Hey folks,
I’ve been having some problems when updating the gateway plugin to newer versions in openfire.
When I update the plugin from the web admin interface, the process seems to complete, it tells me that the update was succesful, but after I let it have time to refresh the plugin list, the plugin version is the old version again with the message that an update is available.
I always have to shut down and restart Openfire for the new plugin version to take, something I’d rather not do as it is very inconvenient for on-line users.
Does anyone know:
Thanks.
Unless something has changed recently, it’s better to remove the plugin, give it a minute or so to completely remove itself, then reinstall it. I’ve never had a problem doing it this way.
I will give that a try when there’s a new update of the plugin. Thanks!
It seems that if the gateway plugin is in use it can not complete the process until openfire is restarted. The deletion method does avoid this but sometimes does not fully remove the plugin if it is use and can cause errors.
That definitely sounds like a risk I’d rather not take then, depending on how severe the issues are doing it that way.
It’s choosing between minor inconvenience for the users having to log back in, and potentially breaking the gateways. 
What kind of problems are you talking about, and how often is “sometimes”?
Based on the number of times i tell people to manually remove the plugin by stopping the server deleting the plugin and its folder and installing the new version, I would say rather often. The problems are wide and quite varied. Connection issue of many flavors.
It seems I don’t have to go through those hoops myself. I can just let it update and when it reappears (as the old version) in the list of plugins, I can restart openfire and it’s all good apparently, since I didn’t get complaints about connectivity issues. To be on the safe side I might actually clean out the plugin directory as a whole next time. – Thanks all for the feedback, seems there is no workaround then.
Reinstalling the plugin does not work
Indeed, it doesn’t – it will not download/install from the plugins page.
I had to manually download the .jar and upload it in the admin interface after “hard” removing of the plugin directory and .jar as suggested – I think next time I’ll stick to my “upgrade then restart” routine like before
I’m not sure why you would ever have to remove the folder – unless one tries to upgrade it first, which of course is Very Naughty.
Under normal circumstances it can take a good while for the plugin folder to disappear after the plugin (.jar file) has been deleted. However, I have never seen it fail to do so.
Certain plugins do not upgrade correctly or delete correctly via the admin page (gateway and monitoring are 2 examples). They may appear to delete but when you reload the plugin page it will still be there. With the upgrade the old version will still be there. It appears to be related to the whether or not the plugins are actively in use. The only sure fire way I have found to ensure proper removal/upgrade is to stop the server delete both the jar file and its folder, then install the new plugin. This may not happen every time.