Upgrading or Downgrading Deadline Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Can I upgrade without shutting down the farm?

  • No, Deadline needs to be fully shutdown before an upgrade. You need to upgrade your servers first, and then the auto-upgrade process can help upgrade all your client applications. More information at the Repository Config page

Note

NOTICE: Starting with Deadline 10.1.23, Deadline and its components do not require a license. The following License question only applies to older versions of Deadline.

Do I need a new Deadline License for…

  • a major version upgrade? Yes, you do need a new license for major version upgrades. (10 to 11)

  • a major version downgrade? No, Deadline licenses are backwards compatible. So a Deadline 10 license file should work for Deadline 9 as well.

  • a minor version upgrades? Depends.

    • Yes, for minor upgrades (10.0 to 10.1).

    • No, for service pack releases of minor version upgrades (10.0.1 to 10.0.2).

  • More information about upgrading is available here.

Is there a way to export current settings that I might need when doing a clean install?

Do I need to stop my farm before upgrading the Repository?

  • It is recommended you stop your farm before upgrading the Repository. However, the Repository can be upgraded while the farm is active as long as you are reusing the same Database and are not modifying the TLS credentials for Mongo.

Can I upgrade just the Client and leave the Repository at its current version?

  • No, it’s recommended that the Client and the Repository are at the same version.

Do I need to backup my repository before upgrading?

  • You do not need to. However, it is highly recommended you backup your Database. The Deadline installer automatically backs up the Repository, but not the Database. While Database corruption is rare it is always a good idea to backup your Database.

How do I backup and restore my Database?

  • The official MongoDB documentation provides the best information regarding various DB Backup and DB Restore options you may wish to consider deploying to protect your Mongo Database.