If it’s been a good while between PaperCut upgrades and you are making a significant jump between versions, our install-over-the-top will handily fill in the gaps so you can jump from “old and dusty” to “new and shiny” with ease!

That being said, in these cases we do recommend making sure your database is optimized before pulling that upgrade trigger. If it's on the older side, there is a chance there could be bad rows of data in your database table.

Ok, here’s what you need to do:

1. Firstly make sure you have a current backup (Options > Backups > Export Now)
   
   
2. Stop the PaperCut Application Server service (see instructions here)
   
   
3. Open a command line in Administrative Mode and path to: [app-path]/server/bin/<platform>/
   
   
4. run the following command: db-tools optimize-internal-db -h
   
   
5. Once complete, start your PaperCut Application Server service again
   
   

Because running this command will re-index and clear out any empty space in your database tables don’t worry if it takes a while to run. The time it takes to complete will depend on the size of your database and how much cleaning actually takes place. For this reason, we recommend running optimization out of regular business hours.

You can read more about the usage of db-tools in the PaperCut manual