Upgrading

• One-Click Update
• Before You Upgrade
• Upgrade Steps
• Files to Preserve
• After Upgrade Checklist

One-Click Update

{warning} Coming from 1.7.x or earlier? One-click updates are built into Slotara 1.8.0 and later. Install 1.8.0 once with the manual upgrade steps below; every update after that is one click.

When a new version is out, super admins see "Slotara X is available — Update now" at the top of the admin panel (Slotara checks once a day). Open System → License & Updates, read what's new, and click Update to X. A progress bar shows each step; it usually takes under a minute. Check for updates checks right away.

What happens:

1. The update is downloaded from our license server. Only activated installs can download it.
2. Slotara checks it's genuine: every release is digitally signed by us, and anything else is refused.
3. A database backup is taken (when your server has mysqldump), and every file that will change is backed up to storage/app/licentra-update/.
4. The site goes into maintenance mode for a few seconds, only changed files are replaced, and files a release no longer needs are removed.
5. Database migrations run, caches are cleared, and the site comes back.

If anything fails, the previous files are put back automatically and the site comes back up.

Never touched by an update: your .env settings, storage/ (uploads, logs, backups), public/.htaccess, .installed, and add-on modules with their data (modules/, public/modules/). A module that doesn't support the new version is switched off instead of breaking the site, and comes back when its author releases an update. Translations you edited in the Translation Dashboard are kept; new strings from the update are added alongside them.

{warning} Take a database backup from your hosting panel before updating. Slotara tries to back up the database itself, but many shared hosts don't allow it, in which case the update page tells you.

From the command line instead:

php artisan licentra:update

If the update page says a file can't be written, the web server user can't modify Slotara's files. Fix the ownership (for example chown -R www-data:www-data /path/to/slotara) or use the manual steps below.

Updates are free for the life of your license. You don't need active support to update.

Before You Upgrade

{danger.fa-ban} Always back up first. Run a full database dump and archive your storage/ folder before replacing any files. An upgrade cannot be undone without a backup.

# Quick database dump before upgrading (replace with your credentials)
mysqldump -u your_db_user -p your_db_name > slotara_backup_$(date +%Y%m%d).sql

On cPanel / shared hosting, use phpMyAdmin → Export or your host's backup tool instead.

Upgrade Steps

1. Download the new version from CodeCanyon → Your Purchases → Download

2. Enable maintenance mode to prevent bookings during the upgrade:

php artisan down --message="Scheduled maintenance. Back shortly." --retry=60

3. Replace application files — overwrite everything except the files listed in the Files to Preserve section below.

# Extract new version (adjust path as needed)
unzip slotara-v*.zip -d /tmp/slotara-new

# Rsync everything except preserved files
rsync -av --exclude='.env' \
          --exclude='.installed' \
          --exclude='storage/' \
          --exclude='public/storage' \
          --exclude='modules/' --exclude='public/modules/' \
          /tmp/slotara-new/slotara/ /var/www/slotara/

4. Dependencies: the download includes the vendor/ folder, so nothing to install. If you build from source without vendor/, run:

composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader

Pre-compiled frontend assets are included in public/build/ — no Node.js required for a standard upgrade. Only run the following if this version's release notes specifically mention frontend changes:

npm install && npm run build

5. Run database migrations to apply any schema changes:

php artisan migrate --force

6. Clear and rebuild all caches:

php artisan optimize:clear
php artisan optimize

7. Restart queue workers so they pick up the new code:

supervisorctl restart slotara-worker:*

8. Bring the site back up:

php artisan up

9. Verify — visit your site and admin panel, test a booking, and check the queue is running:

supervisorctl status
php artisan queue:monitor

Files to Preserve

{primary.fa-lightbulb-o} If you've customised any Blade views (e.g. email templates, booking page layout), keep a diff of your changes before upgrading so you can reapply them if the base view changed.

After Upgrade Checklist

Run through this after every upgrade:

☐  Site loads without errors
☐  Admin panel accessible at /admin
☐  Business panel accessible at /manage
☐  Public booking page loads at /{tenant-slug}
☐  Queue worker running (supervisorctl status)
☐  Test booking created successfully
☐  Test email received
☐  Storage link works (uploaded images display)
☐  Cache cleared (php artisan optimize)

{warning.fa-exclamation-triangle} If you see a blank white page after upgrading, run php artisan optimize:clear and check storage/logs/laravel.log for the error.