---
title: How to update it and keep backups
description: What to back up, how an update asks you to confirm a backup first, and how to go back if you need to.
url: "https://osdots.com/docs/handyman-booking-os-updates-and-backups/"
updated: "2026-11-03"
category: Product Documentation / Handyman Booking OS by OsDot™
---

# How to update it and keep backups

## What to back up

A complete backup is **the database together with four items of the installation**:

## Video tutorial

[Updates and backups](https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/FS6W1EnVPsA?rel=0)

[Watch Updates and backups on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS6W1EnVPsA)

- `config/app_local.php` — the configuration file; it holds this installation's secrets and cannot be regenerated;
- `config/installed.php` — the installation's record (its version and its installation identifier);
- `storage/` — the site's private files (uploads, the installer's and the site's records);
- `webroot/media/` — the website's published pictures.

**System → Before you go live** lists the same set. Keep backups off the server, and keep at least the last few.

## How often

- Every day, the database (most hosting control panels can schedule it).
- Before every update, all of it: the database and the four items above.
- After a large change (new services, an imported customer list, a new theme with new pictures), all of it.

## Updating to a new version

1. **Read the new version's changelog** (`CHANGELOG.html` in the package).
2. **Back up** the database and the four items above.
3. **Put the new files in place:** replace the installation's files with the new package's `Web/` files, keeping your own `config/app_local.php`, `config/installed.php`, `storage/` and `webroot/media/`.
4. **Run the database changes.** Open **System → Updates**. It shows the **Installed version**, the **Version of these files**, the **Database** and the **Waiting database changes**:
   - when changes are waiting, tick **I have a backup of the database and the files listed above, taken after the last change** (an optional note records which backup), then press **Run the updates**;
   - when the new files bring no database change, press **Finish the update** to record them as the installed version;
   - "Everything is up to date: no migration is waiting." means there is nothing to do.

On the server, the same is done by `php bin/cake.php upgrade migrate --backup-confirmed` in the installation's folder. Without `--backup-confirmed` the command only lists the waiting changes and runs nothing.

1. **Check the site:** sign in, open the calendar and a job, and look at your homepage.

While the update runs, the site shows a maintenance page. An update also adds the new version's permissions to your roles; a permission you took away from a role stays taken away.

### If the update did not complete

**System → Updates** then says **The update did not complete**, and the site stays in maintenance (`storage/maintenance.flag`): visitors and the administration see the maintenance page. Restore the backup, or correct the cause and run `php bin/cake.php upgrade migrate --backup-confirmed` on the server again; then delete `storage/maintenance.flag`.

## Restoring

1. Restore the database from your backup into the installation's database, with your hosting's database tool.
2. Put back `config/app_local.php`, `config/installed.php`, `storage/` and `webroot/media/` from the same backup.
3. If the restore follows a failed update, put back the earlier version's files too, and delete `storage/maintenance.flag` if it is there.
4. Sign in and check the site.

Always keep `config/app_local.php` with the database backup: it holds this installation's secrets and cannot be regenerated.