Ersa WPS had been looking to upgrade their OJS installation from version 3.4 to the latest 3.5 release. Aware of the benefits that the newer version offered, their team initially attempted to carry out the upgrade independently — following the official PKP documentation and guides available online.
Despite their best efforts, the self-managed upgrade did not go as planned. The process encountered technical errors that the team was unable to resolve on their own, leaving the platform in an inconsistent state. Rather than risk further complications, they decided to hand the process over to a professional service — and that is when they reached out to us.
The Challenge
Unlike a straightforward upgrade from scratch, this case came with an additional layer of complexity: the upgrade had already been partially attempted. This meant we were not starting from a clean baseline.
Key challenges we faced going in:
Partially executed upgrade — The previous upgrade attempt had already modified parts of the database and file structure, making it necessary to carefully assess the current state before taking any further action.
Risk of data inconsistency — An incomplete upgrade can leave the database in a mixed state, where some tables have been migrated and others have not. Proceeding without a proper rollback or clean starting point could lead to data corruption.
Unknown plugin state — It was unclear which plugins had been updated, partially updated, or left behind during the failed attempt.
No clear rollback point — Because the upgrade was attempted directly on the production server, there was no guaranteed clean restore point to fall back on.
Our Approach
Before doing anything else, we stabilized the environment and established a safe foundation to work from. Only once the system was in a reliable state did we proceed with the upgrade.
Upgrade path: OJS 3.4 → OJS 3.5
Full Diagnosis & State Assessment — We thoroughly examined the current state of the installation — reviewing database tables, file structure, error logs, and plugin status — to understand exactly what the previous upgrade attempt had changed.
Rollback to Stable State — Based on the diagnosis, we rolled back the partial changes and restored the installation to a consistent OJS 3.4 state, giving us a clean and reliable starting point.
Backup & Staging Environment Setup — With the system stabilized, we took a full backup and set up a staging environment to carry out the upgrade safely, away from the live production server.
Upgrade Execution: 3.4 → 3.5 — The upgrade was performed on the staging environment, following the correct procedure and applying all required database migrations. Each stage was verified before moving forward.
Plugin Review & Compatibility Check — All plugins were audited against OJS 3.5 compatibility requirements. Incompatible plugins were updated or replaced, and all integrations were tested to confirm they were functioning correctly.
Production Deployment & Verification — Once everything was validated on staging, we deployed the upgraded installation to the live server. A full post-deployment check was carried out to ensure the platform was running smoothly end-to-end.
Results
Failed upgrade successfully recovered — We resolved all issues left behind by the previous upgrade attempt and brought the platform to a fully stable, working state.
Clean upgrade to OJS 3.5 — Ersa WPS is now running the latest version of OJS, with all features, improvements, and security fixes that come with the 3.5 release.
100% data preserved — All journal content, user accounts, submissions, and review history were fully intact after the migration.
Plugins fully operational — All required plugins were restored and verified to be working correctly on OJS 3.5.
Is Your OJS Version Putting You at Risk?
If your journal is still running on an outdated version of OJS, security vulnerabilities are not just a possibility, they are an inevitability. Contact us for a free audit and consultation on upgrading your OJS platform.
Hello! I'm Ghazi, im OJS Technical Support from Openjournaltheme. Have a passion for linux, helping solve publisher problems related to the use of OJS, OMP and Eprints.
Openjournaltheme.com started in 2016 by a passionate team that focused to provide affordable OJS, OMP, OPS, Dspace, Eprints products and services. Our mission to help publishers to be more focus on their content research rather than tackled by many technical OJS issues.
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