Updates phpBB boards (3.3 and 4.0) from a web page or the command line. Your own changes to phpBB's files are kept, the update is tested on a copy of your board first, and if anything still goes wrong the board is put back automatically.
Forum Updater is a standalone tool, not a phpBB extension. It uses phpBB's own release packages and phpBB's own diff3 merge and database updater; it never ships or patches phpBB code.
Download:
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License: GNU General Public License v2
Features
- Your changes stay. Every file phpBB changes is merged with your version (PHP, templates, CSS, JS, .htaccess). Where you and phpBB changed the same lines, you choose in a side-by-side editor; your choice is remembered. Images you replaced keep your version, and Windows line endings stay.
- Nothing you added is ever removed: your own files and folders, uploads, and even Composer packages you added to vendor/.
- Tested on a copy first. The Update button first runs the whole update on a temporary copy of your board and its tables: guest pages, the ACP and every ACP module, posting, the UCP, every style and the cron tasks are compared before and after. If something breaks there, it stops and your board is not touched.
- Checks before you update: every enabled extension is tested against the new phpBB (syntax, event listeners, removed events, services, classes and libraries), merged files are linted, and the PHP version of the website, free disk space and the board's server settings are checked.
- Fix it for me: many problems come with a button that fixes them for you, for example a missing line in an extension or server settings that point to an old address. Every file it changes is saved first, and a change that does not check out is undone.
- Short maintenance window with phpBB's cron lock held; usually one to three seconds offline.
- Backup and automatic rollback: code and database are backed up first (optionally files/, images/ and store/ too). If a page that worked before fails afterwards, the extension responsible is switched off, or the whole update is put back.
- No direct update package? For example from 3.3.4 to 3.3.19, Forum Updater builds it from phpBB's two full releases, checked against their SHA-256.
- Major upgrade 3.3 → 4.0 when you switch it on under System: only from the newest 3.3 release and only with phpBB's official upgrade package.
- Several boards from one installation, a nightly check by cron with an HTML mail report, a "Your changes" page with every change you made to phpBB's files, and self-update.
- Light and dark theme, or follow the system setting.
- PHP 8.1 or newer with curl, zip, json and mbstring, and a PHP command-line binary that fits your phpBB version
- proc_open must not be disabled (phpBB's own command line is used for the database update)
- tar, and mysqldump for MySQL/MariaDB boards (SQLite needs nothing extra)
- Apache (the included .htaccess protects the code) or nginx
- Outgoing HTTPS to download.phpbb.com, version.phpbb.com and the update feed
- Download the ZIP and upload it to your web root, for example /home/user/public_html/.
- Unzip it there. You get a forum-updater folder.
- Open https://your.site/forum-updater/. The installer checks the server, finds your phpBB boards, picks a fitting PHP version for each and creates your login.
- Choose a board, click Check now and then Prepare update.
Updating Forum Updater
On the System page: Check now, then Install; or drop a downloaded release ZIP there. Only the code is replaced; settings, boards, backups and logs stay, and the old code is saved first.
Support
Questions, problems or ideas: reply in this topic. For a problem, please mention your phpBB version, PHP version and what the log on the task page says.