Updates, backups and maintenance
All maintenance happens in the panel: updating to the new version, making and downloading backups, putting the site in maintenance mode and watching the worker.
Updating
- The platform checks sysrevai.com for a new version every 6 hours by itself. When there is one, administrators see a dark bar at the top of every page (“A new version of SysRevAI is available”) with an Update now button. The bar cannot be dismissed and goes away by itself once updated.
- The button opens Admin → Maintenance with the check already done: the available version, what is new and the pre-flight checks. You can also go there yourself and press “Check for updates”.
- If every check passes, press "Update now".
- The platform switches maintenance mode on, backs the database up, downloads the package with your licence, verifies its integrity, swaps the code in (keeping
.env,storage/andpublic/uploads/), applies migrations and reopens the site. - If a migration fails, the previous code is restored and the backup is at hand. Each update is recorded with its log.
Backups
Admin → Maintenance → Full platform backups: every 2 hours the worker backs up the whole platform (database, PDFs, protocols, articles, credentials, avatars and .env) and keeps the 24 newest; older ones are deleted automatically. You can change the frequency and how many are kept, make one by hand and download them. To restore one, on the server run php bin/console.php backup:restore storage/backups/<file>.zip --yes (--with-env also restores .env). Download a copy off the server from time to time.
Maintenance mode
Shows a notice page to everyone except admins. Useful during migrations or server moves.
Worker and jobs
Admin → Maintenance → Scheduled tasks (cron) says whether the worker is running and when it last ran; if it is not, it gives the exact cron line for this server and the steps to set it up. Admin → Background jobs shows the task queue (bulk AI assessments, scheduled searches, builds).
Where everything lives
| Folder | Content |
|---|---|
| .env | Connection settings and keys. Never share it. |
| storage/logs/ | Error and worker logs. |
| storage/backups/ | Database backups. |
| storage/pdfs/, public/uploads/ | PDFs and uploaded files. |
| storage/updates/ | Previous tree after an update (in case you need to go back). |
Exporting and importing data (portability)
Every user can download everything they created from Profile → My data: a ZIP file with their reviews (protocol, references, decisions, conflicts, extraction, risk of bias, GRADE, tags, comments and the AI usage log), the PDFs and the articles. The same file is imported into any other installation from the same screen.
- Imported reviews belong to whoever imports them; collaborators are matched by e-mail and, without an account, are created deactivated (they take no seat until an administrator switches them on).
- An import is all or nothing: if anything fails, nothing is saved.
- To import large files, raise
upload_max_filesizeandpost_max_sizein the server’s PHP settings.
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