Help needed to update an old Perch 2 website

  • I have a customer looking for help, that I can't provide. I host a WordPress site for her, but she also wants me to take on the hosting of an old Perch site as her current host is closing down. Because of my current time constraints, and the 'state' of that Perch site, I can't help - but someone else may be able to do so. Here's the details ...


    The site is http://www.equestlimited.co.uk. It is running on Perch 2.4.2 (January 2014) and PHP 5.6. I no longer run PHP 5.6 on my hosting, so cannot host it in its current state. There are Forms, Blog and News apps installed but I don't think Blog is being used. A simple 'drop in' update to Perch 3.1.5 will not work. The website's author appears to have modified Perch core code*, so a 'drop in' update will likely break the site. The customer is English and has relocated to France, but responds well to email and I'm also in contact with the current host.


    * I briefly look at this a couple of years ago. From memory it looked like the author renamed some core folders and maybe some core files, plus he altered other files to use those renamed folders and files. At the time I decided to leave this alone because the site worked fine on this back level. But things have now moved on.


    If someone is interested in helping, I can put you in touch with the customer and the current host so you can communicate directly during the process of looking over it and updating it. If the site is successfully updated to the latest Perch version, I will be happy to take over the hosting of it and can give you access to move it to my server at the end of the project.


    I suggest you Private Message me with any questions or if you want to be put in contact with the right people.


    Graham

  • I "updated" an old Perch site of a similar age but I installed Perch 3 from scratch. This may be your best option. Use staging server or similar of course.


    How much of that site is in Perch? It must be parsing PHP in .html pages?


    I may be able to help but I would want to take the fresh install approach and clearly that won't be as quick as an update. I can probably host the site with PHP 5.6 if they need to move it urgently.


    PS: What's the News app? Another name for Blog?

  • Thanks for the reply. 'News' may well be a renamed 'Blog' app. I think that's part of the renamed files and folders in the App folder and the /core folder. The whole site is Perch and I think they are parsing PHP in .html files. Since I posted the item, things may be moving on. It looks like the existing host may be persuading the customer to go for 'really cheap' hosting that's still supporting many back levels of PHP, so avoiding doing any site work and buying time for another few years. I will 'close' the thread if that looks like the solution she will take.