Transfer data from 1.4.9.3 to 1.5.1.3

Greetings
I have a dev site in 1.4.9.3 and want to upgrade to 1.5.1.3. My products have many options (clothing with size & colour options) and I realise that I can't do a two-step upgrade because of this.

However, I thought I might export the product data from the 1.4.9.3 system, then edit the Excel file to add the extra columns, and then import to a fresh install of 1.5.1.3.

Almost works, but the options get a bit screwy (some options ok, but others replaced by options for a different product!!) . It may be my data (options) have an error, but all transferred without error.

Has anyone experience of doing this successfully? Or any pointers I might look out for that could be causing the issue? It feels like I'm so close I don't want to let this go, so any advice is very welcome.

Cheers
Martin

Update on my previous post: I have now got this working and am not entirely clear what I did differently!

It seems that the import was not working properly but reported success. It was tripping up on a product that was in two categories, one of which didn't exist. No, makes no sense to me either. Essentially all options for the products above that one in the list were showing correctly, and that one and following products were showing one or two options from the previous product (in the sequence). Corrected the category, and the options worked fine.

A second gotcha was that many of the options were not showing at all - this was a result of the quantity for each option being set at zero in my import xls file, and I've not yet found how to make 1.5 ignore quantities.

So now I'm happy: I've exported my products, categories and options from 1.4.9.3 and imported them successfully to 1.5.1.3.

Did you read: [BETA2] Upgrade Script - 1.4.x to 1.5.x - NO PRODUCT OPTIONS?

It could be that you are the first one to transfer this successfully the way you did, but I suggest you look again and test thoroughly.

Hi
Yes, thanks, I did read that post, and decided against that route as it sounded potentially time-consuming. I think my method was much swifter, and personally I prefer to use a fresh install rather than an upgrade.
Cheers
Martin

Hi, I have a problem. I saved a databese from opencart backend of version 1.4.x.x (i dont remember). Then I installed version 1.5.1.3 then i tried to restore database but i got some errors. I simply need to restore the categories and products. Can I do it manually to avoid errors?

It's possible to do what you are asking for. The best way i can suggest (this is what I did) is to export the sample data from the 1.5 fresh install and then compare the spreadsheet columns with that from your 1.4 export. It's pretty obvious what's different, and it mostly consists of some extra columns and one or two column name changes.
If you make your import match the format of the 1.5 export then you should be ok... at least, it worked for me!
Martin

I also am having this trouble almost all the products loaded the vast majority but none of the catagories loaded so I manually created all of them again but still the linking is missing
when i try to load the backup i get the following error
Notice: Error: Unknown column 'meta_keywords' in 'field list'
Error No: 1054
INSERT INTO `category_description` (`category_id`, `language_id`, `name`, `meta_keywords`, `meta_description`, `description`) VALUES ('73', '1', 'Air Compressor Generator Welder', '', '', '') in /home/nels11/public_html/secure/system/database/mysql.php on line 49

i followed all the steps in the above linked post in regards to doing this properly.
Also after adding the category module they still will not show up even after manually adding all the categories back to the system

mosesg wrote:I also am having this trouble almost all the products loaded the vast majority but none of the catagories loaded so I manually created all of them again but still the linking is missing
when i try to load the backup i get the following error
Notice: Error: Unknown column 'meta_keywords' in 'field list'
Error No: 1054
INSERT INTO `category_description` (`category_id`, `language_id`, `name`, `meta_keywords`, `meta_description`, `description`) VALUES ('73', '1', 'Air Compressor Generator Welder', '', '', '') in /home/nels11/public_html/secure/system/database/mysql.php on line 49

i followed all the steps in the above linked post in regards to doing this properly.
Also after adding the category module they still will not show up even after manually adding all the categories back to the system

Why do you hijack someone else's topic?

It pertains to the same issue when loading in the backup.sql it does not load correctly and returns errors or options do not load properly.

also when you loose the linking to 2685 products because of an update failure and countless hours of work you get really annoyed. his issues are similar to ones i am having

Not the same, I think. I was talking about Import/export and I think you are talking about Backup/Restore.

maranjo wrote:It's possible to do what you are asking for. The best way i can suggest (this is what I did) is to export the sample data from the 1.5 fresh install and then compare the spreadsheet columns with that from your 1.4 export. It's pretty obvious what's different, and it mostly consists of some extra columns and one or two column name changes.
If you make your import match the format of the 1.5 export then you should be ok... at least, it worked for me!
Martin

Thank you. But because I'm a beginner can you suggest me what softwar do you use to backup, modify, and restore the database? Can you say me all the operations you did?

thanks