ComfortUpdate

General

The LimeSurvey ComfortUpdate is a new function in LimeSurvey 1.87 and later to update your LimeSurvey installation with a few mouse clicks instead of doing the manual update. The ComfortUpdate is a service feature  - which means that at some point in the future it may cost a small fee to buy an update key for a certain time period. Currently the feature is still tested and because of that if is free.

Requirements

The only requirement for the ComfortUpdate is that your PHP has to be compiled with ZLib support which is pretty standard - see PHP documentation [1].

Usage

The update feature should be safe to use even when you have running/activated surveys.

• Entering the Global settings dialog, choose the first tab and clicking the button so search for an update.
• If an update is found another link will be shown pointing to the ComfortUpdate. Click on that link to start.
• If you have never used the ComfortUpdate before or your update key is invalid you will be asked now to enter an update key. During the beta period it is fine to use the pre-filled key for unlimited time.
• In a second step your directories will be checked to see if all necessary files are writable. Also the changelog from the your actual version to the current version will be shown.
• After solving any write permission problems you will be allowed to go to the next update step.
• In this step your database (only on MySQL DB) and your files will be saved to your LimeSurvey /tmp directory. Make sure that you are moving these files after upgrading to some new location. Their file name is pretty unguessable but better safe than sorry - if you don't move these files they usually will get deleted after some time. If you don't use MySQL then backup your database using your own backup tools.
• The last step downloads the update package (a package that only contains the changed files and so is mostly small in size) and updates your files.
• Done!

As said, this is a feature in beta status. Handle with care and please report any problems to our bug tracker.