Issues upgrading Craft 2 to 3 - Keep seeing Install Screen not Update screen

Question

I'm trying to update my development site on MAMP from Craft 2 to 3. I've installed Composer and tried both upgrade methods (keeping the current directory structure & using the new structure). But with both options, I keep getting shown the install craft screen instead of the update screen. Which is not what I want to do.

I've added my info to the .env file, but the only way I can seem to get the update screen is by using my old db.php file from craft 2. But then that means that I can use the .env file.

If I then go to complete the update, I tells me that craft can't do a database backup. If I then continue the update to craft 3, when I log in I'm shown the following dependency error:

The auto-generated validation key stored at /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/lorindafontainefarris/craft3/storage/runtime/validation.key has been deprecated. Copy its value to the “securityKey” config setting in config/general.php.

I don't see a validation key to copy, but I already have one that was created for the .env file. Its just not being used because I've used the old db.php file from my craft 2 build. I'm assuming that I shouldn't have to use my old db.php file to get the update to work.

So can anyone shed some light on why I keep seeing the Install screen when I go to update my craft2 project?

Thanks in advance,

Richard

Answer 1

If you've seeing any install screen instead of an update screen, that means that Craft can connect to the database server specified in craft/config/db.php file, but it either can't find the database you've specified or it can't find the craft_info table. A common cause of this is the tablePrefix database config setting changed, for example.