Upgrading Ontolica is as easy as 1, 2, 3, or to be more precise as clicking Next, Next, Next… This best-practice description will guide you through the most important issues to keep in mind.
Preserving customizations
Every Ontolica upgrade replaces default files such as .NET assemblies, Ontolica web parts, Ontolica configuration settings, Ontolica Features, Ontolica Search Center site templates and uncustomized XSLT templates.
It is recommended to export custom Ontolica configuration settings before the upgrade. The settings can be imported afterwards if they should not be preserved for some reason. The export and import can be done in Central Administration > Operations > Manage Ontolica Modules.
Whether or not default XSLT templates are overwritten depends on whether if customization was performed using tools that make SharePoint aware of changes made to the files. Therefore, it is recommended to customize only copied/renamed templates. If you had made changes to default template files, you should make sure that the files were renamed.
Prerequisites
Upgrade must be performed by the farm administrator. Furthermore, it is recommended that the upgrade is executed on the machine that hosts the SharePoint Central Administration.
When upgrading from Ontolica version 3.x to 4.x on a production/development system, please make sure that you have a new license file ready to be applied. License formats are different between the versions, and it is not possible to use a 3.x license file after the upgrade to 4.x.
If you are upgrading from Ontolica 3.2.4, please contact SurfRay support as the upgrade may require certain additional steps.
During Upgrade
To perform the upgrade run the Ontolica installation program and choose the Upgrade option. If the installer detects that some of the prerequisites are not met, please fulfill them and run the installer once again.
In the majority of cases, installation completes smoothly without any problems. However, if you happen to encounter an error, you might try to run the installer again after few minutes. Installation on farms with multiple servers can take a bit longer than on a single server system. Sometimes the process may timeout. In such case, please make sure that all Web Front End servers are operational and if necessary restart their IIS servers.
In some cases it helps to uninstall the previously installed version of Ontolica, using the old installer, and then to perform a clean install using the new installer.
Occasional issues after the upgrade
It may happen on seldom occasions that Ontolica resource files are not properly deployed within the MOSS environment, even if the installation completes successfully. The issue is related to how MOSS handles deployment of applications, and can happen more often on farms with multiple Web Front End servers. In such cases, you would most likely see error messages on web pages where Ontolica web parts (e.g. search box, search dialogs, search results) are placed. The messages would indicate that certain objects were not found in resource files.
The simple solution that works for majority of such cases is to run the installation program again and choose the Repair option, and/or to restart the IIS after the installation. Should the Repair option not correct the issue, there is a manual procedure you can follow.
Copy all Ontolica *.resx files from C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\resources to C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\App_GlobalResources.
If you encounter any issues, please contact our support department!