what is the correct procedure to upgrade joomla 1.7.1 to 2.5.4?..

i have tried to upgrade it by uninstalling the multisites patches and proceed with upgrading joomla 1.7.1 to 2.5.4 through extensions>update in the backend. after that, i installed the multisite patches.

i checked the master site and i confirmed that i successfully upgraded the master site to joomla 2.5.4. when i tried to check the joomla version of one of the slave sites, it is still joomla 1.7.1. how can i propagate the joomla upgrade to the slave sites?

i have read here that i just need to fix the database on the extensions>database but i can't find the link. i also tried to upgrade joomla on the slave site but it failed to finish upgrading which i then restored using a backup.

any advice?..

Upgrade Joomla from 1.7 to 2.5, can be performed with the Joomla upgrade.
The procedure that consists in unzip joomla 2.5 over the joomla 1.7 does not provide the same result as the one that consists in using the upgrade button present in the joomla extension manager.

When you have joomla 2.5 installed, use the extension manager / database / fix button to fix the DB layout in each slave site.

When done, delete the /installation directory present in your environment to let JMS re-install the /installation corresponding to Joomla 2.5

Ensure that you have the latest JMS.

The key element is the usage of the extension manager / database / fix button.

This will work with slaves sites that uses symbolic links to the files and directories of the master site.

What about the slave sites that were created by physically copying some of the files and directories like the administrator, components, includes, libraries, modules and plugins like I did on my slave sites? I needed to do it this way because there were extensions that I'm using that stores the data on files.

Any thoughts on how I should proceed with upgrading?

Symbolic links and the DB layout are different things.

The procedure that I have described concern the DB layout structure and not the symbolic links.

If they are new folder created you can just open/re-save the slave site to have the new symbolic links created.

If you have duplicated the files and folders, you will have to maintain them manually.
JMS does not synchronize the directories and files.