We have been using the Mambo platform for our website for some time. Mambo is a open source CMS system. We use mambo for clients and usually test the latest versions and improvements before letting them loose on client sites.

Last year mambo went to 4.6 which was a significant step forward. Unlike other software companies and sources the mambo community provides a lot of support and testing before releasing new versions. Occasionally there can be problems but usually someone finds a fix very quickly.

Version 4.6.2 is an important update due to the language support and some important improvements to speed and reliability over version 4.6.1. We saw the release of 4.6.2 two weeks ago and after preliminary testing decided to upgrade the Chicsystems website. It immediately failed to upgrade properly. 45 minutes of research found the problem. As our site was a progressive update we had some old .xml files which were in conflict. A quick delete and it was working. All in all offline for a total of 60 minutes.

We had taken the precaution of waiting for other people to be the first to use it, And 4.6.2 had issued a special bug stomp version so we were suprised to face a problem. It goes to show the care needed in updating. We did of course have a full backup for restoration if needed.

Updating the mambo versions regularily is important. We have a client who did not and are facing a huge task in updating. We are probably going to have to do a clean install and restore the data and templates, Whilst this is going to be time consuming it will be cheaper than having to upgrade 1 by 1 and back up each time.

We are about to do this process on another mambo (not used) site to test the ease of use before we try on the client site.

Overall we have noticed speed improvements and a few worthwhile tweaks. Also we are now looking into the additional language options and new external payment systems.