How to Upgrade OpenCart 1.5.x to the New 3.x Version

Video transcript:

Hey there, today we’re gonna update your old OpenCart store to the newest and fanciest OpenCart 3.

So, we’ll be switching from this look...

To this… and fill this empty store with all the products from your previous site.

Let’s start!

Step One. Backup your store.

Whenever you’re performing major changes - always backup your data.

The best way to do that is via your hosting.

We’ll demonstrate with our hosting using CPanel, so if you’re not sure how to do it, just contact your hosting provider. They’ll help.

Now that you got your backup, you’re good to go.

Step Two. Setup a test server.

It’s recommended to setup your test server on a separate hosting environment.

For our example, we will setup a new installation of OpenCart as a subdirectory of our main OpenCart 1.5 installation.

This is important so you don’t mess up your new store on the live site and cause bigger problems down the road.

Now that we have our test server setup, it’s time for the data export and import.

Step Three. Export your store data.

To do this, you will need a tool like ExcelPort. We’ll give a link to that in the description below.

With ExcelPort, you can get all your store data from the old site and import it into the new one.

To do that, you need to download the latest corresponding version of the extension for your older store, which in our case is ExcelPort 1.11.5 for OpenCart 1.5.6.4.

Once you download it, you install it in your store. ExcelPort is installed like any other extension for OpenCart 1.5, via FTP. We’ll do it using FileZilla.

Once the files are transferred to our store, we go to the modules in the extensions tab.

Once you’re there, find ExcelPort and click Install. Now click edit and you will enter the module settings.

First of all, don’t worry about the notification that you’re running an unlicensed version of this module. You don’t need to activate your license for your older store.

So, what we’re going to do now is export our Products, Categories, Customers and Orders.

A few important details here, when you’re exporting Products, you can select your store, language and type of export.

We’ll go with Bulk export because it exports a multi-sheet file for easier bulk editing of the products before importing.

So, let’s hit the Export Now button.

You can see the exported file in your downloads.

Repeat that for the rest of the entities we want to get.

Now! We have our data exported.

Step Four. Prepare our new OpenCart 3 installation for the import.

We will need to install the ExcelPort extension in there as well.

Go back to your Downloads at iSenseLabs and download the latest version from here.

It’s the one that supports OpenCart 3.

Also, don’t forget to subscribe for new version notifications with new features and improvements.

Once this is done, go to your new OpenCart 3 installation and go to Extensions and open the Installer.

Upload the ExcelPort zip and wait for the progress bar to complete loading.

Now click Extensions and go to the Modules from the dropdown.

Install ExcelPort, hit Edit and go to the Import tab.

By the way, if you want to know how to activate your extension, go to the Support tab, the copy the license code from your Downloads at iSenseLabs and paste back in this field here. Done.

So, back to the Import tab.

Now, as you have your products selected, you need to upload the Products file you exported from your previous store.

Now, you got a few options to specify again.

You got the language and two options that will define the import process.

First one will delete all current entries before importing the new ones.

Second option will import all the entries as new ones without editing or overriding existing entries you may have in your new store.

So, once you define that, click the Import Data button.

Success! We got 19 imported products. Hit finish and continue with the rest of the entities.

Categories…

Customers…

Orders…

Now that the Import is complete… let’s see the results!

As you remember, this is a new store so, the Categories and Products were entirely empty.

Now, when we go to Categories, we see all the entries we had in our OpenCart 1.5 store.

Same with the products… the orders… and the customers...

There’s only one detail though. The images must be uploaded and assigned to all the products manually when you’re setting up your new store.

However, we will show you a simple trick to speed up that process.

Go to your server files via an FTP client. We’ll do it with FileZilla.

Enter your old store files and open the Image folder.

There’s gonna be a folder inside called Data. Right-click and hit Download.

This will save the folder to your desktop device.

The next step is to open the files of your new OpenCart 3 installation.

Again, you will see the same folder called Image.

Open it and now right-click the Data folder you just downloaded and hit Upload.

This way, you just moved all the images you had in your old store to the new one.

What’s the good thing about ExcelPort now? That it migrates all the file paths for your images, which means that you will not have to assign them to all your products manually now.

Instead… we go to Catalog and then Products… and see that all of our images are properly assigned now.

Awesome, right?

Great.

Step Five. Move your modules and modifications.

Now, this is a very delicate process.

It’s very important to make sure that all of the extensions you want to have in your new store are compatible with OpenCart 3.

Also, if you have any custom modifications, themes or anything like that, check with the people who developed them to see if they can be safely moved to OpenCart 3.

Let’s give an example.

If you hadn’t noticed… we have NitroPack installed and enabled in our old OpenCart 1.5 store.

So, first thing to do is check if it’s compatible with OpenCart 3.

Go to the product page and check the details… well what do you know! OpenCart 3 is supported.

We go to the downloads and get the latest version of the module.

Then repeat the process…

Go to the OpenCart 3 installer, upload the module zip.

Now go to modifications and hit the refresh button.

Go to your extensions, enable NitroPack and you’re ready!

How to make sure you got the right settings for your store going?

Simply go back to your older store, check your settings there and adjust them in your new OpenCart 3 site.

That’s basically how you move modules from the old store to the new.

One more time: NEVER try installing modules that you haven’t explicitly checked compatibility with your new OpenCart 3 site.

And now, the last thing to do…

Step Six. Make OpenCart 3 your main domain installation.

After that, you need to modify a couple of files for your main domain to be loading your new store.

You go into the files of your new OpenCart 3 installation and edit your main config.php file.

It should look like this. All the paths should point to your main store domain.

After that, you go back to your store files, enter the admin folder and edit the config file again.

Should be the same, all the paths must point to your main store domain.

Save your config files with the new paths.

This is where you need to contact your hosting provider again and ask them to reconfigure your main store domain to point to the directory of your new OpenCart 3 site.

So, that should do the trick!

Let’s see what our main store looks like now.

Hit refresh… and your store is now running the latest OpenCart 3 version.

Just like that!

This is one of the most simple ways to update your store.

If you have ANY questions about the update process, please let us know in the comments below and we’ll answer them ASAP.

That was all for today, we hope you liked the video, give us a like if this was helpful and subscribe to our channel for more OpenCart 3 tutorials!

Thanks for watching!