Updating
On this page
A new version of Quran CMS comes as a ZIP, the same kind you installed from. Updating takes two steps: put the new files over the old ones, then let the site update its database. Your content, settings, members and uploads stay as they are.
1. Take a backup
Quran CMS has no backup button of its own, so make one with your host before every update:
- The database: cPanel → phpMyAdmin → choose the database → Export. Or use cPanel → Backup.
- The files that are yours alone:
config.php, theuploads/folder, and any theme or plugin you made or changed yourself.
If anything goes wrong you can put both back and be where you started.
2. Extract the new ZIP over the site
- Get the ZIP of the new version.
- cPanel → File Manager → the folder of the site (usually
public_html). Upload the ZIP there. - Choose Extract, into the same folder, and let it overwrite the files that are there.
The ZIP never contains:
config.php, which holds your database details and the site address,installed.lock, which tells the installer the site is already set up,- your files in
uploads/, or what the site keeps incache/.
So extracting over the site cannot touch your settings or your pictures, audio and fonts. It does replace the files of the script itself, including the themes and plugins that ship with it. A change you made inside themes/default/ or a shipped plugin is lost; keep your own styling in Settings → Advanced → Custom CSS or in a theme of your own.
Do not delete installed.lock. While it is there, install.php refuses to run and sends visitors to the site.
3. Open db_update.php
Sign in to the admin panel as an administrator, then open:
https://your-site/db_update.phpAnyone else is sent to the sign-in page first. Over SSH you can run php db_update.php in the site's folder instead.
The page lists every update step with its result:
- ok: the step ran now.
- skip: it ran during an earlier update, already done.
- fail: it stopped, with the error beside it.
Each step runs only once, so opening the page again is always safe. When every step has passed, the page says The database is up to date, and Go to the admin panel takes you back.
If a step fails, the page says The update stopped, and the steps after it have not run yet. Put right what the error says and open the page again; finished steps are not repeated.
What the update steps do
Only the steps your site has not had yet run. Coming from version 1.0, all of these run once:
| Step | What it does |
|---|---|
| 1.0.0 | Creates any missing table, adds missing surah introductions, the courses and the free plugins, and protects uploads/ and cache/ |
| 1.1.0 | Adds the nine posts of the old QuranFor.me blog with their pictures, and switches on the Ruqyah plugin with its menu item |
| 1.2.0 | E-mail templates and a spam box for messages; the Hadith plugin, switched on, with its menu item and the hadith of the day; Syed Ismat Toha's Bengali translation as two reciters, and men's voices only |
| 1.3.0 | The spam wall with reasons, a block list and e-mail confirmation; the speaking Arabic letters and the quiz, two new courses and three new tools |
| 1.4.0 | The prayer guide in pictures in the lesson How to pray, and the mosque screen's default settings |
| 1.5.0 | Notices for the mosque screens, the daily prayer-times banner of Social Auto Post, three du‘a wordings put right, and the links inside the old blog posts pointed at where those posts live now |
The steps never undo your own choices. A plugin you switched off stays off, a course whose address is already used is left alone, and a lesson you rewrote keeps your words.
Check the version
The version of the files is shown in the admin sidebar under the site name, for example Quran CMS 1.5.0, and again in the footer of every admin page. It changes as soon as the new files are in place, before the database is updated, so always finish with db_update.php.
After the update
- Open the site and a few admin pages to see that all is well.
- Check Admin → Scheduled jobs: the status at the top should still say the jobs ran recently.
- Phones that installed the site as an app pick up the new files by themselves.
Premium plugins and themes you bought are part of your licence, not of the files, so they keep working after the update.