[mythtv-users] Upgrading (the hard way, as usual)

[Michael T. Dean]

On 07/14/2011 09:48 PM, Jay Ashworth wrote:
> Or should I just backup all my binaries and DB and install .24-f?  And
> is anyone cutting RPMs for it?  Does anyone know if recorded got revved
> between those 2 releases (do we have a table of that anywhere?)
>
> And I had to do that by hand; did anyone ever package a tech support script
> for Myth that extracts all the relevant stuff?
>

Not sure if this was your plan (since it seems to be common belief among 
users/Google that "migrating" recordings to a new install is more 
difficult than it actually is), you should never--regardless of whether 
you're switching distros or not--do a "partial" restore of the 
database.  There are no benefits of doing so, it is significantly harder 
to do without breaking things, and in the end the only result is a loss 
of information (including all configuration and plugin data and such) 
that you have to re-create (and, typically, in doing so, you forget to 
set settings you were used to having, so things don't work right/are 
"broken"--and you get to spend a lot of time over the following months 
troubleshooting issues with your sister).

So, instead, just do a normal backup and a full restore of the database:

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Database_Backup_and_Restore
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Database_Backup_and_Restore#Quick_Start
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Database_Backup_and_Restore#Database_Restore
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Database_Backup_and_Restore#Replacing_an_existing_database

And I highly recommend using the same host name after the upgrade.  If 
you don't, be very careful to update the host name(s) in the database at 
exactly the right time:

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Database_Backup_and_Restore#Change_the_hostname_of_a_MythTV_frontend_or_backend

This page also has some tips:

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Backend_migration

If you decide you want to make your life hard and have absolutely 
benefit after hours (10's of hours?) of additional effort, at least use 
the restore script to do so.

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Database_Backup_and_Restore#Partial_restore_of_a_backup

Note that you can not do a partial restore when upgrading:

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Database_Backup_and_Restore#Partial_restore_when_upgrading_MythTV

meaning that you'd actually have to do a normal upgrade (including a 
full restore of the database), let MythTV upgrade the database, back up 
the upgraded database, drop the database, create a new database, start 
mythtv-setup to upgrade the database, exit mythtv-setup, do a partial 
restore, then fix hostnames, then re-configure /everything/.  At the 
end, you may have saved (on average) 8 - 32kB of storage space on your 
HDD or so (meaning there's no benefit whatsoever to all that extra 
work).  So, how much is 32kB of HDD space worth to you?  ;)

Mike