Upgrade path beyond Nextcloud version 27.0.1 ?

[Knubbel]

Currently NCP seems to be at 1.52.4 and only support a newest release of Nextcloud 27.0.1.

It would be great to know if / how / when there could be an upgrade path to newer Nextcloud releases.

As it is done by very nice volunteers I am happy to wait. Just give some perspective please.

[christoph-bittmann]

You could just run "nc-update-nextcloud" (see https://help.nextcloud.com/t/staying-up-to-date/126259) and type in the current nextcloud version (see here: https://nextcloud.com/de/changelog/) to update to the current nextcloud version. After successfully update, I recommend running the command again an type in "0" to stay up to date if nextcloudpi itself is updated.

[theCalcaholic]

I'm currently working on support for NC 27.1.2 (there are a few issues in my build system that I need to solve first). But, yes, you can upgrade manually by entering the exact version without much worries, as @christoph-bittmann stated.

[NickKopernikus]

Thank you so much for your work and the answer. Nice to see, that there is some progress. In my opinion, it's much more important to have stable than fast releases.

I have another question: why is there no image-version of 1.52.4 available in downloads? Is it, because of 1.52.4 being in the devel branch? Thank you :)

[Knubbel]

I'm currently working on support for NC 27.1.2 (there are a few issues in my build system that I need to solve first). But, yes, you can upgrade manually by entering the exact version without much worries, as @christoph-bittmann stated.

As I do lack any technical understanding please forgive my asking dumb questions:
So far I was assuming that each NCP release is only "compatible" with certain NC releases. That is what the upgrade UI in NC also seems to suggest. And the mentioning of specific NC releases in the NCP release notes did seem to suggest this as well.
So I was and am very reluctant to use the manual nc-update-nextcloud option as to not break my installation.

Your latest comment seems to suggest that we can upgrade NC within a NCP release to our hearts desire without any extra risks?
No dependencies or non-compatibilities to watch out for?

I really want to stay on the safe side.

[christoph-bittmann]

"I really want to stay on the safe side."

Sure, stability is important, but security for an server that's reachable from the internet is much more important. Nexctcloud server paches, especially security issues should applied as soon as possible for each nexcloud instance.
In my experience, the risk to damage your system is very low when patching minor changes (27.x.x to 27.x.x). To be sure the nextcloud update will do an backup before executing the patch, but you could also do it by your own to be sure to have an "plan b" if anything goes wrong ...

For these why I would be happy to see much more often a new nextcloudpi version, at least every month on the regularly nextcloud patch day. Each patch could tested before on beta and/or release candidate channel.

[theCalcaholic]

The reason why upgrades currently take so long are mostly related to some issues with the build system that should be fixed with the next release. @NickKopernikus That's also the reason why there are no images available for some of the previous releases.

@Knubbel Yes, only NC versions up to a specific point are tested and enabled for auto updates. However, you can always install any release version of NC at the risk of breaking something. In this particular case, I have already tested v.27.1.2, so I know that it's fine to update to it without any changes to NCP. I just haven't gotten around to completing the release because of the aforementioned issues.

@christoph-bittmann An NCP beta (canary) channel will be part of the next two releases, as well as other changes that improve the upgrade process.

[theCalcaholic]

As NC 27.1.3 is currently supported (and support for 27.1.5 will be added in the next days), I'll close this ticket.

[Knubbel]

As NC 27.1.3 is currently supported (and support for 27.1.5 will be added in the next days), I'll close this ticket.
Thank you very much!

One side note on user experience: When I manually upgraded to some release using the UI that value was kept there as persistent entry. The consequence was, that NCP from then on ignored any further automatic upgradability and I wondered why I did not auto upgrade.
I was not aware that the UI field effectively has two orders:
a) upgrade to release X! and
b) stay at release X!

[theCalcaholic]

@Knubbel Auto upgrades are using the value configured in the manual upgrade button. But I suppose you are referring to manually upgrading to the latest available version (and selecting this version automatically). And for this case, what you describe is true - however this is unfortunately not changeable with the current ncp admin interface architecture (which will be rewritten mid-term)

[BurnSkat]

For general information,

I sucessfully upgraded my instance up to 28.0.3 using the updater script with no issue at all. I´m currently using NCP version 1.53.1 but i manually upgraded my php version to 8.1 beforehand using parts of this tutorial:
https://www.c-rieger.de/upgrade-nextcloud/

Overall performance is great on a Pi 4 and has improved with the update in my opinion. All apps are working fine.
Not to say that the update is totally save but it worked for me, so do it at your own risk and backup your data first.