Moving UAT changes to LIVE

Hi there,

I would like to have a UAT and a LIVE site, each having their own database.
We need to be able to push UAT changes to LIVE.

I learnt that it's not a straightforward file patch.
I copied all the files from UAT to LIVE and edited the connection string so UAT is pointing to the UAT database and LIVE its pointing to the LIVE database.

At this stage, the databases are copies of one another.

I'm getting an error as per below.  The databases are using the same user.

Invalid root node configured for pages. No root node with the name of "FrontendSiteMap".

Hi Zhi,

You could get this error if

1. The project name has been changed - the name of the project is not the same as this one used when the project was installed

You could check  App_Data\Sitefinity\Configuration\ProjectConfig.config file and projectName attribute. By default the attribute is not added to the config file. It is added after project installation The project name is used as an identifier by us.

2. In some case the error could appear if the connection to the database is lost. Would you check the connection to the database in the DataConfig.config file?

3. If the connection string is different, make sure that in both environments the database user is db_owner or it is the same user. For example, if the user is db_owner it creates tables with dbo.tableName, if it is not - userName.tableName, which are two different tables. Maybe the data has not been published correctly. Could you please open sf_page_node table and make sure that it is not empty and the value of the app_name column for all records is '[ProjectName_From_ProjectConfig]/'.



Please compare the database size of the migrated and local database. Also check whether there are not changes to the App_Data/Sitefinity/Configuration.

These files -  config files are closely related to the database.



All the best,
Ivan Dimitrov
the Telerik team

Hi Ivan,

Thanks for that.  I sorted out the loading  problem by recopying the UAT site over the LIVE site again.

Could you please answer the other question I raised?  How do I patch content from UAT to live?

For example, when I edit a content block's text, I want the same text to propagate to the live site.  I presume we would do this using a SQL compare tool.  However, I note that when I edit the text, or move the control around, I get additional entries in the sf_control_properties table with different ids for the same block of text.

E.g. I moved my welcome text and there are now two "welcomes" in the database, each with different ids.  I presume this is used for versioning.

How can I patch the corresponding control in the live site given that the id would have changed?

Would the approach be to replace the LIVE CMS database with a copy of the UAT one?

Cheers,
Zhi

Hello Zhi,

The most appropriate approach would be either to compare the database schema and data, and merge changes from UAT database to the Live database. The other option is to make sure that there is no content creation on live and then replace live database with the UAT one (you also have to replace the configuration files in ~/App_Data/SItefintiy/Configuration with the UAT ones and edit the connection string in DataConfig file)

Regards,
Radoslav Georgiev
the Telerik team

Hi,
  I am facing the same problem and I can not figure out how to solve it. I am currently using SiteFinity 4.x. using the compare tools like Red-Gate is a headache specially when both SiteFinity (UAT and Live DBs) had changes that we should not loose. 
  so how can I move my changes between different environments DEV --> QA --> UAT -->  Production?

Thanks!

Hello Yasser,

If there are not going to be any changes in content on the production database you can move the changes with database backups. However if you have changes in different environments, I am afraid that at the moment we cannot offer any other solution.

Best wishes,
Radoslav Georgiev
the Telerik team

Hi,
 can you give me some guidance on this. I tried to used Red-Gate data compare tool, and things moved smoothly with me. but the issue happened one there is a change of the same page in the DEV & UAT environment. when I exectute my script then run my site , I got "The ID 'C004' is already used by another control." error because the content blocks on both DBs got the same ID then when i merged changes, the 2 controls with the same ID are on the same page. which cause this issue.
so I am wondering if there is a guidance of how to do it?

Thanks!

Hello Yasser,

You should change the control IDs to be unique ones. The other suggestion is to configure the RedGate tool to tell you if there are controls with matching IDs so that you can take actions to correct them.

Best wishes,
Radoslav Georgiev
the Telerik team