OK, so I did an overwrite install of 4.261 over 4.24. I grabbed the MT-4.261-en.zip from http://www.movabletype.org/downloads/archives/4.x/ and copied it over my MT 4.24 installation. I hit mt.cgi adn was prompted to upgrade. Great.
Then the upgrade crashes at "Upgrading table for as_ua_cache records..." with this error:
Error during upgrade: failed to execute statement ALTER TABLE mt_as_ua_cache MODIFY as_ua_cache_action_type varchar(255) NOT NULL: Specified key was too long; max key length is 1000 bytes at lib/MT/Upgrade.pm line 2593.
This is oddly similar to an error I had trying to import a MySQL database after converting from latin1 to UTF-8.
So, now my blog is hosed, how do I fix it?
Reported on Movable Type 4.261
Take a backup of the table: `mt_as_ua_cache`. Then drop it and let MT recreate it during upgrade. This is a brute force mechanism, but it might just get you over the hump. The table in question is for Action Streams and caches user agent requests from what I can tell. I think it is safe to delete as its contents will be reconstituted during the normal course of using the plugin.
Thanks Byrne. Sounds simple enough, but I'm pretty green when it comes to mucking around in MySQL. I only have PHP MyAdmin access, but I assume that I can do what you're saying there, I just need 'fix my DB for dummies' instructions. :-P
Is it possible that I screwed something up in the DB in converting from Lain 1 to UTF8?
OK, I figured it out. Pretty simple, browse to the 'mt_as_ua_cache' table in PHP MyAdmin and there's an Export tab and a Drop tab. After the drop, the upgrade proceeded fine and the table was recreated, as you said. It's now empty, however, but the proper services are still present in the UI, however.
I did notice that the 'as_ua_cache_action_type' field was varchar(32) and is now varchar(255) after the upgrade. Perhaps making that change rather than dropping the table would have fixed it?
However, I now have the 'empty blog stats' on the main dashboard screen. I've seen that on the ProNet, I think, so I can dig there to find the solution.
Thanks Byrne!