgrade two or more products, this is the order you need to follow:

1. Umbraco CMS

2. Umbraco Forms

3. Umbraco Deploy

Learn more about the product dependencies on Umbraco Cloud

How to upgrade Umbraco CMS manually

Make sure to follow the steps carefully when upgrading your Umbraco Cloud project to the newest version of Umbraco CMS.

How to upgrade Umbraco Forms manually

There are no Umbraco Cloud-related files to be aware of when upgrading Umbraco Forms. Therefore you can follow the general Umbraco Forms upgrade notes. When upgrading Umbraco Forms, be sure to also consult the version specific upgrade notes to learn about potential breaking changes and common pitfalls.

How to upgrade Umbraco Deploy manually

Deploy on Cloud will either be automatically upgraded with patch releases or it can be done through the portal when new minors are available.

In rare cases, Deploy might not be on the latest patch or minor and you will need to upgrade Deploy manually.

This article will give you a step-by-step on how to manually upgrade the deployment engine used on your Umbraco Cloud project.

Prepare for the upgrade

When upgrading an Umbraco Cloud project manually, the very first step is to clone down your Cloud Development environment to your local machine.

Make sure you can run your Cloud project locally and restore content and media. It's important that you check that everything works once the upgrade has been applied and for this, you need to have a clone locally that resembles the Cloud environment as much as possible.

Get the latest version of Umbraco

To get the latest version of Umbraco Deploy you will need to upgrade the site using NuGet. The main package to install is Umbraco.Deploy.Cloud. This has dependencies on other components of Umbraco Deploy that will be imported automatically.

If using Umbraco Forms in your installation, you should also update the Umbraco.Deploy.Forms package reference,

NuGet installs the latest version of the package when you use the dotnet add package command unless you specify a package version:

dotnet add package Umbraco.Deploy.Cloud --version <VERSION> dotnet add package Umbraco.Deploy.Forms --version <VERSION>

After you have added a package reference to your project by executing the commands above in the directory that contains your project file, run dotnet restore to install the packages.

You can also update the Umbraco Deploy through the NuGet Package Manager in Visual studio:

When the command completes, open the .csproj file to make sure the package reference was updated:

<ItemGroup>
  <PackageReference Include="Umbraco.Deploy.Cloud" Version="9.0.1" />
  <PackageReference Include="Umbraco.Deploy.Forms" Version="9.0.1" />
</ItemGroup>

Make sure that everything works on the local clone and that you can run the project without any errors.

Manually Upgrade Umbraco Deploy Legacy Version 7 and 8

Push upgrade to Cloud

When you've upgraded everything locally, and made sure that everything runs without any errors, you are ready to deploy the upgrade to Umbraco Cloud.

• Stage and commit all changes in Git

• Push the changes to the Cloud environment

• When everything is pushed, head on over to the Umbraco Cloud Portal

• Make sure everything runs without errors before deploying to the next Cloud environment

Projects on Cloud will either be automatically upgraded with patch releases or it can be done through the portal when new minors are available.

In rare cases, your project might not be on the latest patch or minor and you will need to upgrade the project manually.

This article will give you a step-by-step on how to manually upgrade your Umbraco Cloud project.

Prepare for the upgrade

• When upgrading a Umbraco Cloud project manually, the very first step is to either clone down your Cloud Development environment to your local machine or pull down the latest changes for your development environment.

• Navigate to the /src/UmbracoProject/ folder to find the .csproj file.

• Make sure you can run your Cloud project locally and restore content and media. It's important that you check that everything works once the upgrade has been applied and for this, you need to have a clone locally that resembles the Cloud environment as much as possible.

Get the latest version of Umbraco

To get the latest version of Umbraco you will need to upgrade the site using NuGet.

NuGet installs the latest version of the package when you use the dotnet add package command unless you specify a package version:

dotnet add package Umbraco.Cms --version <VERSION>

After you have added a package reference to your project by executing the dotnet add package Umbraco.Cms command in the directory that contains your project file, run dotnet restore to install the package.

Alternatively, you can update the CMS through the NuGet Package Manager in Visual Studio:

When the command completes, open the .csproj file to make sure the package reference was updated:

<ItemGroup>
  <PackageReference Include="Umbraco.Cms" Version="x.x.x" />
</ItemGroup>

<sectionGroup name="umbraco.deploy">
    <section name="environments" type="Umbraco.Deploy.Configuration.DeployEnvironmentsSection, Umbraco.Deploy" requirePermission="false" />
    <section name="settings" type="Umbraco.Deploy.Configuration.DeploySettingsSection, Umbraco.Deploy" requirePermission="false" />
</sectionGroup>

<add key="umbracoConfigurationStatus" value="7.8.1" />
---
<add key="UmbracoLicensesDirectory" value="~/App_Plugins/UmbracoLicenses/" />
<add key="umbracoVersionCheckPeriod" value="0" />
<add key="umbracoDisableElectionForSingleServer" value="true" />
<add key="Umbraco.Deploy.ApiKey" value="9BEA9EAA7333131EB93B6DB7EF5D79709985F3FB" />

<connectionStrings>
    <remove name="umbracoDbDSN" />
    <add name="umbracoDbDSN" connectionString="Data Source=|DataDirectory|\Umbraco.sdf;Flush Interval=1;" providerName="System.Data.SqlServerCe.4.0" />
    <!-- Important: If you're upgrading Umbraco, do not clear the connection string/provider name during your web.config merge. -->
</connectionStrings>

<umbraco.deploy>
    <environments configSource="config\UmbracoDeploy.config" />
    <settings configSource="config\UmbracoDeploy.Settings.config" />
</umbraco.deploy>

<section alias="Deploy">
    <areas>
    <area>content</area>
    </areas>
    <tab caption="Your workspace">
    <control>/App_Plugins/Deploy/views/dashboards/dashboard.html</control>
    </tab>
</section>

<section alias="StartupFormsDashboardSection">
    <areas>
    <area>forms</area>
    </areas>
    <tab caption="Dashboard">
    <control>/App_Plugins/umbracoforms/backoffice/dashboards/licensing.html</control>
    <control>/App_Plugins/umbracoforms/backoffice/dashboards/yourforms.html</control>
    <control>/App_Plugins/umbracoforms/backoffice/dashboards/activity.html</control>
    </tab>
</section>

<section alias="StartupDashboardSection">
    <access>
    <deny>translator</deny>
    </access>
    <areas>
    <area>content</area>
    </areas>
    <tab caption="Get Started">
    <access>
        <grant>admin</grant>
    </access>

    <control showOnce="true" addPanel="true" panelCaption="">
        views/dashboard/default/startupdashboardintro.html
    </control>

    </tab>
</section>

Run the upgrade locally

When you are done updating the NuGet packages as mentioned above, follow these steps to complete the upgrade and verify that everything is working as expected before you push the changes to your Umbraco Cloud project

• Run the project locally

• When the project spins up, you'll be prompted to log in to verify the upgrade

• On the installation screen, you need to verify the upgrade:

• Hit Continue - this will complete upgrading the database

• The upgrade will finish up

• When it's complete you will be sent to the Umbraco backoffice

Make sure that everything works on the local clone and that you can run the project without any errors.

Push upgrade to Cloud

Before you deploy the upgraded project to the Cloud, it's important that you check if there are any dependencies on the new Umbraco version.

If updates are available for Umbraco Forms or Umbraco Deploy then you can upgrade those locally as well, before moving on.

When you've upgraded everything locally, and made sure that everything runs without any errors, you are ready to deploy the upgrade to Umbraco Cloud.

• Stage and commit all changes in Git

• Push the changes to the Cloud environment

• When everything is pushed, head on over to the Umbraco Cloud Portal

• Access the backoffice of the Cloud environment you pushed the upgrade to - Development or Live

• You will again be prompted to log in to complete the database upgrade

• You will be sent to the backoffice once the upgrade is complete

Again it's important that you make sure everything runs without any errors before moving on to the next Cloud environment.