Downgrading PaperCut NG/MF to a previous version (roll-back steps)

You may need to downgrade your PaperCut NG/MF Application Server (from a newer version to an older version) for a number of reasons. Some of the most common reasons are below:

• Licensing - when you purchase PaperCut NG/MF (perpetual licensing), this allows you to run the current major version. If you install a newer version of PaperCut, you may not be eligible to run the newer version (see the upgrade policy page).
  Note: If you have current active Maintenance and Support (M&S) and/or a current active subscription (with PaperCut MF) then you are entitled to upgrade at any time.
• Unforeseen issues - if there are problems found after upgrading (e.g. due to older legacy firmware on printers, or feature changes which weren’t identified in your pre-upgrade testing) you may not be able to remain on the updated version of software, and may need to downgrade to your previously working version.

If you are looking to downgrade due to licensing issues, the simplest path is to purchase an upgrade to the latest version, or renew your subscription. This is often the most sensible way to go, because it will save you time performing the downgrade, and you also will get access to all the new features and security enhancements in the latest releases.

The upgrade prices are listed on the following pages:

• PaperCut NG pricing for Commercial Business, Professional Client Billing and Education/Government pricing.
• For PaperCut MF you’ll need to talk with your PaperCut MF Partner. See the Help tab (or About tab in older versions) in the PaperCut MF admin interface, to find their contact information.

What you will need

1. Make sure that you have a copy of the database backup (see Managing system backups) taken before the upgrade.
   • Note: a database backup should have been performed automatically by the Application Server during the upgrade. This file is located at [app-path]\server\data\backups\. The filename will look like: schema-XX-upgrade-backup-<timestamp>.zip. This is a snapshot of the database before the upgrade occurred.
   • Alternatively if you’re using an external database (e.g. PostgreSQL or MS SQL etc), you can use whatever database backup system you have in place, to restore your database back to the state prior to upgrade.
2. Make sure that you have a full server snapshot or file system backup (see Managing system backups) taken before the upgrade.
   • As part of the Pre-upgrade checks you should have a file system backup, or server snapshot depending on what server infrastructure you’re using (e.g. VM management software may have the ability to roll back to a particular snapshot in time).
3. Make sure that all these backups are stored outside of the PaperCut installation directory - preferably on a different server or storage location.

Downgrade Instructions

1. Triple check that you have the copy of the database backup taken before the upgrade, as documented above.

2. Triple check that you have access to server snapshots or file system backups taken before the upgrade, as documented above.

3. Triple check that all these backups are stored outside of the PaperCut installation directory, preferably on a different server or storage location - as documented above.

4. At this point it doesn’t harm to take a full copy of any PaperCut product installation directories from the installation location as a further precaution - e.g. C:\Program Files\PaperCut MF, C:\Program Files\PaperCut Mobility Print (or equivalents) etc. Again, store these on a different server, or different storage device.

5. If you are running PaperCut NG/MF version 24 or later, you’ll need to use the Deactivate Installation button in the PaperCut MF admin interface, under About > Registration > License Info (or Subscriptions if you’re a subscription customer). This will release the entitlements consumed by this server, so that when you install your old version of PaperCut MF, it will be able to use all the entitlements you have purchased. See Managing entitlements (Releasing all entitlements from an Application Server) for more information.

6. Restore the Application Server using the VM snapshot or server restore procedure (e.g. file system restore), to the state before the upgrade was installed.

   Note: Keep the Application Server service stopped at this point.

7. Restore the database by following the Restoring a database backup steps. These include using ./db-tools init-db -f to re-initialize the database, then restoring the database backup from step 1 using ./db-tools import-db .
   Alternatively restore your database using your DB administrators preferred method, to the state it was in prior to the upgrade.
   Note: If you are using the default internal (Derby) database, and you have restored your entire file system, you don’t need to perform this step, since the database is contained within the file system which you restored in the previous step. Otherwise you will need to restore the database backup from before the upgrade as above.

8. Start the Application Server service (see Starting/Stopping PaperCut Services).

9. Test the restoration process to ensure that you can access the PaperCut NG/MF admin interface - then run printing, scanning, copying and any other device tests to ensure the restore has been successful.

Related pages:

• Upgrading PaperCut NG/MF (upgrade steps)