Inherited site, legacy version, known bug

[CaptainEd]

I recently took over a site that is currently running version 1.4.4.1.  It's a somewhat seasonal business, with the busy season upon us, so I'm concerned about jumping into an upgrade for fear of running into issues that could take me down for any length of time.  Any comments on the risk/reward profile for jumping to the current version would be appreciated.

 

The known bug I'm running into concerns tax calculations where counties are involved.  I've done a good bit of reading and found some threads referencing a code fix, and even a video discussing how to fix the issue by editing a query in county.php, but can't seem to find the actual code as it appears the bug tracker and forums have been upgraded over time.

 

I also found a reference to the fix being in SVN, here:  http://forge.prestashop.com/browse/PSCFI-1622 which led me to GitHub.

 

When I look in GitHub, I see a 2013 version of country.php for 1.4 here:  https://github.com/PrestaShop/PrestaShop-1.4/blob/master/classes/County.php

 

Is it a good idea to simply replace my county.php with this one, which includes what appear to be a couple of fixes to taxes and zip codes?

 

If not, can someone help me find the original code fix?  

 

Thank you in advance for any assistance offered.  I'm looking forward to getting more familiar with PrestaShop and the ecosystem around it.  I'm not sure why it hasn't crossed my radar before now,

 

-Ed G.

[PrestaHeroes USA]

If it was me?  I'd create running copy of production, and upgrade to 1.4.11.1 (select not to update default theme so it will keep your current theme).  Once you  feel comfortable you put that into production and then post season look at going to 1.6 (now 1.6.1.0 is my recommendation).  Going to 1.6 will require theme and module upgrades and much more work.  Point being fix bug you are currently working on, and the last 1.4 release was pretty solid and your existing theme and modules should be compatible.

 

TIP on upgrade >1.4...first upgrade to 1.4.11.1 then do upgrade again to 1.6 (something stable). Also I did not get excited with later releases until 1.6.0.9...then we went all in.

[CaptainEd]

Can you point me to something that would guide me to your recommended upgrade path?  When you say "select not to update default theme" it leads me to believe there is an upgrade script of sorts, correct?  Do I get that version out of GitHub or from the PrestaShop site?  My dashboard has a box/link suggesting 1.6 be downloaded, but I'm not going there yet...that will be a spring project.  I like to get my hands dirty, but I need to focus on selling and getting traffic back to the site.

 

Do you recommend against just upgrading the county.php file to the patched one mentioned above to get taxes working for now?

 

Again, thank you.

[PrestaHeroes USA]

More upgrade info:

http://doc.prestashop.com/display/PS14/Updating+PrestaShop

where to find older versions of PrestaShop, for review of any code changes 

https://www.prestashop.com/en/developers-versions#previous-version

 

it may be worth creating a copy of your existing shop and using the one click upgrade module and move to version with fix(es). 

 

But it should not be an issue to try and apply a fix.  Just different options are given so you have choices.

 

I'd probably just back up existing and apply update and see if that solves your issue.