...or read this once you've ignored that piece of advice

Eager to update to EPiServer CMS SP1 I got a bit careless. I finished my development locally, published and tested it on our staging server and then finally published it to the live server.

I then got a funny error message saying that EPiServer CMS version 5.1.422.122 requires version 5101 of the database, and I was running version 5100. I had forgotten to update the live server using EPiServer Manager before publishing my updates.

Let's not linger by the thought that this was a true rookie mistake.

I tried to update the live website using EPiServer Manager - but it was in vain. Apparently, if you update your binaries manually to SP1, EPiServer Manager will recognize the site as being the latest version even if the database isn't. So, it won't upgrade your database.

The solution

I searched my EPiServer Manager installation folder for any type of SQL scripts and - voilá - I found it! It's located under C:\Program Files\EPiServer\Manager\Download\Upgrade, or wherever you installed EPiServer Manager, and the file is called 5_1_422_4to5_1_422_122.sql.

You may want to backup your database before continuing.

Manually update your database from version 5100 to 5101

1. Open SQL Server Management Studio
2. Open the 5_1_422_4to5_1_422_122.sql script file
3. Make sure the correct database is selected in the dropdown
4. Execute the script!

There! You're all done - hopefully!