today I observed in my admin panel that a new nextcloud 25.0.5 release is available (running 25.0.4). The first surprise was that is not shown in changelog Changelog - Nextcloud . Anyway and as we’re running a first prototype with almost any apps I ran the upgrade (two enviromments test and prod)
Now I’m seeing that admin panel suggest to upgrade to nextcloud 26.0.0! That version even not appears at Changelog - Nextcloud.
I’ve the “stable” channel selectec in my config.
So, when should I ran the upgrade? Usually, I wait for the official announcement on release channels, but they use to be synced with the software announcements.
It’s common practice by the Nextcloud company to not release changelogs with the software releases. It has been asked several times why this is the case, but as far as I know there was never a reply or answer to this question.
I am not sure why the company thinks that publishing changelogs along with software releases, when that’s how the rest of the world does it. I really wish they would answer that, but more importantly start actually doing it.
Naturally, the first thing one does when seeing a new release and pondering whether to upgrade, is to read the changelog/release notes. If there aren’t any, it’s hard to make a decision for staging and production environments.
Nextcloud 26.0.0 update doesn’t appear in admin settings.
After modifying the info.xml file contents to max-version 26, the problem is still there. is it a bug?
The update servers aren’t letting every Nextcloud instance out there know about the update as soon as it’s out, as this would put an enormous burden on them, and also in case of problems with a release cause an enormous amount of bug reports and support calls. For this reason they provide updates bit by bit to the Nextcloud installations out there. It usually takes a while for some to see the new release as available.
Well, I suppose I will wait until the changelog is available, as you mention, is hard to take a decicision with no information. Thanks for your experience @rawtaz
Foe me it depends a bit. I often waited for the first maintenance release (xx.0.1), but sometimes the “want have” is bigger than my patience
But: If you’re running on bare metal, I’d be on the “wait for the xx.0.1 release” side. When I check a new main release (I switched my instances to 26.0.0 yesterday), I always take a VM snapshot and take some time to test everything essential. If a version is too buggy, I just revert the snapshot. If I’m fine, I delete the snapshot and go on with the new version.
NC 26.0.0 works nicely for me. Mind I’m using NC in a limited capacity to store and manage photos. The reason why it isn’t officially permitted is due to needing to test it thoroughly. It is possible to upgrade manually: I decided to fork the repo, update the hardcoded NC versions in the repo with a commit and modify all urls pointing to nextcloud repo to mine. It worked. But that isn’t supported and if anything breaks in the process, you are on your own. What issue might you face after an unsupported upgrade? For instance, some apps may not work yet (like memories a couple of days ago; it now does). Production NC instances are better left with the officially supported release.
This is very good advice. Also, I would without fail take a snapshot / backup of your server before you install ANY update, especially major version numbers. You can then test the new version without worrying that it might break something. If it does, you just restore the backup.
I think the overriding point here is that there is a document that documents the releases but it is in fact out of date. It does not have the latest 25.x release nor anything about the 26 release at all.
Why is this document not being kept up to date with the current releases?
I always recommend btrfs or at least lvm for baremetal users so they too can take advantage of snapshots. Snapshoting is important. Not just for system altering major changes, but even for staging for everyday backups. It’s by far the best way to backup a live system.
I haven’t seen NC 26.0.0 yet to upgrade so going to wait out a bit for that. Also, since I am still running PHP 7.4.33 so need to upgrade to PHP 8 series. I’ve tried upgrading to PHP 8.2 which broke NC 25 so had to revert back to previous snapshot. Fun times. lol.
You got it! Every open source project depends on its users a great deal for testing before they publish a production release. I’m still on 23 because I don’t use any of the apps and its been rock solid for me. I just need basic functionality.
Careful, don’t let the new goodies entice you to rush unproven versions into your prod env. And definitely add additional security measures to keep the threat landscape minimal; such as, geo-blocking.
Been running my server for about 7 months. Early on I came across an issue with my clients having their NC apps stuck in a weird loop of re-syncing and having troubles with certain files. Once that issue cleared out, I have not seen another issue since. Great job NC!
PHP 8.1 would have been fine. 8.2 is now supported with NC26.
I agree that on a production system you should wait at least until the first point release before upgrading, or to be extra safe, you could use always a version lower than the latest one. However, Nextcloud 23 is EOL now, so sooner or later (sooner would be better) you need to upgrade to a newer version. The longer you wait, the harder it gets, because you can’t skip major versions.
