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Discussions around using and interfacing with the Church MLS program.
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lajackson
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Oops, we got upgraded!

#1

Post by lajackson »

In preparation for the swapping out of two 6-year-old computers, we instructed the units to be diligent in making backups after their Sunday deposits and other operations. They did.

Sunday evening, we installed the new computers. Everything went well until the backups were called up for restoring. They cannot be restored. We are running 3.1.5 on the new computers (freshly installed, of course) and the backups claim they are from MLS 3.2 so they will not install.

I see that the newer version is not yet available at the MLS site. Was there a new release Sunday, or did we just get special treatment with a beta download that should not have gone to a non-beta stake?

Or was there a little patch that has done us in?

Thought someone here might know the answer before the help desk gets a shot at the question on Monday.
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aebrown
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#2

Post by aebrown »

lajackson wrote:We are running 3.1.5 on the new computers (freshly installed, of course) and the backups claim they are from MLS 3.2 so they will not install.

I see that the newer version is not yet available at the MLS site. Was there a new release Sunday, or did we just get special treatment with a beta download that should not have gone to a non-beta stake?
I did a send/receive early this morning and did not receive any new MLS software. And our stake is on the beta program (albeit we only get fairly late betas). So I would doubt that it was an automatic intentional upgrade. But we have had some cases in the past where unintentional premature automatic upgrades did happen.

I do know that MLS 3.2 is in early beta testing, so the software can be obtained by those who know how to get beta versions. So I wonder if somehow those units decided to do an early MLS upgrade on their own initiative. That would be a no-no, since the stake president has to authorize beta participation, and the whole stake (stake computer and all ward computers) are supposed to upgrade at the same time if your stake does participate in MLS beta. The reasons for that are fairly obvious, and you just hit a big reason for jumping all at once.

Assuming the old computers are still functional, it shouldn't be hard at all to determine if they are running MLS 3.2. If they are, then you only have a couple of options:
  1. Upgrade the new computers to MLS 3.2 (this would require that you figure out how to get the installer -- I can help you offline with that)
  2. Have those units move back to MLS 3.1.5 and go back to the last backup they made on MLS 3.1.5 (that would be quite painful -- it's not all that straightforward to go back to an older version, and they would lose everything they've done since that upgrade)
  3. Call Support and hope they have some way of taking a 3.2 backup and turn it into a 3.1.5 backup so that your clean 3.1.5 install can read it.
Questions that can benefit the larger community should be asked in a public forum, not a private message.
lajackson
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#3

Post by lajackson »

Alan_Brown wrote:I wonder if somehow those units decided to do an early MLS upgrade on their own initiative. That would be a no-no, . . .

Assuming the old computers are still functional, it shouldn't be hard at all to determine if they are running MLS 3.2.
We are checking into both those possibilities. I doubt that the units both did it themselves, though. Neither unit has anyone that even knows what beta means, let alone how to snag one. At least as far as we know at this point.

Another possibility being checked is that the clocks were wrong on the two computers, and the backups think they are in the future. This would cause the same effect, although I have not seen the exact error message, so I do not yet know what it really said. Again, it would be strange that this happened to both units, though.

So many options.
atticusewig
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How do you go back to an earlier version ?

#4

Post by atticusewig »

Every time I've tried to install an earlier version of
MLS, the installer refuses to do it claiming that a
newer version of MLS is installed. This after un-
installing the newer version. I tried to hunt down
registry settings and delete them and the afaria
directory but always seem to miss something.

What is the trick to installing an earlier version ?

- Atticus Ewig
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kh_design
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Copy/Replace the whole folder LDS Church\MLS and AFARIA

#5

Post by kh_design »

lajackson wrote:In preparation for the swapping out of two 6-year-old computers, we instructed the units to be diligent in making backups after their Sunday deposits and other operations. They did.

Sunday evening, we installed the new computers. Everything went well until the backups were called up for restoring. They cannot be restored. We are running 3.1.5 on the new computers (freshly installed, of course) and the backups claim they are from MLS 3.2 so they will not install.

I see that the newer version is not yet available at the MLS site. Was there a new release Sunday, or did we just get special treatment with a beta download that should not have gone to a non-beta stake?

Or was there a little patch that has done us in?

Thought someone here might know the answer before the help desk gets a shot at the question on Monday.
Delete the folder LDS Church\MLS from your new computer C:\Program Files\
Delete the folder AFARIA from your new computer C:\

Copy/Replace the whole folder LDS Church\MLS from your old computer to your new computer C:\Program Files\
Copy/Replace the whole folder AFARIA from your old computer to your new computer C:\
lajackson
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#6

Post by lajackson »

kh_design wrote:Delete the folder LDS Church\MLS
Delete the folder AFARIA

Copy/Replace . . . from your old computer
This works, but it leaves the rest of the stake in a lurch because they have not upgraded, let alone gained permission to do so.

And it usually goofs up all of the stake data, as well.
lajackson
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#7

Post by lajackson »

Alan_Brown wrote:I wonder if somehow those units decided to do an early MLS upgrade on their own initiative. That would be a no-no, since the stake president has to authorize beta participation, . . .
We have confirmed that the old computer was running MLS 3.2 although we do not know for how long or how it got onto the box. We will determine that shortly.

Also, upon further review, there is only one computer involved, shared by two units. One of them is in big trouble.

Depending on how long they have had MLS 3.2 on their old box, this may explain some of the data problems we have been having recently at the stake.

The fun begins.
mamadsen
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#8

Post by mamadsen »

kh_design wrote:Delete the folder LDS Church\MLS from your new computer C:\Program Files\
Delete the folder AFARIA from your new computer C:\

Copy/Replace the whole folder LDS Church\MLS from your old computer to your new computer C:\Program Files\
Copy/Replace the whole folder AFARIA from your old computer to your new computer C:\
When we replaced our admin computer for 14 units last month, I called tech support with a question and in the course of our discussion was told that the AFARIA directory is no longer used. There is a new directory UDX that appears to handle the information that was in AFARIA. All of our computers had the new UDX directory. I can't remember when the last time AFARIA data was updated, but it was several months.

You will need to pay attention to the UDX directory for backing up and reinstalling. (If I remember correctly, UDX is created automatically on a clean install.)
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