Qlik NPrinting Upgrade Steps and Best Practices

Frank_S · Mar 6, 2025 3:02:35 PM

Environment:

Qlik NPrinting 17.3.x and higher versions
If upgrading NPrinting 17.3.x through NPrinting Feb. 2018, it is required to upgrade to NPrinting April 2018 before proceeding to a higher version.
Once upgraded to NPrinting April 2018, you may then proceed to upgrade to current supported versions of NPrinting. If you are already on a version of NPrinting above April 2018, you may upgrade to the most current version of NPrinting (assuming your server supports it. See system requirements)
See Upgrade notes for more details before attempting to upgrade
NPrinting April 2018 Server Installation file available upon request within your Qlik Support Case

! If upgrading from lower versions ie: NP 17.2.x and lower, there is an upgrade path that needs to be complied with. Please review the following links prior to upgrading:

Upgrade Path of NPrinting 17.2.3 and lower versions

Important Reminder: Before proceeding please note the following:

*Search for and Carefully Review the Qlik NPrinting Product Release notes for the intended upgrade version

https://community.qlik.com/t5/Release-Notes/tkb-p/ReleaseNotes

*Review the Qlik Help site upgrade page here:

Planning your upgrade

*Ensure that the NPrinting version you wish to upgrade to meets compatibility requirements for QlikView and or Qlik Sense

*Ensure you have enough hard disk space. Upgrade failure WILL occur if disk space is insufficient (see upgrade log for following error):

*Ensure your system is 'ONLINE' to the internet as new supporting components are downloaded and installed (that are not part of the installer but still required. See system requirements)

"Backup process failed. System.IO.IOException: There is not enough space on the disk"

*Recommend clearing the windows 'temp' folder associated with the user account used to run the NPrinting services before upgrading

*Do NOT uninstall Qlik NPrinting Server in order to upgrade. This is an 'in-place' upgrade*

*Do NOT perform an NPrinting Database restore at any point in the upgrade process*. The NPrinting tables are updated by the NPrinting upgrade process

Additional space usage considerations:

The following NPrinting backups and Temporary folder are created during the upgrade process and will consume additional disk space

a pre-upgrade backup of the NP database (pre-upgrade backup of the NP Database)
a post upgrade backup (upgraded version of the NP database).
a temp files and folder backup (which is removed once the upgrade is completed but disk space at least equal to the manual backup times 3 is needed)
- ie: NPbackup is 1 GB = at least 3 GB Free Space needed (or more just to be safe. Keep an eye on disk space consumption during the backup process. The NP database "Temp" folder contents are not compressed during the backup process and could expand exponentially)

The pre and post NP backup files are stored in "c:\programdata\NPrinting\"

Prepare for upgrade following Parts 1 and 2 below

A manual backup should be taken prior to the upgrade as a precautionary measure
- in case a roll back to a previous state fails during the upgrade attempt fails.
- A pre-upgrade NP db backup will also indicate the size of your NPrinting Database.
NPrinting must not be installed on the same computer as the QlikView or Qlik Sense servers.
- Unsupported Configurations
Review Qlik Sense and or QlikView compatibility information before upgrading
- Planning your deployment
Once you are fully prepared, follow the install steps provided in Part 3 through Part 5 below.

Upgrade Steps:

Part 1: Prepare for the installation

Review all latest Product Release notes, latest System Requirements and complete all latest Windows Updates before upgrading.
NPrinting Product release notes for each version of NPrinting are available from the Qlik Download site at Downloads - Qlik Community
System requirements:
- Planning your deployment

Part 2: Back up the NPrinting Repository Database (optional but recommended)

Stop the Qlik NPrinting services
Open the Windows Service Manager (services.msc), and stop the following services (by right-clicking them, and then clicking Stop):
- Qlik NPrinting Engine (if you have a multi-engine site, you must stop ALL NP Engines).
- Qlik NPrinting Scheduler
- Qlik NPrinting WebEngine
- Qlik NPrinting License Service (found in later version of NPrinting)
- Qlik NPrinting Audit Log service (found in later version of NPrinting)
Create a folder for your NPrinting backups (NOTE: do NOT change any of the default paths below)

Create the folder "C:\NPrintingBackups"

Open a windows Administrative command prompt to perform the backup
Change directory using the following command: cd C:\Program Files\NPrintingServer\Tools\Manager
Copy the following syntax into the command prompt replacing yoursuperuserdbpasswordhere with the NP superuser password that was first used to install NPrinting with

Qlik.Nprinting.Manager.exe backup -f C:\NPrintingBackups\NP_Backup.zip -p "C:\Program Files\NPrintingServer\pgsql\bin" --pg-password yoursuperuserdbpasswordhere

For NPrinting Versions from Feb. 2020 and later you may use:

Qlik.Nprinting.Manager.exe backup -f C:\NPrintingBackups\NP_Backup.zip -p "C:\Program Files\NPrintingServer\pgsql\bin"

Note: Before closing the Qlik.Nprinting.Manager.exe command prompt window: Ensure that the backup message "completed successfully" appears. The resulting back up file will be found in "C:\NPrintingBackups"

Part 3: Upgrade the NPrinting server using the steps in the links below and in the order as follows

Installing NPrinting Server

!: Restart the NPrinting server after upgrade
!: NOTE: if you have unnecessarily restored an NP database after the upgrade, your NPrinting Scheduler and Engine service will fail to start. See Identify NPrinting Server restored with incorrect NPrinting database version

Upgrade the NPrinting Engine:

The NP engine installation software used MUST match the version of the NPrinting server
Stop the Qlik NPrinting engine service before performing the NP server and NP Engine upgrades

Reference: https://help.qlik.com/en-US/nprinting/Content/NPrinting/DeployingQVNprinting/Installing-q...

! From November 2018 release and newer versions of NPrinting, there are additional steps required for installing/upgrading the NPrinting Engine and a new port 4997 that needs to be opened on your computer and network firewalls. See the following article and video tutorial for more information. NPrinting November 2018 Server and "New" Engine Certificate Installation and New Port 4997

Part 4: Check that all NPrinting services are running

Open the Windows Services panel and review all Qlik Nprinting services to ensure they are started
Log into NPrinting as usual and begin working
Note that once the upgrade is complete, you will find two automated NPrinting backup files created by the upgrade process that can be found here: C:\ProgramData\NPrinting. The upgrade process creates pre and post upgrade backup files that may be used for disaster recovery purposes. Product Version IDs and Upgrade dates are appended to these files. See examples below:

- 201810041251491282_nprinting18.19.6.0_backup_old.zip
- 201810041301581371_nprinting18.29.7.0_backup_new.zip

! For disaster recovery purposes, as a standard industry best practice, it is recommended to perform regular manual backups including the NPrinting repository database. See the following article for NP database backup and restore procedure

How to BackUp and Restore NPrinting Repository Database from End to End

Part 5:

Finally, update all NPrinting Designers so that they match the NPrinting server and NP engine version that have been upgraded as per above

https://help.qlik.com/en-US/nprinting/Content/NPrinting/DeployingQVNprinting/Installing-qlikview-npr...

Reference:

Qlik NPrinting Upgrade Steps and Best Practices