Normally a properly shutdown Neo4j database can be upgraded directly to a new minor version. A database can be upgraded from a minor version to the next, e.g. 1.1 → 1.2, and 1.2 → 1.3, but you can not jump directly from 1.1 → 1.3. The upgrade process is a one way step; databases cannot be downgraded.
However, some upgrades make significant changes to the database store. Neo4j will refuse to start when a significant upgrade is required, requiring explicit upgrade configuration.
To perform a normal upgrade (for minor changes to the database store):
- download the newer version of Neo4j
- cleanly shutdown the database to upgrade, if it is running
- startup the database with the newer version of Neo4j
To perform a special upgrade (for significant changes to the database store):
- make sure the database you are upgrading has been cleanly shut down
- set the Neo4j configuration parameter "allow_store_upgrade=true"
- start the database
- the upgrade will happen during startup and the process is done when the database has been successfully started
- "allow_store_upgrade=true" configuration parameter should be removed, set to "false" or commented out
![[Warning]](images/icons/admon/warning.png){kind=icon} | Warning |
|---|---|
Upgrading from 1.3.M03 → 1.3.M04 must be done explicitly since store format has changed between those two versions. |
The store format, as well as logical log format, have changed between these two versions to allow for bigger stores.
| Warning |
|---|---|
Upgrading from 1.2 → 1.3 must be done explicitly since store format has changed between those two versions. |
The store format, as well as logical log format, have changed between these two versions to allow for bigger stores.
![[Important]](images/icons/admon/important.png){kind=icon} | Important |
|---|---|
Although id ranges has been increased the space used to store the database will not increase compared to the previous version. |
Upgrading between these two version needs to be performed explicitly using a configuration parameter at startup (see "Special Upgrade").
![[Caution]](images/icons/admon/caution.png){kind=icon} | Caution |
|---|---|
Upgrade cannot be performed if either the number of relationship types or the configured block size for either the dynamic array store or string store is greater than 65534. |
| Caution |
|---|---|
Indexes created using the old IndexService/LuceneIndexService are no longer accessible out of the box in 1.3 in favor of the integrated index. An automatic upgrade isn’t possible so a full rebuild of the index data into the integrated index framework is required. For reference the legacy index can be downloaded from the Neo4j repository, http://m2.neo4j.org/org/neo4j/neo4j-legacy-index/ |