Editing Manual/Upgrading (section)

===Should I back up first?=== <!--T:129-->

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Short answer: Yes.

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Long answer: It depends on a) how much you value your data, b) how hard it is to create a backup and c) how confident you are with MySQL maintenance and administration. 
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<translate><!--T:132--> An upgrade failure may leave your database in an inconsistent state, in between two versions.</translate>
<translate><!--T:231--> A PHP or MySQL error might happen during upgrade leaving your database partly upgraded.</translate>
<translate><!--T:232--> In such situations it may be possible to somehow fix this problem with much manual work.</translate>
<translate><!--T:233--> However, it will be ''way easier'' to just put a database backup from before running update.php in place and to continue with that.</translate>
<translate><!--T:234--> Otherwise you might have hours of - needless - work.</translate>

<translate><!--T:133--> Recovery is often complex.</translate>
<translate><!--T:235--> Volunteers on the support forums are unlikely to be impressed if you neglect to make a backup and then need help to recover from upgrade-related corruption.</translate>
<translate><!--T:236--> A better outcome is if you can revert to your backup, and then [[<tvar name=1>phab:maniphest/task/create/</tvar>|report the bug against the corresponding MediaWiki project]] in the upgrade process which caused the corruption.</translate>

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