Upgrade your project

This is the guide for upgrading existing installations in general.

In this article, you will find everything you need to upgrade your Umbraco CMS project.

You will find instructions on how to upgrade to a new minor or major version as well as how to run upgrades unattended.

• Before you upgrade

• Upgrade to a new Major

• Upgrade to a new Minor

• Run an unattended upgrade

Before you upgrade

The following lists a few things to be aware of before initiating an upgrade of your Umbraco CMS project.

• Sometimes there are exceptions to general upgrade guidelines. These are listed in the version-specific guide. Be sure to read this article before moving on.

• Check if your setup meets the requirements for the new versions you will be upgrading your project to.

• Things may go wrong for different reasons. Be sure to ALWAYS keep a backup of both your site's files and the database. This way you can always return to a version that you know works.

• Before upgrading to a new major version, check if the packages you're using are compatible with the version you're upgrading to. On the package's download page, in the Project compatibility area, click View details to check version-specific compatibility.

It is necessary to run the upgrade installer on each environment of your Umbraco site. This means that you need to repeat the steps below on each of your environments in order to complete the upgrade.

Legacy Umbraco

The steps outlined in this article apply to modern Umbraco from version 10 and later versions.

Are you upgrading to a minor for Umbraco 6, 7, or 8 you can find the appropriate guide below:

Minor upgrades for Umbraco 8Minor upgrades for Umbraco 7

Upgrade to a new Major

You can upgrade to a new major of Umbraco CMS directly by using NuGet.

It is recommended that you upgrade to the closest Long-term Support (LTS) major version before upgrading to the latest version. For Umbraco 10, the closest long-term support version is Umbraco 13. Once upgraded to Umbraco 13, you can upgrade to Umbraco 14.

Switching to a new major of Umbraco CMS also means switching to a new .NET version. You need to make sure that any packages used on your site are compatible with this version before upgrading.

The package compatibility can be checked on the package's download page. Locate the Project compatibility area and select View details to check version-specific compatibility.

Choose the correct .NET version

Use the table below to determine which .NET version to upgrade to when going through the steps below.

CMS version	.NET version
15	9.0
14	8.0
13	8.0
12	7.0
11	7.0
10	6.0.5

Upgrade your project using Visual Studio

It's recommended that you upgrade the site offline and test the upgrade fully before deploying it to the production environment.

1. Stop your site in IIS to prevent any changes from being made while you are upgrading.

2. Open your Umbraco project in Visual Studio.

3. Right-click on the project name in the Solution Explorer and select Properties.

4. Select the .NET version from the Target Framework drop-down.

5. Go to Tools > NuGet Package Manager > Manage NuGet Packages for Solution...

6. Go to the Installed tab in the NuGet Package manager.

7. Upgrade Umbraco.Cms.

   a. Select the correct version from the Version drop-down.

   b. Click Install to upgrade your project.

If you have other packages installed such as Umbraco Forms, then before upgrading Umbraco.CMS you will need to upgrade the packages first. Consult the version specific upgrade notes for Umbraco Forms if relevant.

1. Make sure that your connection string has TrustServerCertificate=True in order to complete the upgrade successfully:

"ConnectionStrings": {
    "umbracoDbDSN": "Server=YourLocalSQLServerHere;Database=NameOfYourDatabaseHere;User Id=NameOfYourUserHere;Password=YourPasswordHere;TrustServerCertificate=True"
}

1. Restart your site in IIS, then build and run your project to finish the installation.

In Umbraco 13, we have moved to using the Minimal Hosting Model.

If you have added custom code to the startup.cs file, we recommend moving the code into a Composer after upgrading.

If your database experiences timeout issues after an upgrade, it might be due to ASP.NET Core Module's 'startupTimeLimit' configuration.

To fix the issue, try increasing the startupTimeLimit in the web.config file. Additionally, you can set the Connection Timeout value in the ConnectionString in the appsettings.json file.

Upgrade to a new Minor

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>

Add 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.

For v9: If you are using SQL CE in your project you will need to run dotnet add package Umbraco.Cms.SqlCe --version <VERSION> before running the dotnet restore command. From v10, SQL CE has been replaced with SQLite so a dotnet restore should be sufficient. If this is not working then you will need to run dotnet add package Umbraco.Cms.Persistence.Sqlite --version <VERSION> and then dotnet restore.

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

.csproj

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

Run an unattended upgrade

When upgrading your Umbraco project, 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.

Enable the unattended upgrade feature

1. Add the Umbraco:Cms:Unattended:UpgradeUnattended configuration key.

2. Set the value of the key to true.

appsettings.json

{
    "Umbraco": {
        "CMS": {
            "Unattended": {
                "UpgradeUnattended": true
            }
        }
    }
}

Run the upgrade

With the correct configuration applied, the project will be upgraded on the next boot.

Boot order

The Runtime level will use Run instead of Upgrade to allow the website to continue to boot up directly after the migration is run. This happens instead of initiating the otherwise required restart.

The upgrade is run after Composers but before Components and the UmbracoApplicationStartingNotification. This is because the migration requires services that are registered in Composers and Components require that Umbraco and the database are ready.

Unattended upgrades in a load balanced setup

Follow the steps outlined below to use unattended upgrades in a load balanced setup.

1. Upgrade Umbraco via NuGet (see instructions above)

2. Deploy to all environments.

3. Set the Umbraco:CMS:Unattended:UpgradeUnattended configuration key to true for the Main server only.

4. Boot the Main server and the upgrade will run automatically.

5. Wait for the upgrade to complete.

6. Boot the Read-Only servers and make sure they do not show the “upgrade required” screen.