ComfortUpdate

General

The ComfortUpdate tool is a LimeSurvey professional service to update your installation of LimeSurvey easily from your web browser, with just a few mouse clicks (instead of having to perform a manual update).

In order to use and test ComfortUpdate, you have to sign up on LimeSurvey to receive a free trial key. After that trial key has expired you can either buy one of our premium packages or update your installation manually.

Requirements

Your PHP installation must be compiled with support for [[ZLib]. Check your PHPInfo to check this and contact your system administrator to confirm it.

Your server must be able to connect by SSL to update.limesurvey.org and update-data.limesurvey.org to use the ComfortUpdate tool. If you have problems with this and get error messages such as 10060 could not connect to the host 'update.limesurvey.org' you should tweak/edit your proxy/firewall security settings or ask your server administrator for help.

Using ComfortUpdate

The LimeSurvey ComfortUpdate feature is safe to use even with active surveys. It does not delete or destroy any existing data. However you should keep in mind that this is a beta feature and ensure you have backed up your database and files manually before proceeding.

• Go to the Global Settings Icon, select the first tab, and click the button for “Updates”
• The ComfortUpdate screen will display an update link if a new version of LimeSurvey is available. If not click “Check now” to see if a new update is available.
• If an update is found, LimeSurvey will display a link to allow you to update. Click on this to begin updating.
• If you have never used ComfortUpdate before or the ComfortUpdate upgrade key is not valid, you will be asked to enter an upgrade key. During the trial period use the default key for free updates.
• LimeSurvey will now verify your installation directory to check the appropriate permissions are set to allow an update. A list of proposed changes will be displayed.
• If there are any problems, you must correct them at this point, and then proceed to the next step.
• The ComfortUpdate will now make a backup of your database (if you use MySQL) and save your old installation files in the /tmp directory. If you use a different database, you should backup your database manually before proceeding.

ComfortUpdate will now update your installation to the latest version, including updating the database for any new changes.

Disabling ComfortUpdate

If you want to disable ComfortUpdate to not get the New release available popup messages after each new release you can add the following option to your "config.php" file which can be found at /limesurvey/application/config (Always create a backup first!): 'updatable' => false

This is documented in more detail at "How to disable the Limesurvey ComfortUpdate updating feature".

Known problems

Blank page on step 3

If you get a blank page on step 3 it usually means that the memory limit of your PHP configuration is set too low. During that step LimeSurvey tries to create a database backup and a file backup (of the files that will be replaced).

Using a proxy server to connect to update.limesurvey.com

If you are behind a proxy, you may have to adjust some settings to be able to use comfort update. In LimeSurvey 2.05 later than build 140404, you can set the details of your proxy server in the configuration file (see General settings).

For earlier versions, you have to edit the http.php file in your LimeSurvey installation. Have a look at the variables in the first lines of this file in a text editor and add values if needed.

Example: Connect to a proxy server 111.111.111.111 port 1234 without authentication edit the following lines to look like

 var $proxy_host_name="111.111.111.111";
 var $proxy_host_port=1234;

Depending on your version, you will find the file in the /admin/classes/ folder or in /application/libraries/admin/http/. There are pre-coded variables within the file so only details of your proxy are needed. If your installation is running unusually slow, wrong proxy settings may be the cause.