Make sure you backup both your files and database. While we don’t anticipate any problems, if something does happen you’ll be glad you have a recent backup of your site to restore from. Not sure how to do that? Check out our guide on backing up Nova.

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What you’ll need

Before you get started updating Nova, make sure you have the following things ready to go:

  • An FTP client for accessing your server
  • The latest copy of Nova downloaded from the Anodyne site and unzipped
  • A solid, recent backup of your site

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Updating Nova

If you are upgrading from a version of Nova prior to 2.7.0, you will need to use the upgrade guide. For all other future updates to Nova 2.7, you will be able to use the below process.
1

Rename the Nova directory

Once you’ve finished backing up your site (because you already did that, right?), rename the nova directory to nova_old on your server. (This ensures that if the update goes awry you still have a copy of the working Nova core from before you attempted the update.)

Over the years we’ve seen countless problems with simply trying to overwrite the directory. The surest way to avoid those issues is to rename the directory and upload a new copy.
2

Upload Nova

With the nova directory renamed to nova_old, you can now upload the nova directory from the zip archive you downloaded from the Anodyne site. (This will give you the code for the latest version.)

3

Run the update

Navigate to {your-site}/index.php/update in your browser and you’ll be guided through the update process. Once the update process is complete, you’ll be directed back to your site and will be ready to use Nova again.

4

Remove the backup Nova directory

With the update complete and your site back up and running, you can now delete the nova_old directory from your server.

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Updating from previous versions

Nova currently offers three stable releases for download, the latest current version, v2.6.2 for legacy systems using PHP 7, and v2.3.2 for legacy systems using PHP 5. If you are updating from version 2.3.2 or higher to any version above, please follow all steps in each of the upgrade guides. All files are provided for you in the latest current version download, but you will still need to walk through each version one at a time.

If you are upgrading from a version of Nova prior to 2.3.2, please reach out to our support team on Discord.

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Common issue with updating

If, when starting to update, your installer won’t work, this may be because your database is not registering the correct version of your Nova install (or any version whatsoever). You can verify your version by logging into your Nova site, accessing Nova’s control panel, and selecting System & Versions from the bottom of the page.

If your database version is 0.0.0 or otherwise doesn’t match your Files Version, you may need to update your database to match the version of Nova you are upgrading from. In order to update that, you’ll need to login to your database with phpMyAdmin (via your web host’s control panel).

  1. Find the table nova_system_info.
  2. Click Edit on the only row in the table.
  3. Update sys_version_major, sys_version_minor, and sys_version_update to your Nova’s current version numbers.

For example, a site running Nova version 2.3.2 would read:

  • sys_version_major: 2
  • sys_version_minor: 3
  • sys_version_update: 2