JIRA Core Upgrade from 7.2.6 to 7.8.0 - will the executable automatically overwrite 7.2.6?

[James B]

We're currently running JIRA Software 7.2.7 with JIRA Core 7.2.6 and the integrated DB (I know we need to migrate but it's a small environment).

I need to upgrade JIRA Core to 7.8.0 in order to be fully compatible with the JIRA Software. I've gone ahead and downloaded the JIRA Core 7.8.0. Install file on the server but before I go ahead with the installation I want to know if this will automatically overwrite 7.2.6? Or if I need to do any preparation work (exporting/importing data, configs etc)?

There's not much info with regards to upgrading JIRA Core. Any help/advice will be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[Andy Heinzer]

Hi James,

We actually have a lot of information on upgrading Jira.  I would recommend starting with Upgrading Jira applications.   There are a few different ways that you can upgrade a Jira instance.   While data center has a zero downtime upgrade option, if you're not using data center, there will have to be some downtime for Jira Core to be upgraded.

With all upgrades, we recommend that you backup your data first. We also recommend establishing a staging server for Jira.  This is just a good way to test out an upgrade before you do it on production.  It can be helpful to understand all the steps needed to complete this successfully.

If you're using the .bin (for linux/unix) or the .exe (windows) installation packages, then yes, it is possible that these installations could upgrade your existing installation directory.   But the installer will prompt you when using those packages.  We call this a rapid upgrade.  More details on this in Upgrading JIRA applications using the installer.   While this method is probably the fastest, it also tends to be the most commonly plagued by upgrade problems.

The biggest problems admins see when upgrading Jira is that one or more plugins for Jira are not compatible in their current version.  In turn this can cause a number of different problems, from unexpected plugin functionality to Jira being unable to start at all.   If you find you cannot start Jira after this kind of upgrade, you might have to:

1. Stop Jira
2. Navigate to $JIRAHOME/plugins/installed-plugins/
3. Temporarily move the contents of this folder to a temp folder outside the JIRAHOME
4. Start Jira again.

If you can get Jira started this way, you can then use the UPM in Jira to reinstall/upgrade those plugins you had before, provided that marketplace has updated versions of those plugins that are compatible with your version of Jira.

Because this is upgrade problem is so common to see, we tend to recommend the Upgrading JIRA with a fallback method.  This method requires you to do more prep work before hand, but it has the advantage of having a clear way to fallback should this upgrade not go as expected for any reason.

Also, while you can update Jira Core installation to upgrade Core, it is also possible to use the Jira Software installation package.   The advantage to using the Software installation package is that it can upgrade both Core and Software at the same time.   If you only update Core with the installation package, then you will still need to update Software later on after Jira has started up.  I find it's better to do these together when you can, because it can save you both time and possible incompatible plugin (like Jira Software 7.2.7) trying to load on startup.