Installing on localhost

[basix101]

If you are trying to install TB locally and cannot get wamp or xampp working on Windows, Uniform Server worked straight out of the box for me (after reading "READ.txt" on install).

http://www.uniformserver.com/

[Guest]

Looks interesting, will definitely have a look at that. I tried the suggested Vagrant setup for doing it local but had to give up as some of the tools were not compatible with my Windows 7. In the end I got my boss to buy another shared account on our hosting provider but if that works then it'd let me try out upgrades to all our websites easily.

[Traumflug]

If one has public server space already, one can easily install a copy in a subdirectory. No need to buy more space. Database goes into a separate one or uses a different prefix (settable on one of the installer pages).

For just testing, using public space is a good idea. Same hardware, same OS, same DB server, same PHP version.

For development it's much better to have this stuff more accessible. Files directly editable, ability to install xdebug, to use custom tools, no fear to restart the server, such stuff.

[Guest]

@traumflug I've got a dev setup on a sub-directory of one of my PrestaShop sites, purely for trying out new versions before making them live. However, the reason I bought more space is due to limited resources, CPU and memory being the main issues along with disk space.

With regards to TB though, I don't think it's ready enough yet to replace my PrestaShop on live so really I'm more interested in testing out it's functionality with what I expect to need, for example quantity volume discounts on combinations stuff. Once I feel it's ready then I'll do as you say and switch the current dev site to TB from PS.

[DaoKakao]

Also there's an excellent Open Server https://ospanel.io - it has all needed for TB, including not only AMP, but also nginx, redis, memcache and dozens of other modules, you can dynamically change the version of any modules. Also it is equipped with tons of free utils.

IMO, it is one of the best tools of WAMP world.

Unfortunately website only in Russian, but it is possible to use the google translator.However, the package itself has the English translation.

[Traumflug]

With regards to TB though, I don’t think it’s ready enough yet to replace my PrestaShop

How is it possible that thirty bees is less ready than PrestaShop? 30bz is PS with hundreds of bug fixes, so it can be only better. At least I think so.

[Guest]

@traumflug of the 3 attempts I've had of doing a shop upgrade, each have failed. It is possible to get it working but there's no restore point when it goes wrong because the backup process fails. As it stands now I'm using TB purely as a test bed to try out things so see what works / doesn't work. I know one of the issues I've raised is still outstanding but I also know it's broken on PrestaShop as well.

If I could press upgrade and it worked on the default, no other modules installed then yes I would probably use it but I can't afford to risk 3 live websites on something I don't know is going to work. I know PrestaShop is bug ridden but it is usable as long as I don't upgrade it.

[Traumflug]

It is possible to get it working but there’s no restore point when it goes wrong because the backup process fails.

This is a known issue. The workaround is to make a backup by other means before doing the upgrade, then doing the upgrade without backup.

A backup copies all files and the database. Files can be copied via your usual procedure to upload/download files to/from the server. For DB backups, phpMyAdmin works just fine. In case of disaster one removes all files on the server and the entire DB and restores both from these backups. This procedure works for both, PS and 30bz.

[DaoKakao]

To tell the truth, even 'vanilla' PS not always did the backups correctly. Then what to do if someone have installed some modules, which are adds some extra tables and/or fields to the database? 1-click upgrade and builtin backup tool won't make a backup of that extra data.

As far as i remember, in all PS documentation and help/tips it was explicitly noted not to rely on 'standard' backup tools, but to make extra backups manually. So, IMO, the tools like phpMyAdmin, HeidiSQL and SFTP/FTP/SSH are not an option.

[Guest]

I always use phpMyAdmin for backups of the DB and haven't needed as yet to revert a change but I think the point I was making was I don't think TB is ready for me to replace PS on my live websites. I know PS is fairly stable up to 1.6.1.11 without any major issues (or ones that I can work around) but as for TB just today someone has posted issues with the PayPal module and the Bankwire module. If I'd gone live with TB I'd have 3 sites a high proportion of our customers would have problems using due to the payment modules.

If my stores were very low turnover or new stores then I'd have taken the plunge to TB by now but for stores that are generating about 15% of the company turnover I couldn't take the risk of suddenly getting stuck without the customer being able to buy.

I know there's thousands of bugs fixed in TB and I'd really like to switch over but as it stands now I feel it's just too high a gamble, it needs people to be able to upgrade / install and have a basic functioning shop without any of these hiccups.

[Traumflug]

I know PS is fairly stable up to 1.6.1.11 without any major issues (or ones that I can work around) but as for TB just today someone has posted issues

First thing to check in such cases is whether PS is actually better in regard to the issue at hand. Often it's not, the vast majority of thirty bees bugs is PrestaShop baggage. Apparently the distinction between PS and thirty bees is that thirty bees users see sense in reporting them or publishing their fixes, while PS users simply gave up and live with them silently.

Good. I'll shut up now. You certainly know best what's the best solution for you.

[Guest]

@traumflug I do report stuff at times: https://forum.thirtybees.com/topic/796/quantity-discounts-with-combinations-ignore-combination-price-increase-and-use-base-price

Just to add, I'm not a developer, I'm using the store as a merchant and as a merchant I can't afford to debug live stores, I need to make the company money from them.

[DaoKakao]

It is strange when merchant talks about possible upgrade/migration of production environment without testing on any kind of sandboxed new/other product instance...

Even more strange to hear about stability issues of TB/PS. IMO this is kind of myth. Such grands as Oracle/IBM/HP/SAP and others has/had huge problems with stability, bugs, cratches, et c., some of their very famous software has bugs unfixed for years.

[Guest]

@daokakao I take a copy of the live site into a folder and test the upgrade there for both PS and TB, I don't apply it directly into the live site. I don't apply the PS till at least a week after it's been released to see what other issues come up to see if I should wait on even bothering to try. I'd only update the live site if I didn't have problems. Of the 3 times I've tried this for TB it's not worked for various issues which is why I've not migrated my live sites to TB and also why each version of PS I've tried since 1.6.1.11 I've not applied to the live sites as they bring various issues with them.

Every time I update the live site with PS (which hasn't been done for a long time) I only do after I've ran a series of tests to ensure I've got the same functionaility or better and I do a full code compare to make sure I capture my local changes. At the point before I'm due to do the update I've got a dev site that matches exactly what I want. I then do the update either during the night time or at weekends (low customer activity) and re-run the tests on the live site to ensure I get the same results as the dev site. So far I've not had to roll back. Believe me, this process is a million times easier than doing a Magento 1.x update!

For the issues I've ran into on TB migration I've had the missing front page content with barely anything there (as reported by other people and possibly down to installing in a sub-folder), I've had the issue with suddenly losing the friendly urls and it reverting to non-friendly even though friendly was ticked (I had to switch off friendly urls then re-apply them) and I've 500 errors without knowing what caused them. Given these issues I've not migrated because it's an unknown set of reasons why it occurs.

If I could click 'migrate' and it worked on the dev site and my series of tests worked then I'd not hesitate to migrate a live site but based on my experience so far I wouldn't risk it just yet.

FYI I've also got a TB 1.0.3 running, which I use for testing stuff out. I find TB is better than PS functionally but when I and other people are still having issues with it and modules it'd be stupid for me to take it live when I've at least got 3 sites that pass my tests and I can 'work with' without fear it's going to collapse.

[DaoKakao]

Well, i have an excellent possibility to start couple of ecommerce sites from scratch. Will see, will try to log my attempts to make it alive. I think, the cache management is one of the killer features of TB - that's why i'd like to try TB