Why we upgraded to MySQL 5
Well, first let’s state the obvious reasons. We like to keep out servers using the most up to date supported software and recommended server configuration to maintain server stability. We like to keep our servers fast, but most of all, our clients happy, like always. And one of the ways we do that is by periodically updating the backend server software.
MySQL 5 has been available for over a year and is now the standard, recommended version, according to the company that makes MySQL. Any modern script that uses databases should work properly with MySQL 5, but we should mention that we’ve heard reports of MySQL 5 database incompatibilities with a very small number of older scripts. That’s why you may want to check with the authors of any scripts on your site to verify that they are compatible with MySQL 5, as we’ve previously suggested. If you do have any errors, we ask that you open a ticket immediately. Free Hosting or shared hosting we’ll work with you to get your website back up and running.
If you’re a technically advanced customer and you want to know exactly what changes need to be considered for this upgrade, the MySQL 4.1 to 5.0 upgrade page has plenty of details. Where possible, we’ve taken care of the obvious things (for example, we’ve already converted any ISAM tables to MyISAM), but there’s a long list of rarer, subtler issues that are impossible for us to check without examining each SQL query that a script makes on every website we’re hosting.
In the very worst case of a customer using a script that simply will not work with MySQL 5, we are keeping a separate MySQL 4.1 server available that we can temporarily use for that customer’s databases to for up to 30 days, giving such customers a chance to resolve the issue.
We apologize for any inconvenience this upgrade may have caused. We tend to be very conservative about major upgrades, and we don’t undertake them lightly, but this one is definitely necessary.
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