The aim of this article is to explain and guide you through the typical upgrading to Kunena 3.0.x when you are already using previous version of Kunena extension. If you do not use Kunena at the given moment, we suggest you move to Kunena Installation Guide, since most of actions described here would be unnecessary.
IMPORTANT: You do not have to uninstall Kunena to upgrade to the new version, though this solution is preferable if you do not want to keep your forum databases and templates.
Way of upgrade described in this article may be less stable, but it lets you keep your forum configuration, notes, posts, users and all other stuff you created using previous version of Kunena. It has some troubles with templates, since some of them do not support new version of Kunena, but you’d face this problem with clean installation too.
Now let’s begin update procedure, which is, actually, very similar to the installation process.
Reviewing your current Joomla installation
This is a very important part, since you are installing Kunena not on a clean Joomla website, but on a very changed and modified installation. Of course, if Kunena is the only extension you are using, then you are safe, but chances of this are highly unlikeable.
Actually, there are some extensions that are listed on Kunena Complatibility Page and are officially considered as fully compatible. Although, not all of them are compatible with each other.
Most of old Joomla installations are still using out-dated extensions. If you encountered any problem with Kunena on one of those websites, try updating these extensions or replacing them with newer alternatives, since their outdated components could cause troubles with new versions of Kunena even if they worked with previous one.
By the way, we’d like you to consider updating your template to newer one (created for Joomla 2.5 or 3.x), so that you won’t face a problem of templates incompatibility. Kunena Support Team does their best to allow users to use their old templates, but they are far from almighty and can’t predict everything. Also, we’d like you to update all other extensions, that are being used by Kunena (or are using Kunena), such as Community Builder and JomSocial.
Updating to Kunena 3.0.x
You can upgrade to Kunena 3.0.x from any older Kunena installation, as long as it equals or is newer than 1.0. You may also consider an upgrade from Fireboard since its version equals or is newer than 1.0.4.
To start an upgrade procedure, you are going to require Kunena 3.0.x download link. To retrieve it, go to the Kunena Download Page and click with your right mouse button on “Download latest version” image. Then click on “Copy address URL” or “Copy address link” (depends on your browser). You should get something like this:
http://joomlacode.org/gf/download/frsrelease/19048/134594/pkg_kunena_v3.0.4_2013-12-22.zip
Now go to your website and access Administration panel. Start Joomla Extension Manager. Now paste the URL you got from previous step to the field called Install URL and click on the Install button.
After this, automated upgrade process will initiate, similar to installation one. All you will see is an animated installation bar.
Congratulations, you did it. Now you can access Kunena Dashboard and begin using your brand new 3.0.x system.