How To Update Drupal Modules?

Drupal has been one of the most popular ways to create a beautiful and flexible website that is scalable and is continually being improved and developed by thousands of developers and programmers around the world. 

Drupal technology powers some of the government sites on the web and is being widely adopted by large organizations from small business websites to the White House and to the leading U.S. Government agencies and companies like eBay, New York Stock Exchange and Sony. 

Drupal, developed by Dries Baytaert, is a content management system released in 2001. It has the capability to extend its functionality through the third-party applications or also known as modules. Though, Drupal does not support new updates by just downloading the new version. The following are the steps on how to update drupal modules.

1. Log in to your Drupal website. Through the admin interface, you will need to input your username and password.
2. When you are already logged in, find the “Administer, Reports and then Available updates” tab to view the modules that have available updates.
3. You need to backup your database. This can be done in many ways such as using phpMyAdmin, phpMyAdminToolKit.Dump or the Drupal database administration module or backup module.
4. Download and save the code files for the modules you are updating by the use of FTP access software like Filezilla and Dreamweaver. It is also the best idea to back-up all the code files for modules. They can be found in the “Root Folder, Drupal installation and then Modules” or you can find it in the sub-folder or the root folder will be your Drupal installation. Each modules will have their own folders within the folder of the modules.
5. Go to the tab “Administer, Site Configuration and Site Maintenance” in your Drupal interface. Choose “Offline” and click “Save Configuration” at the bottom to activate the site's maintenance mode.
6. Go to the tab “ Administer, Site Building and then Site Maintenance.” Uncheck to disable the module that you are updating. Then, click “Save Configuration” at the bottom.
7. Go to the tab “ Administer, Reports and then Available Updates.” Click the download link for each module. Update and follow the provided instructions for downloading of the module.
8. Upload the files and module folders to your website using FTP access. Put them within the “modules” and overwrite the outdated files.
9. Go to “Administer, Site Building, then Modules.” Click the “Update PHP” link at the top of the page. Or you may also go to http://YourSite.com/drupal/update.
10. Follow instructions to finish the PHP database updates. It should also detect any recent updates automatically. If it shows “No updates available, “ you do not need to update your database.
11. View your site publicly to ensure that there were no error that have been committed during the update. Make sure that all functionality and content are all in and working.

After the new module update has been successfully placed, you can now start doing business and resume your work with your newly updated website content in Drupal.

About the Author

The author loves to share what she know. By doing this, she believes that she can part useful responses to others having hard time dealing with web development issues such us update Drupal modules. Through this blog she can also gain information that can help straighten blogging and site development experience. 

In addition, she also part useful reference including online pages. Blink Reaction delivers client success through strategic planning, creative design, content management, and expert project management. They have drupal which is an open source content management system (CMS) that surpasses other CMSs on performance, scalability, functionality, and community building. Drupal development successes earned Blink the elite level of Enterprise Select Acquia Partnership.