Hi everyone, I searched the archive for a while and couldn't find any advice on this subject, nor on Mediawiki really. Right now I have the "feeling", the wiki has so many problems, it would be good to have a clean install and start "from scratch" - without loosing all the content obviously... details and questions below: My (wiki's) situation: * MW 1.16, hosted on dreamhost, approx. 150 users, can only be read and edited by approved members. * active since 3,5 years * hosted on dreamhost, one-click advanced install, in the past I preferred to use their automatic updates, not to have too much hassle about it. Problems: * in the past all these extensions worked, but I can't get them to work anymore: ConfirmAccount, Collection. * SVGs don't show anymore properly * some minor problems ... So, now I'm thinking, a fresh install will help. * make it all new, maybe use subversion this time to install MW * install all extensions I need, be more specific this time - I learned a lot in those 3 years, about what I need etc ... * somehow transfer the data, files and the users from the "old wiki"... * invite the other 500 people that wait for access ... About me and my level of proficiency: I'm not a professional but ended up doing it all by myself, spending many hours searching subversion manuals etc .... My questions: * is a fresh install advisable? * the way I outlined it above, could this work? * do you have experiences on this? * or any other recommendations? Thanks a lot, sorry for the very long email ;-) Flo

$DP = $IP; This is setting a global variable which has been obsolete since MediaWiki 1.2 (2004). I'm not saying it's not a good idea to start again every once in a while, I'm just saying that it's possible to go a long, long way without doing that. You should be able to remove the extensions you don't want, and fix the extensions you do want, without rewriting your configuration files. I've found that "svn checkout --force" is a useful tool for repairing tarball installations with modified files. I can give more details on that if you want them. Thanks Tim,