I too tried to upgrade from 4.5 to 5 and got nowhere.
With multiple servers and lots of sites, clean installs and migrations take time I’d rather spend building sites than maintaining servers.
We don’t expect new features, but would REALLY like security updates to continue… pretty please?
can you elaborate on “got nowhere”?
What version of tomcat and java are you running?
if it’s a Lucee 4.5 install, you’re probably still running ancient versions of java and tomcat which have heaps of security issues themselves
You already need to keep your operating system, JVM, and Tomcat, and/or web server up to date, and each of those will stop supporting previous major/minor versions at some point in time (sometimes every 2 years, sometimes sooner) – Lucee is another part of the stack that also needs to be kept up to date in the same way. It’s not really feasible for Lucee to be the only part in that stack where security updates are supported for an infinite amount of time 
Eventually support has to end and upgrades become necessary, so it’s important to make time for it.
Actually, it’s W2k12R2, Java 1_8 and Tomcat 8, so not so old.
I believe the issue was Lucee failed to start.
Someone earlier mentioned dropping in a new .jar file. DETAILED instructions on how to do so would be helpful.
Someone else mentioned starting from a batch file to determine what is failing. Again DETAILED instructions would be helpful in troubleshooting what’s going on.
I don’t know if I’m in the minority, but without good instructions, if the .exe doesn’t install I’m pretty much done.
Uhuh… W2K12 (Windows Server Standard 2012) was released on 10/30/2012. Mainstream support lasts until 10/9/2018… that’s just shy of 6 years! Extended support lasts until 10/10/2013. Updating the OS is a couple of clicks every month and a reboot.
Kudos to Lucee for the easy updates in . versions, but going from 4.5 to 5 isn’t so simple.
if the .exe doesn’t install I’m pretty much done
I would question if you should be managing server installs For most cases, swapping the jar is literally all you need to do. If the server doesn’t start, then examine the servlet’s out logs. There are a million ways to install a J2EE servlet, but if you’re on the default installer it should be catalina.out. From my experience, a stock Lucee install will always upgrade with no issues. It’s only custom things you’ve done to your install (extensions, jars, config, etc) that can cause problems.
That said, the days of servers as pets are coming to an end. This might be a good time for you to look into new technologies like Docker or even just straight CommandBox servers. The server install has become an automated and dispensable part of your stack. I can kill a docker container and not even blink because I can spin up 10 more with the click of a button. Yeah, it took some work to get there, but upgrade paralysis doesn’t exist when your entire server stack is automated.
W2K12 (Windows Server Standard 2012) was released on 10/30/2012. Mainstream support lasts until 10/9/2018… that’s just shy of 6 years!
And how much did you pay for those Windows server licenses? Lucee hasn’t ever really adopted an LTS support approach, but perhaps they could consider it. (Ortus is now doing this for ColdBox, etc) But even if they had a modest LTS cycle of 3 years (which is quite a long time for a FOSS project) Lucee 4.5.2 came out in November 2015 which is nearly 3 years ago.
Updating the OS is a couple of clicks every month and a reboot.
For minor patch upgrades yes, but not for a major WIndows upgrade to a new version.
but going from 4.5 to 5 isn’t so simple.
It didn’t start, but you didn’t actually put forth any effort to troubleshoot, and you’re saying it isn’t simple? Great work was put into making the Lucee 4 → 5 upgrade as simple as possible but some amount of due diligence is expected. I saw a number of people post questions to the support channels back when upgrades were common and I never saw one go without being resolved. (Usually just some custom jars or config that needed tweaked)
I am still using Lucee 4.5 due to a specific function SerializeJSON that seams to break if I upgrade past 4.5
Please open a ticket in JIRA with the details and we will fix it.
We can’t compare LAS and Lucee to Microsoft and Windows server without a little perspective
Microsoft is a company with a market cap of $800 billion and a release cycle of 4 years for recent versions of Windows Server so I’m sure they can afford to supporting their paying customers for 6 years.
LAS is a non-profit association. Lucee 4.5 was released almost 3.5 years ago, Lucee 5.0 was released just over 2 years ago, and Lucee 5.2 is the current version and was released just over 1 year ago.
Planning software upgrades is a necessary part of working in IT, and I think it’s fair to expect that after 3.5+ years people should be planning to upgrade to newer versions. This will also be the case with the JVM, with Tomcat, and with other software that you are using too, and they aren’t just “click a couple of buttons every month”, and they aren’t really comparable to OS patches. All stacks have a maintenance cost, and I guess yours is fairly low if you are still on Lucee 4.5, but I’d strongly encourage investing some additional time to avoid risking the security of your systems.
I’m not trying to be defensive, I’m just trying to highlight that these things need to be taken seriously and that at some point the burden does fall to the end user to upgrade, and we’re trying to find that middle ground without burdening LAS too much.
I just tried to upgrade a simple 4.x server to 5.2, and no dice :
https://lucee.daemonite.io/t/upgrade-from-4-5-to-5-2-failed/4323/7
The response there seems to be “you can’t, no matter what the docs say, upgrade from Lucce 4.x to 5.x. Rip and replace is the only option”.
This isn’t because the Tomcat bundled with Lucee 4.x is too old for Lucee 5.x. Upgrading both that and the JVM to the latest versions was no help.
Maybe what’s needed is an extra step somewhere ?
It would also help if the installer for 4.5 and 5.2 did not create extra JRE directories under /opt/lucee/jdk directory in Linux so upgrading the JRE would actually be possible.