Installing latest NopCommerce on Godaddy Hosting account

For those who have a Godaddy hosted account and would like to install the latest NopCommerce version - Godaddy doesn't officialy support any version past 1.6 - there is a way.

You can now upgrade to a .Net Framework 4.0 supported system with Godaddy, and install the latest NopCommerce version manually along with SQL Server backend.

I've documented the steps I took to get it done, and have written them into a word doc for download by anyone who may be interested.

Note that this will probably work best for those installing a new site,  but with proper back-up of your existing source, one could possibly carry out an upgrade and migrate their current data as well.

Because of the level of difficulty, this may pose problems for novices. I make no claims on behalf of Godaddy, nor the feasability of these steps; nor take responsibility for any technical problems that may arise due to following them.

Use at your own risk!

Otherwise, please download the file here: http://www.mediafire.com/?ihceb7y9wqw9ksw

I hope someone finds this useful, and good luck!

I should add a bit of clarity to this regarding how it works - and my appologies for the typo's and grammatical errors!

The theory is to convert (or purchase) your Godaddy hosted site to a plan wich supports the .Net 4.0 Framework, which is required for NopCommerce functionality above the 1.6 Version.
You can't directly install the latest version of NopCommerce as it is not provided or supported by Godaddy; but you can install the 1.6 version which Godaddy does provide,  and later over-write it with later versions of NopCommerce.

This is done by setting IIS on your new 4.0 hositng account to a runtime framework below 4.0, installing the 1.6 version of NopCommerce, resetting IIS back to 4.0 framework, and manually uploading the latest version of NopCommerce, over-writing the 1.6 version.

You then must remove the original SQL database which installed with NopCommerce 1.6 and manually install a new database. After doing so, you can upload the correct SQL scripts which will install the appropriate tables and data for the version of NopCommerce you want installed.

Finally, modify the connection string so it points to your new database. You can copy the connection string information from your hosting dashboard and place it into the connection string from your original information.

//******* Uploaded new file after some edits 2/11/2011 *******//

HI Gary: Thanx for provideing this very detailed roadmap.  I apologize in advance if this question is too stupid  or otherwise out of order.  I followed your roadmap step by step and it seemed to be successful on every step but the last.  When I attempted to browse the store (www.the-elder-geek/nopcommerce/default.aspx) I got a "500 Internal Server Error".  The biggest difference between my situation and the one described in the roadmap is that mine is a completely new install. There is no existing store.   I also used the nopCommerce version 1.90 without source code.  Before I give up and go back to v 1.60 I thought I'd ask if you had any idea what the problem could be.

Thanx in advance for any insights.

Oops!  The site link should be www.the-elder-geek.com/nopcommerce/default.aspx

DaLarry wrote:

Hi DaLarry, no questions are out of line, so no worries!  I'm assuming you are doing this with a Godaddy account, since you've followed the road map successfully.

I'm also assuming you first installed the Godaddy supported 1.6 version, and then followed the instructions to upgrade to 1.9.

If so, did you run the site with the 1.6 version first to check for a successful installation before proceeding to 1.9? Doing so at least tells you if that installation was successful before moving on to the next steps.

I would also suggest ftp'ing into your site and checking your directories. I noticed that www.the-elder-geek.com shows a "page not found" error message. Is this a working site?

At first glance it appears you may have a root directory problem to start, which could certainly pose problems if you are installing NopCommerce to a sub directory of the root-although probably shouldn't be anything severe. Have you recieved any other messages such as ASP.Net based errors?

If you backed up your site before proceeding with the installation steps, I suggest unistalling nopcommerce completely - including the database, reinstalling your original site, test that it works, then install NopCommerce 1.6, test it, then upgrade using the outlined steps.

Hope this helps!

Hi Gary:

Thanx for your prompt response.  I'm an elder geek, having written my first program back in 1963 for an IBM 1401. This is a brave new world for me and I thank you for your patience. :-)  I understand the concept of most things in this new world; computers are still computers.  However, the exact logic and details are occasionally fuzzy.  OOB is very different from what we did back in the day in assembler on batch processing systems. :-)  I followed your road map exactly and it was at the point after modifying and updating the "connectionStrings.config" file and testing the site that things fell apart.  I am using Dreamweaver CS3 to build the site and haven't uploaded my main site just yet.  I tried to use DWCS3 to upload the nopcommerce files but that was so slow that I switched over to FileZilla to upload them.  I just downloaded NC without source code, extracted it, and uploaded it.  I'll put up a basic under construction page today but I'm not sure that will affect the problem one way or another.  I also have VS Pro 2010 as well as Expression Web 3 and 4.  I'm not as adept with any of the MS products as I'd like to be but I've heard that they are better when working with ASP.NET applications.  Also, the WYSIWYG display in the Expression suites is not nearly as good as DWCS3 which makes transitioning to them difficult.  If I can't get v1.90 to work what will I lose by going back to v1.60 which worked fine while following the roadmap?  I bought the v1.90 manual before figuring out that getting v1.90 to work would be problematic.  I suppose at sometime I'll have to learn enought to troubleshoot these kinds of prolems.  After all, v1.90 is not likely the last updat :-)

Thanx again for your help.

DaLarry wrote:

Hi DaLarry,

The connection string is critical for your database connection, and without it the site definitely won't function correctly.

However, it seems you are experiencing some other problem(s) that are hard to evaluate at my end.

If you already had version 1.6 working correctly, then the upgrade shouldn't be a problem - at least in theory :>) !

I definitely recommend you run NC 1.9 in Visual Studio 2010 on your development server before uploading. In this way you can make sure its working correctly - or at least as intended- before uploading to the live site.

Also, if your intention is to have the NC site your default web site, then there is no need to upload it to a sub directory!

Simply upload all the files in the NopCommerceStore directory of the source files into your root directory. Since it already contains a default.aspx file, it should display the NC default store page. However, to have any functionality you must include the correct connection string for the data base.

I think going back to V 1.6 you will miss a lot of features available in the 1.9 version! And you're right about it not being the final version. I think a 2.0 version is on the horizon with many feature upgrades, and a major architecture change.

I'm willing to help you more directly if you like since troubleshooting hosting accounts is nearly impossible through forum posts.

If you would like to email me directly, please contact me at [email protected], and we can talk about how to best deploy your site.

--Gary

hi,

I'm sure I read another post that said go daddy are not yet providing support for .NET 4.0  (nopCommerce changed to .NET 4.0 with version 1.7 )

If this is so, and if you are prepared to play the waiting game with godady, you will then need to revert back to v1.6

though I think your best option is to find a hosting company who supports .NET 4.0 eg Softsys

Hi Haydie:

Godaddy does now support both .NET Framework 4.0 as well as SQL Server 2008 R2.  Nevertheless, I've pretty much come to the same conclusion; I need to make sure my live store customers are with a hosting platform where nopcommerce really matters to them.  I have one such customer to whom I've recommended exactly that.  However, the  one I'm installing on my personal site is for experimentation and learning so figuring out the problem may have some real world value.

Thanx for your input.  I had been looking at Arvixe for the soon to be live customer but I'll look into Softsys as well.