This article provides details on how to upgrade to the next minor version when using Umbraco 8.
Sometimes there are exceptions to these guidelines, which are listed in the version-specific guide.
It is necessary to run the upgrade installer on each environment of your Umbraco site. If you want to update your staging and live site you need to repeat the steps below. Make sure you click through the install screens so that your upgrade is complete.
In this article you will find instructions for 3 different ways of upgrading:
Open up the Package Console and type: Update-Package UmbracoCms
Choose "No to All" by pressing the "L" when prompted.
If there are any specific configuration changes required for the version you are upgrading to then they will be noted in the version-specific guide.
Alternatively, you can use the Visual Studio NuGet Package Manager to upgrade:
Open the NuGet Package Manager and select the Updates pane to get a list of available updates.
Choose the package called UmbracoCms and select update.
The upgrade will run through all the files and make sure you have the latest changes while leaving files you have updated.
Download the .zip file for the new version you are upgrading to from https://our.umbraco.com/download
Copy the following folders from inside the .zip file over the existing folders in your site:
/bin
/Umbraco
There are hosting providers (we know of one: RackSpace Cloud) that require proper casing of file and folder names. Normally on Windows this is not a problem. If your hosting provider however forces proper casing, you will need to verify that the folder and file names are in the same casing as in the newest version you're upgrading to.
You can expect some changes to the following configuration files:
Any file in the /Config folder
The /Global.asax file
The web.config file in the root of your site (Important: make sure to copy back the version number, and the connection string as they were.)
In rare cases, the web.config file in the /Views folder
Use a tool like WinMerge to check changes between all of the config files. Depending on when you last did this there may have been updates to few of them.
There's also the possibility that some files in the /Config folder are new or some have been removed (we do make a note of this in the release notes). WinMerge (and other diff tools) can compare folders as well so you can spot these differences.
Some packages like Umbraco Forms add dialogs to the UI.xml. Make sure to merge those changes back in from your backup during the upgrade so that the packages continue to work. This file can be found in: /Umbraco/Config/Create/UI.xml.
Packages like Umbraco Forms and Courier also make changes to the language files located in: /Umbraco/Config/Lang/*.xml (typically en.xml).
After copying the files and making the config changes, you can open your site. You should see the installer which will guide you through the upgrade.
The installer will do two things:
Update the version number in the web.config
Upgrade your database in case there are any changes
We are aware that, currently, the installer is asking you for the database details of a blank database while upgrading. In the near future this will be pre-filled with your existing details and the wording will be updated. So no need to be scared. Enter the details of your existing database and Umbraco will upgrade it to the latest version when necessary.
When upgrading your Umbraco project to Umbraco v8.12+ it is possible to enable the upgrade to run unattended. This means that you will not need to run through the installation wizard when upgrading.
Below you will find the steps you need to take in order to upgrade your project unattended.
Are you running a load balanced setup with multiple servers and environments?
Check out the section about Unattended upgrades in a load balanced setup.
Add the Umbraco.Core.RuntimeState.UpgradeUnattended key to appSettings in your web.config file.
Set the value of the key to true.
ConfigurationStatusIn order to trigger the actual upgrade, the correct version number needs to be set.
It is important to use the version number of the version that you are upgrading to. If this is not set, the upgrade will not run even if the UpgradeUnattended key has been set to true.
Locate the ConfigurationStatus key in the appSettings section in your web.config file.
Update the value to match the Umbraco version that you are upgrading to.
With the correct configuration applied, the project will be upgraded on the next boot.
While the upgrade processes are running, any requests made to the site will be "put on hold", meaning that no content will be returned before the upgrade is complete.
The Runtime level will use Run instead of Upgrade in order to allow the website to continue to boot up directly after the migration is run, instead of initiating the otherwise required restart.
The upgrade is run after Composers but before Components. This is because the migration requires services that are registered in Composers and Components requires that Umbraco and the database is ready.
Follow the steps outlined below to use run unattended upgrades in a load balanced setup.
Upgrade Umbraco via NuGet in Visual Studio. Make sure the Umbraco.Core.ConfigurationStatus key in appSetting in the web.config file is updated to match the target version.
Deploy to all environments, including the updated appSetting for Umbraco.Core.ConfigurationStatus.
Set the Umbraco.Core.RuntimeState.UpgradeUnattended key in appSetting in the web.config to true for the Main server only.
Request a page on the Main server and the upgrade will run automatically.
Wait for the upgrade to complete.
Browse the Read-Only servers and make sure they do not show the “upgrade required” screen.
One important recommendation is to always remove the install folder immediately after upgrading Umbraco and never to upload it to a live server.
Google Chrome has notoriously aggressive caching, so if something doesn't seem to work well in the backoffice, make sure to clear cache and cookies thoroughly (for other browsers as well). Normally the browser cache problem is automatically handled in an Umbraco upgrade by modifying the config/ClientDependency.config version number. If you however wish to re-force this update you can increment this version number which will ensure that any server-side cache of JavaScript and stylesheets gets cleared as well.
One way to nudge the cache in Chrome is to open the developer tools (F12) and go to the settings (the cog icon). There will be a checkbox that says "Disable cache (while DevTools is open)". Once this checkbox is on you can refresh the page and the cache should be invalidated. To force it even more, the "reload" button next to your address bar now has extra options when you right-click it. It should have "Normal reload", "Hard reload" and "Empty cache and hard reload" now. The last option is the most thorough and you might want to try that.
This document covers specific upgrade steps if a version requires them. Most versions do not require specific upgrade steps and you will be able to upgrade directly from your current version.
Use the information below to learn about any potential breaking changes and common pitfalls when upgrading your Umbraco CMS project.
If any specific steps are involved with upgrading to a specific version they will be listed below.
Use the general upgrade guide to complete the upgrade of your project.
You can find a list of all the released Umbraco versions on Our Umbraco website. When you visit Our Umbraco website, click on the version number to view the changes made in that specific version.
Are you looking to upgrade an Umbraco Cloud project from 9 to 10? Follow the guide made for Upgrading your project from Umbraco 9 to 10 instead, as it requires a few steps specific to Umbraco Cloud.
This guide will show you how to migrate the content from your Umbraco 7 site to a site running Umbraco 8.
Umbraco 8 contains a lot of breaking changes and a lot of code has been cleaned up compared to Umbraco 7. Due to this, it will not be possible to do a direct upgrade from Umbraco 7 to Umbraco 8. You need to migrate your content from your Umbraco 7 site into your Umbraco 8 site and then recreate the rest in the new version.
A content migration tool has been implemented in Umbraco 8.1.0, to help you with the transition.
In this guide you can read more about the tool, its limitations, and how to use it in practice.
Migrating Umbraco Cloud sites
Follow the steps outlined in the Umbraco Cloud documentation to upgrade your Umbraco 7 site on Cloud.
In the following section, you can learn more about the limitations of migrating content from Umbraco 7 to Umbraco 8.
The content migration tool is a database migration, which is made for the database schema of Umbraco 7.14+. This means that in order to do the migration you need to ensure your Umbraco 7 site is running at least Umbraco 7.14.
Umbraco 8 does not support MySQL databases. This means that the migration will not work when moving from an Umbraco 7 site using MySQL to Umbraco 8 on SQL Server
The database types that are supported are SQL Server and SQL CE.
Feedback from user testing has shown that some databases are harder to migrate than others.
We are collecting a list of these known issues on our GitHub Issue Tracker. There is a community package: Pre-migration health checks that you can install on your Umbraco 7 site before migration. This will help identify and resolve some of these common issues before triggering the migration steps detailed below.
A migration was introduced in Umbraco 8.6 which can break the migration process. See Issue #7914 for more details.
There are two ways to work around this issue:
Migrate to version 8.5 as a first step and then post-migration, carry out a normal Umbraco upgrade to the latest version of Umbraco 8, or
Install the following community Nuget Package: ProWorks Umbraco 8 Migrations into your Umbraco 8 project before running the migration (no configuration required). This package was created by Umbraco Gold Partner ProWorks and patches the migration process so you can migrate directly from the latest Umbraco 7 to Umbraco 8.6+ without encountering the above issue. Learn more about the package and the migration process on Prowork's blog.
The migration will transform the data stored in third party editors as well. However, it will be stored as it was in Umbraco 7. If the structure has changed or the property editor doesn't exist, you will still be able to find the data in the database. It will, however, not be available in the backoffice.
When the migrations are running, Umbraco will go through your entire Umbraco 7 database and update it to the format required for Umbraco 8. The schema will be remodeled and transformed into the correct format and your existing compatible data will be transformed to fit with Umbraco 8.
These migrations will be running directly on your database. They are transforming schema and data - not transferring. Therefore always ensure that you have a backup before attempting to do this. In case something goes wrong, you will be able to rollback and try again.
It is highly recommended to clean up your site before running this as it will be quicker.
Empty Content recycle bin
Empty Media recycle bin
Clean up the database version history (can be done with a script or a package like Unversion)
In the following guide we will migrate the content of an Umbraco 7.13.1 site to Umbraco 8.1.0.
Before the content migration can start the site has to run Umbraco 7.14+. Make sure to always take a backup of the database before doing an upgrade, and then check the version specific upgrade instructions.
The site in this example is an Umbraco 7.13.1 site, and we will use Nuget to update it.
Following the general upgrade instructions we will now upgrade via Nuget until we get to this point:
When upgrading an old website, check if you are using obsolete properties in your Data Types. These should be changed to their updated counterparts. The migration will fail if you are still using obsolete properties.
The updated properties are:
Content Picker
Media Picker
Member Picker
Multinode Treepicker
Folder Browser
Related Links
You can see if your site is using the obsolete properties from the (Obsolete) prefix in their name.
Install the Pre-migration health checks plugin, and run it health check from the Developer section of the backoffice. This is done to identify and resolve some common database schema issues before migration.
Once it is upgraded and you have verified everything is working, move on to the next step.
The first thing to do is to spin up a fresh new Umbraco 8.1+ site. Make sure everything works and that no content is there.
If you have customized the UsersMembershipProvider on your Umbraco 7 site you need to copy that over to the 8.1 web.config as well. Additionally you need to update the type attribute to be type="Umbraco.Web.Security.Providers.UsersMembershipProvider, Umbraco.Web".
This also includes the attribute useLegacyEncoding value. Make sure that this setting is copied into your new Umbraco 8 site, as it is needed in order to log in.
Take a backup of your database from the Umbraco 7.14 site. Take the information for the backup database and add that to the connectionstring for the Umbraco 8.1 site. If you are running SQL CE, you will have to copy the database over to the new site as well.
Once the connectionstring is set, the final step is to change the Umbraco version number in the web.config on the Umbraco 8.1 site. Chang it to 7.14.0. This will indicate that there is an upgrade pending and it needs to run the migration.
The version will be set to 8.1.0, and you need to change it to the version you are currently migrating from.
When you start the site it will ask you to login and then show you this screen:
From here, the automatic migration will take over, and after a little bit you can log in and see your content:
Please be aware that this is a content migration. If you go to the frontend after following these steps, it will throw errors.
At this point you will have the content but nothing else.
Before moving on to this step, make sure that the Umbraco 8 project is no longer running.
The following files/folders need to be copied into the Umbraco 8 project:
~/Views - do not overwrite the default Macro and Partial View Macro files, unless changes have been made to these.
~/Media
Any files/folders related to Stylesheets and JavaScripts.
Any custom files/folders the Umbraco 7 project uses, that aren't in the ~/Config or ~/bin.
~/App_Data/UmbracoForms - in the case Umbraco Forms was used on the Umbraco 7 site.
Merge the configuration files carefully to ensure any custom settings are migrated while none of the default configurations for Umbraco 8 is overwritten.
You'll have to revisit all templates and custom implementations to get the site up and running, as all markup is still Umbraco 7-specific.
Are you planning on continuing the migration to the latest version on Umbraco CMS?
Then you can skip the step to revisit the template files and custom implementation. We highly recommend waiting with this step until you've reached the latest version.
If you're stopping at Umbraco 8, you can learn more about rendering content on the Legacy Docs site.
As you are updating your template files and custom implementation, you should also verify your configuration files and settings.
Umbraco 8 contains a few changes regarding the Sections in the Umbraco Backoffice. Because of this, you should also check your User Groups and make sure they have access to the appropriate sections.
Learn more about the Section in the Sections article
Learn how to upgrade your Umbraco 8 project to Umbraco 10.
It is currently not possible to upgrade directly from Umbraco 8 to the latest version.
The recommended approach for upgrading from version 8 to the latest version is to use this guide to upgrade from Umbraco 8 to Umbraco 10. Umbraco 10 contains the database migrations that must be upgraded from Umbraco 8. You can then use the Upgrading to Major steps to upgrade from Umbraco 10 to the latest version.
Since the underlying framework going from Umbraco 8 to the latest version has changed, there is no direct upgrade path. That said, it is possible to re-use the database from your Umbraco 8 project on your new project in order to maintain the content.
It is not possible to migrate the custom code as the underlying web framework has been updated from ASP.NET to ASP.NET Core. All templates and custom code will need to be reimplemented.
You also need to make sure that the packages you are using are available on the latest version.
A Umbraco 8 project running the latest version of Umbraco 8.
A backup of your Umbraco 8 project database.
A clean installation of the latest version of Umbraco.
If you use Umbraco Forms, then on the clean installation of Umbraco, you will need to install Umbraco.Forms package as well.
The video below shows how to complete the upgrade on an Umbraco Cloud project. Most of the process is the same, however, the video does contain some Cloud-specific elements.
If you use Umbraco Forms, make sure to have StoreUmbracoFormsInDbsetto True before step 1.
Create a backup of the database from your Umbraco 8 project (after you have upgraded to the latest version of v8). For this, you can use the database backup guide.
Import the database backup into SQL Server Management Studio.
Update the connection string in the new projects appsettings.json file so that it connects to the Umbraco 8 database:
You can also add the connection details if you spin up a clean installation.
Run the new project and login to authorize the upgrade.
Select "Upgrade" when the upgrade wizard appears.
Once the upgrade has been completed, it's recommended to login to the backoffice to verify if your project is upgraded to new version.
This is only content migration and the database will be migrated.
You need to manually update the view files and custom code implementation. For more information, see Step 3 of this guide.
The following files/folders need to be copied from the Umbraco 8 project into the new project:
~/Views - Do not overwrite the default Macro and Partial View Macro files unless changes have been made to these.
~/Media - Media folder from v8 needs to be copied over into the wwwroot - media folder
Any files/folders related to Stylesheets and JavaScript.
Migrate custom configuration from the Umbraco 8 configuration files (.config) into the appsettings.json file on the new project.
As of Umbraco version 9, the configuration no longer lives in the Web.Config file and has been replaced by the appsettings.json file. Learn more about this in the Configuration article.
Migrate Umbraco Forms data to the database, if relevant.
As of Umbraco Forms version 9, it is only possible to store Forms data in the database. If Umbraco Forms was used on the Umbraco 8 project, the files need to be migrated to the database.
Run the new project.
It will give you an error screen on the frontend as none of the Template files have been updated. Follow Step 3 to resolve the errors.
The latest version of Umbraco is different from Umbraco 8 in many ways. With all the files and data migrated it is now time to rewrite and re-implement all custom code and templates.
One of the changes is how published content is rendered through Template files. Due to this, it will be necessary to update all the Template files (.cshtml) to reflect these changes.
Read more about these changes in the IPublishedContent section of the Umbraco CMS documentation.
Template files need to inherit from Umbraco.Cms.Web.Common.Views.UmbracoViewPage<ContentModels.HomePage> instead of Umbraco.Web.Mvc.UmbracoViewPage<ContentModels.HomePage>
Template files need to use ContentModels = Umbraco.Cms.Web.Common.PublishedModels instead of ContentModels = Umbraco.Web.PublishedModels
For more information on the correct namespaces or custom code, you can find the references in the API Documentation article.
Depending on the extent of the project and the amount of custom code and implementations, this step is going to require a lot of work.
Once the new project runs without errors on a local setup it is time to deploy the website to production.
This concludes this tutorial. Find related information and further reading in the section below.
This document should be used as a reference, not a step by step guide. Upgrading will largely depend on what version of Umbraco you are currently running, what packages you have installed and the many
The still apply to this process as well.
It is critical that you back up your website and database before upgrading. There are database changes made during installation and you cannot revert an Umbraco 7 database to an Umbraco 6 database.
Umbraco 7 is built on .Net 4.5 and your development environment will require this version installed in order to operate. Visual Studio users may require 2012 or higher.
Umbraco 7 requires browsers with proper HTML 5 support, these include Chrome, Firefox, IE10+
Before you upgrade be sure to read the list of breaking changes. This is especially recommended if you have removed or modified code in the core or if one of these breaking changes directly affects your installation.
for more details.
It is recommended to rebuild all Examine indexes after completing the upgrade.
You should re-generate the XML cache. This can be done by following the prompts when visiting the following URL:
your-domain.com/umbraco/dialogs/republish.aspx?xml=true
It is recommended that you use a Diff tool to compare the configuration file changes with your own current configuration files.
/web.config updates
You will need to compare the new Umbraco 7 web.config with your current web.config. Here is a quick reference of what needs to change:
Remove the section name="BaseRestExtensions" section
Remove the section name="FileSystemProviders" section
Remove the sectionGroup name="system.web.webPages.razor" section
Remove the <FileSystemProviders> element
Remove the BaseRestExtensions element
Remove the add key="umbracoUseMediumTrust" element
Remove the system.web.extensions element
Removes the xhtmlConformance element
Remove the system.codedom element
Remove the compilation assemblies, /compilation
Remove the system.web.webPages.razor element
New: sectionGroup name="umbracoConfiguration" section
New: umbracoConfiguration element
Ensure that the targetFramework="4.5" is added to the httpRuntime element
Add add key="ValidationSettings:UnobtrusiveValidationMode" value="None" to the appSettings element
/config/clientdependency.config changes
remove add name="CanvasProvider" element
/views/web.config updates
New macroscripts/web.config
config/umbracoSettings.config
Remove the EnableCanvasEditing element
Remove the webservices element
Removed xsltExtensions.config
/config/applications.config and /config/trees.config have some icon paths and names updated. You need to merge the new changes into your existing config files.
/config/tinyMceConfig.config
The inlinepopups is compatible and supported in Umbraco 7. You need to remove these elements: plugin loadOnFrontend="true", inlinepopups/plugin;
The plugins element that is shipped with Umbraco 7 looks like this:
You need to merge the changes from the new tinyMceConfig file into yours. The command elements that have changed are: JustifyCenter, JustifyLeft, JustifyRight, JustifyFull, umbracomacro, umbracoembed, mceImage, subscript, superscript, styleselect
Remove the command: mceSpellCheck
/config/dashboard.config
You need to merge the changes from the new dashboard.config into yours. Some of the original dashboard entries that were shipped with Umbraco 6 have been replaced or removed.
Umbraco 7+ will no longer support medium trust environments. There are now some assemblies used in the core that do not support medium trust but are used extensively. Plugin scanning now also allows for scanning Umbraco's internal types which requires full trust.
Content, Media, Members, and Data Type trees will no longer raise the legacy tree events (based on BaseTree). It is recommended to change all tree event handlers to use the new tree events that fire for every tree in Umbraco including legacy trees. The new tree events are static events and are found in the class Umbraco.Web.Trees.TreeControllerBase:
MenuRendering
RootNodeRendering
TreeNodesRendering
The Content, Media, Member, and Data Type editors have been re-created and are solely using the new Umbraco Services data layer. This means that operations performed in the backoffice will no longer raise the legacy business logic events (for example, events based on umbraco.cms.businesslogic.web.Document). It is recommended to change your event handlers to subscribe to the new Services data layer events. These are static events and are found in the services. For example: Umbraco.Core.Services.ContentService.Saved.
Legacy property editors (pre-Umbraco 7) will not work with Umbraco 7. During the upgrade installation process, Umbraco will generate a report showing you which legacy property editors are installed. These will all be converted to a readonly Label property editor. No data loss will occur but you'll need to re-assign your existing data types to use a new compatible Umbraco 7 property editor.
Most Umbraco core property editors shipped will be mapped to their equivalent Umbraco 7 editors. The Image cropper editor has not been completed for v7.0.
Since the Related Links property is an advanced property editor, the data format has changed from XML to JSON. This should not have any effect when retrieving the data from razor. If you are outputting Related Links data with XSLT you will need to update your XSLT snippet. Making use of the new library method umbraco.library:JsonToXml and taking into account that the xml structure has also slightly changed.
One of the database changes made in Umbraco 7 is the change of referencing a property editor from a GUID to a string alias. In order to map a legacy property editor to a new Umbraco 7 version you can add your custom "GUID -> Alias" map during application startup. To do this you would add your map using this method: Umbraco.Core.PropertyEditors.LegacyPropertyEditorIdToAliasConverter.CreateMap
Legacy parameter editors (pre-Umbraco 7) will not work with Umbraco 7. If Umbraco detects legacy parameter editor aliases that do not map to a Umbraco 7 parameter editor it will render a textbox in its place. You will need to update your macros to use a compatible Umbraco 7 parameter editor as those that aren't supported.
Previously, parameter editors were registered in an Umbraco database table: cmsMacroPropertyType which no longer exists. Parameter editors in Umbraco 7 are plugins like property editors. During the Umbraco 7 upgrade installation process it will update the new cmsMacroProperty.editorAlias column with the previous parameter editor alias. During this process it will look into the Umbraco.Core.PropertyEditors.LegacyParameterEditorAliasConverter for a map between a legacy alias to a new Umbraco 7 alias.
Custom legacy parameters can be mapped to new Umbraco 7 parameter editor aliases during installation. This can be done by modifying the mapping during application startup using this method: Umbraco.Core.PropertyEditors.LegacyParameterEditorAliasConverter.CreateMap.
All database changes will be taken care of during the upgrade installation process.
For database change details see (including all child tasks):
See above for the database updates made for better tag support.
Tags can now be assigned to a nodes property and not only a node
Multiple tag controls can exist on one page with different data
The legacy API does not support this, the legacy API will effectively, add/update/remove tags for the first property found for the document that is assigned a tag property editor.
There is a new ITagService that can be used to query tags
Querying for tags in a view (front-end) can be done via the new TagQuery class which is exposed from the UmbracoHelper. For example: @Umbraco.TagQuery.GetTagsForProperty
You should check with the package creator for all installed packages to ensure they are compatible with Umbraco 7.
We see common errors that we cannot fix for you, but we do have recommendations you can follow to fix them:
The TypeFinder has been deprecated since 4.10 and is now found under Umbraco.Core.TypeFinder.
While you need to have JavaScript inside menu actions to trigger a response, it is highly recommended that you use the recommended UmbClientMgr methods. You should not try to override parent.right.document and similar tricks to get to the right-hand frame.
If you have a webforms page, it is recommended to use the built-in ASP.NET controls to render panels, properties and so on. If you use the raw HTML or try to style it to match the backoffice, you will get out of sync. Follow the guidelines set by Umbraco's internal editors and use the ASP.NET custom controls for UI.
This article provides details on how to upgrade to the next minor version when using Umbraco 7.
Sometimes there are exceptions to these guidelines, which are listed in the .
It is necessary to run the upgrade installer on each environment of your Umbraco site. If you want to update your staging and live site then you need to repeat the steps below and make sure that you click through the install screens to complete the upgrade.
In this article you will find instructions for 2 different ways of upgrading:
Open up the Package Console and type: Update-Package UmbracoCms
Choose "No to All" by pressing the "L" when prompted.
If there are any specific configuration changes required for the version you are upgrading to then they will be noted in the .
Alternatively, you can use the Visual Studio NuGet Package Manager to upgrade:
Open the NuGet Package Manager and select the Updates pane to get a list of available updates.
Choose the package called UmbracoCms and select update.
The upgrade will run through all the files and make sure you have the latest changes while leaving the files you have updated.
You will be asked to overwrite your web.config file and the files in /config, make sure to answer No to those questions.
For some inexplicable reason, the installation will fail if you click "No to All" (in the GUI) or answer "L" (in the package manager console) to the question: "File 'Web.config' already exists in project 'MySite'. Do you want to overwrite it?" So make sure to only answer "No" (in the GUI) or "N" (in the package manager console).
We will overwrite the web.config file. We'll back it up so don't worry. You can find the backup in App_Data\NuGetBackup\20140320-165450\. The 20140320-165450 bit is the date and time when the backup occurred, which varies. You can then merge your config files and make sure they're up to date.
Copy the following folders from inside the .zip file over the existing folders in your site:
/bin
/Umbraco
/Umbraco_Client
There are hosting providers (we know of one: RackSpace Cloud) that require proper casing of file and folder names. Generally, on Windows, this is not a problem. Is your hosting provider forcing proper casing? You'll then need to verify that folders and files are named in the same casing as the version you're upgrading to.
You can expect some changes to the following configuration files:
Any file in the /Config folder
The /Global.asax file
The web.config file in the root of your site (Important: make sure to copy back the version number, and the connection string as they were.)
In rare cases, the web.config file in the Views folder
There's also the possibility that files in the /Config folder are new or have been removed(we note this in the release notes). WinMerge (and other diff tools) is able to compare folders as well so you can spot these differences.
Up until version 6.0.0 it was necessary to change the version number in ClientDependency.config. This was to clear the cached HTML/CSS/JS files in the backoffice. Change the current version number to one that's higher than that. Make sure not to skip this step as you might get strange behavior in the backoffice otherwise.
Some packages (like Contour and Umbraco Forms) add dialogs to the UI.xml. Make sure to merge those changes back in from your backup during the upgrade so that the packages continue to work. This file can be found in: /Umbraco/Config/Create/UI.xml.
Packages like Contour, Umbraco Forms, and Courier also make changes to the language files located in: /Umbraco/Config/Lang/*.xml (typically en.xml).
After copying the files and making the config changes, you can open your site. You should see the installer which will guide you through the upgrade.
The installer will do two things:
Update the version number in the web.config
Upgrade your database in case there are any changes
We are aware that, currently, the installer is asking you for the database details of a blank database while upgrading. In the near future this will be pre-filled with your existing details and the wording will be updated. So no need to be scared. Enter the details of your existing database and Umbraco will upgrade it to the latest version when necessary.
One important recommendation is to always remove the install folder immediately after upgrading Umbraco and never to upload it to a live server.
Google Chrome has notoriously aggressive caching. If something doesn't seem to work well in the backoffice, make sure to clear cache and cookies thoroughly (for other browsers as well). Normally the browser cache problem is automatically handled in an Umbraco upgrade by modifying the config/ClientDependency.config version number. If you wish to re-force this update you can increment this version number. This will ensure that any server-side cache of JavaScript and stylesheets gets cleared as well.
One way to nudge the cache in Chrome is to open the developer tools (F12) and go to the settings (the cog icon). There will be a checkbox that says "Disable cache (while DevTools is open)". Once this checkbox is on you can refresh the page and the cache should be invalidated. To force it even more, the "reload" button next to your address bar now has extra options when you right-click it. It should have "Normal reload", "Hard reload" and "Empty cache and hard reload" now. The last option is the most thorough and you might want to try that.
Details are listed here:
Umbraco is now shipped with minimal settings but the are still available
umbracoSettings is now a true ASP.NET configuration section
If you're not upgrading to 7.2.0 or higher then you should follow these extra instructions. If you are upgrading to 7.2.0+ then you can skip this and go to .
Download the .zip file for the new version you are upgrading to from
Use a tool like to check changes between all of the config files. Depending on when you last did this there may have been updates to a few of them.
