Question

Migrating and Upgrading at the same time - asking for tips!

Version 10 Version 11 Installation and Upgrades Migration How To

Updated November 4, 2022

asked on October 24, 2022 • Show version history

We are planning on moving our Laserfiche environment (currently running 10.2.1) from its current 2012 Windows servers to Windows 2019 servers and at the same time we are upgrading to version 11. Just wanted to see if anyone had gone through this process before and had some tips or know of a guide to follow. Any help would be appreciated, thanks!!

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replied on October 24, 2022 • Show version history

Hi Carlos,

If at all possible, upgrade in-place, ideally in a non-prod environment first, then migrate. It's ideal to identify and address any issues related to the version upgrades first before attempting the migration. You don't want to be trying to deal with upgrade issues and migration issues simultaneously. Going from 10.2.1 to 11 is four or five years of updates and you'll want to test all your processes thoroughly.

I'll also note that Laserfiche supports Windows Server 2022. If you have the option, I'd go with 2022 over 2019 for the new servers for the three additional years of support lifecycle and all the small improvements. See: Supported OS List

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replied on October 24, 2022

I'm going to second Sam here. Technically, you can do it all in one shot, but unless this is a simple Avante environment, usually that's not a great idea due to customizations to Forms processes and workflows.

So do it one server at a time and double-check it's all functional before moving on to the next. Don't forget to put in redirects and inventory your custom activities before moving Workflow. Either update the hosts file on the Forms server or move the DNS alias over for the Laserfiche Server and Workflow Server as to not interrupt running processes.

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replied on October 24, 2022 • Show version history

At any time the current version is connected to a database from any older version (version 9+) it will automatically update it to the current version without issue. *with Forms you have to manually start the DB upgrade from the config page when it prompts you

This means you can simply install version 11 on the new server and attach it to the existing databases, no need to run an upgrade on an existing install.

Only catch is that version 11 does not support as many versions back of SQL server, so make sure your SQL server is running a supported version before going past 10.

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replied on November 3, 2022

Same for Workflow as Forms. After upgrading the software, you manually invoke the database upgrade from Workflow Configuration Manager.

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replied on November 3, 2022

Ah that's right, but LFS starts it automatically without prompt so just those 2 to initiate manually.

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replied on November 3, 2022

Thanks for all the responses everyone! Did the LFDS upgrade this past Monday and that came with its own list of struggles but managed to get it operational. We are doing the main Laserfiche server tonight and then I'll tackle workflow and forms individually tomorrow. We are running SQL server 2016, so we should be good on that end.

Going to do it the way Chad recommended and just do a clean install on the new servers and point to the current DBs, we are also pushing the v.11 client overnight to all users but was wondering if the old client will work with the v.11. Do you all know?

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View 2 previous replies

replied on November 3, 2022

Old client versions seem to work pretty good with newer server versions, every so often a problem comes up but I usually don't rush to upgrade the workstations.

I am finding with each migration that workflow has a lot of issues. It doesn't have a centrally managed place to view and correct any published connection profiles that users may have configured without a specific DNS entry, where an old server name might have been entered instead. So a local host file entry hack is usually required. Forms has sort of a similar issue with no centrally managed place to view archive connections. Also Business Processes just don't seem to work after installing on a new server no matter what I try until you re-publish every business process. No changes are needed, just a re-publish. I had one where I had to re-publish 100 BP workflows individually.

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replied on November 3, 2022

Newer server versions are broadly backwards compatible with older Client versions. The easy way to think about it is that LFS 11 can "speak" v11, v10.4., v10.3., ..., v8.3 of the underlying repository APIs, so when Laserfiche Client 10.4 makes a request in API version 10.4 to LFS 11, LFS still understands it just fine.

However, where you are mostly likely to run into cross-version client compatibility issues is with Scanning/Office Integration/WebTools Agent when connecting through Web Client. If your usage scenarios include those, it's best to get the client components updated to 11 as soon as possible after the Web Client 11 upgrade.

I highly recommend re-reading Miruna's response to this thread and following all her advice.

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replied on November 4, 2022

Upgraded the LF server last night and are running into a bunch of issues with the clients.... snapshot printers not there, redactions not working, scanner options not coming up...

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replied on November 4, 2022

Are you able to try upgrading one of the Client Suites that's having issues to 11 to see if they persist?

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replied on November 4, 2022

Yes, I've been updating them as they call and that fixes the snapshot issue, but it doesn't fix the issue with redactions not working.... we are getting this error:

Error Code: 9008
Error Message: There was an error saving annotations.
General database error. [9008]

------------ Technical Details: ------------

LFSO:
Call Stack: (Exception)
LFSession::ProcessResponse
LFSession::SendRequest (POST /+LF/entry/2911439?op=createann&pg
CLFPage::SendPropertiesToServer
ILFObjectImpl::Update
Additional Details:
HRESULT: 0xc0042330 (LFSession::ProcessResponse, LFSession.cpp:3901)
(LFSO/11.0.2102.9)
LF.exe (11.0.2201.233):
Call Stack: (Current)
CLFDocument::LFSOUpdatePage
Additional Details:
Exception: 0xc0042330 [9008] (Error executing SQL command.) (CLFDocument::LFSOUpdatePage at LFDocument.cpp:2604)
Call History:
CTextView::PutAnnotationObjToCtrl
GetOptionString ([HiddenDialogs]ConfirmSaveDocument)
CAttachedRepository::GetProfileValue
CAttachedRepository::LoadAttributePrefix
CTextView::GetTextAnnIDs
CLFDocument::GetAnnotationID
CTextView::UpdateAnnotationCtrlToObj
CLFDocument::LFSOUpdatePage

We found out that when trying to save the document with the redactions, there is a variable named private that is set to null and that is what is causing the error.... and we could either give it a default value of 0 or allow for null values in the db, but we don't want to do that without know why its happening.

The scanner issue is bizzare... it's just on one user so far, she clicks the scan button and gets prompted to choose a scanning mode, and where in the doc she wants to add the page, but then Laserfiche scanning doesn't start.

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