BuddyPress Upgrade Tutorial – BuddyPress Upgrade 500 Error

[AITpro Admin]

If you are having issues with getting a BuddyPress upgrade to complete successfully and are seeing 500 Internal Errors when trying to upgrade BuddyPress then this is the BuddyPress upgrade method for you.

Factors/Symptoms/Issues/Problems:  
Current BuddyPress version installed: 2.5.2
This BuddyPress Forum site is a standard single WordPress installation and not a Network/Multisite installation of WordPress so that may be an important factor.
When trying to upgrade BuddyPress via the Plugins update/upgrade link the BuddyPress site would crash with a 500 Internal Server error.
When deactivating the BuddyPress plugin the site would crash with a 500 Internal Server error.

What worked to complete a successful BuddyPress upgrade:
1. Download the latest BuddyPress zip file and unzip it on your computer.
2. Rename the unzipped /buddypress/ folder to /buddypress-version-number/.
3. Use FTP and upload the entire /buddypress-version-number folder that you unzipped on your computer to your /plugins/ folder.
4. After the /buddypress-version-number folder upload is completed, rename your old /buddypress/ folder to /buddypress-version-number.
5. Rename the /buddypress-version-number folder to /buddypress.

Personal Notes:  These are mainly for me, but they also be helpful to someone else.  We performed the same upgrade method for bbPress, but noticed that several hooks in our Theme’s functions.php file no longer worked/no longer had any effect so we were forced to edit bbPress core files. I usually keep the old /buddypress-version-number/ folder for a week and then delete it if there are no problems with the new BuddyPress version.

Changing bbPress Tag Cloud font sizes and total number of Tags displayed
Changed/Edited this in Code line 496 /bbpress/includes/common/shortcodes.php

Update:  You can control Tag Cloud font sizes and total number of Tags displayed from your Theme’s functions.php instead of modifying the bbPress code directly.  See this link for instructions/the code:  http://forum.ait-pro.com/forums/topic/bbpress-tag-cloud-change-font-size-change-number-of-tags/

wp_tag_cloud( array( 'smallest' => 9, 'largest' => 38, 'number' => 80, 'taxonomy' => bbp_get_topic_tag_tax_id() ) );

wp_tag_cloud( array( 'smallest' => 10, 'largest' => 22, 'number' => 100, 'taxonomy' => bbp_get_topic_tag_tax_id() ) );

Error displayed insted of the Forum editing window: You cannot create new topics at this time.
This was caused by trying to use an older version of bbPress with the new version of BuddyPress and possibly due to rolling back bbPress during testing.

WYSIWYG Editor only displaying the teeny code editor toolbar and not the formatting toolbar.
Changed/Edited code in /bbpress/includes/common/template-tags.php
In bbPress 2.4.1 to 2.5.9 change/edit /bbpress/includes/common/template.php
In bbPress 2.5.8/2.5.9 the Code Line is now: 1735

changed…

'tinymce' => false,
'teeny' => true,

...to...

'tinymce' => true,
'teeny' => false,

[AITpro Admin]

Another personal bbPress upgrade note for myself: Do not allow Participants to create Topic Tags:  See this new Forum Topic:   https://forum.ait-pro.com/forums/topic/bbpress-do-not-allow-participants-to-create-topic-tags/

Another personal bbPress upgrade note for myself: Hide and disable the Activity Stream Post Update Form.  I’m sure there is a better way to do this, but this works for now.

In my theme style.css file add:

#whats-new-form {  display:none;  }

Manually edit these 2 BuddyPress files and comment out the submit button to disable the post-form.php Form.

Legacy
/buddypress/bp-templates/bp-legacy/buddypress/activity/post-form.php

<!-- <input type="submit" name="aw-whats-new-submit" id="aw-whats-new-submit" value="<?php //_e( 'Post Update', 'buddypress' ); ?>" /> -->

/buddypress/bp-themes/bp-default/activity/post-form.php

<!-- <input type="submit" name="aw-whats-new-submit" id="aw-whats-new-submit" value="<?php //_e( 'Post Update', 'buddypress' ); ?>" /> -->

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