How to migrate from 0.24.6 to unstable

Hi,

I used Vikunja (docker vesion self hosted) from some weeks now.
Some " problem " seems to be corrected in unstable version.

I try to only change the tag of the docker’s image but I lost some informations in the front-end (like project affected to tasks or priority) and I have an error " valid character ‘d’ looking for beginning of value " when I try to make a project from filter).

I didn’t find any answer in documentation and in this forum.

Maybe I didn’t search properly.

I’d love to continue testing this tool, which seems very promising. :slight_smile:

Regards.

DerO

Welcome :waving_hand:

Did you switch to the unstable tag? Which version do you see in the about dialogue in the frontend?

Thank you for you message.

Yes, I switch ti the unstable tag.

This is what I have in the about dialogue :

Frontend version: dev
API version: v0.24.1-1430-648f6f6a

All my tasks seems to be there but without any project.

So no projects in the menu on the left?

Do you see any projects when running select * from projects in your database?

Exactly, no project on left menu but :

select * from projects;
id | title | description | identifier | hex_color | owner_id | parent_project_id | is_archived | background_file_id | background_blur_hash | position | created | updated
3 | Pro | | | | 1 | 0 | f | 0 | | 196608 | 2025-06-06 16:28:11 | 2025-06-23 09:00:35
1 | Inbox | | | | 1 | 0 | f | 0 | | 65536 | 2025-06-06 15:16:54 | 2025-06-22 16:56:19
2 | Perso | | | | 1 | 0 | f | 0 | | 131072 | 2025-06-06 15:58:12 | 2025-06-23 11:15:27
4 | Développement | | | | 1 | 0 | f | 0 | | 262144 | 2025-06-06 16:43:55 | 2025-06-21 15:43:39
5 | Maison | | | | 1 | 0 | f | 0 | | 327680 | 2025-06-06 16:45:37 | 2025-06-21 15:31:51
(5 rows)

And :

select id, title, project_id from tasks LIMIT 1;
id | title | project_id
----±-----------------±-----------
10 | Factures OVH ESS | 2

So I don’t understand. :sweat_smile:

When I try to refresh projects page in the frontend, here is the log :

2025-06-23T12:32:54.847057874Z: INFO :play_button: [DATABASE] 200 [SQL] SELECT “id”, “title”, “project_id”, “view_kind”, “filter”, “position”, “bucket_configuration_mode”, “bucket_configuration”, “default_bucket_id”, “done_bucket_id”, “updated”, “created” FROM “public”.“project_views” WHERE “project_id” IN ($1,$2,$3,$4,$5,$6) ORDER BY position asc [1 2 3 4 5 -2] - 1.955714ms
2025-06-23T12:32:54Z: ERROR :play_button: 201 invalid character ‘d’ looking for beginning of value

OK, I try something : export data from 0.24.6 with the export task in the frontend an import it in a new unstable instance : doesn’t work.

Look the error and seems to be in the filter filed views.

Expected something like :

“filter”: {
“s”: “”,
“sort_by”: null,
“order_by”: null,
“filter”: “done = false”,
“filter_include_nulls”: false
},

and data in my file, for example :

“filter”: “done = false \u0026\u0026 (due_date \u003e= now/d+1d \u0026\u0026 due_date \u003c now/d+2d)”,

I put all my view filter to

“filter”: null,

And the import is OK (without filter of course).

I’m unable to verify this with the latest unstable build (v0.24.1-1442-247d82f0).

Do you only see this when fetching projects?

It seems like it’s only on projects.
I solve my problem (but not THE problem) by exporting from 0.24.6, change the filter field (only 24) and import in a unstable fresh install.

1 Like

Same here,
first I thought it could be something with OIDC and shared projects but none of any projects have been imported in the latest unstable.
I also updated from 0.24.6 by just changing the docker tag. After that I panicked because my latest update was 23h ago and 80 people have made their changes on their projects during the day so i just changed vikunja back from unstable to v0.24.6. Sadly I now face various issues like
no filter views (like @Jerome_Desroziers described)
list view in generell: error.4024 The filter expression '{“filter”:“done = ‘false’”}" is invalid: unexpected character ‘{’,
no new oidc group synchronisation even after logout/login.

This evening I plan to repair at least the 0.24.6 instance like this:

  • Export current broken 0.24.6 data with Vikunja > Settings > export vikunja data
  • restore backup from 2 days ago
  • import newest data from broken vikunja
  • cross fingers

Is this maybe going to work @kolaente?
I will test this first in a test environment, should have done it also before the upgrade yesterday.

The reason why I updated in first place is because an employee asked me if she can sort a kanban bucket with newest items on top instead at the bottom. With try.vikunja.io I discovered that the newest unstable version is doing it like that. perfect i thought and just changed the docker image tag facepalm

edit:
Frontend-Version: dev
API-Version: v0.24.1-1541-6deb0699

logs after trying to import the data from 0.24.6 to latest unstable:
Error 308 could not read data: json: cannot unmarshal string into Go struct field ProjectView.Project.views.filter of type models.TaskCollection

after replacing
“filter”:“{"filter":"done = false"}”
with
“filter”:null
the following error occurs:
could not read data: invalid character ‘\’ after top-level value

after replacing all '\'s:
could not read data: invalid character ‘U’ in string escape code

@kolaente should I confidentally send you my export.zip so you can debug it? I dont know if thats the right way I am doing it right now, and you might be interested in that for future updates from 0.24.6

edit 2:
apaerantly there seems to be an issue with URLs in the title or description of a task. The following extract could be creating a syntax error:
{"id":630,"title":"FBS - Telefone im und 3. OG","description":"\u003cimg src=\"https://ca.slack-edge.com/T02-123XYZ-48\" alt=\"\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMAXI MUSTERMANNMAXI MUSTERMANN\u003c/strong\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003ca target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"c-link c-timestamp\" href=\"https://MEINWORKSPACENAME.slack.com/archives/C08C20/p1719\"\u003e13:44 Uhr\u003c/a\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDas Telefon im 2. OG funktioniert leider nicht

also someone put a windows filepath in a description, which lead to the same issues above:
können in die Pat Ordner\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOrdner findet ihr unter: C:\Users\share\Nextcloud\2_Prxmgmt 2\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBitte nur in die P Ordner bei den jeweiligen MA verschieben...
the errors have been
could not read data: invalid character 'U' in string escape code (must have been C:\Users…)
could not read data: invalid character 's' in \u hexadecimal character escape (has been C:-users\share)
could not read data: invalid character 'd' in string escape code
and so on

Welcome! :waving_hand:

This is not supported. You can only import dumps between the same versions of Vikunja. The way to upgrade from stable to unstable (or to a newer release, for that matter) would be to update the docker image / binary and then restart Vikunja. This will run all migrations automatically.

Dumping from a stable version and importing into a newer version won’t work. Same for migrating back from newer versions to older.

What made you roll back from unstable in the first place?

Did you adjust the config? OpenID (unstable syntax on that page)