Fear of MM5.5

So Miva Merchant 5.5 is coming out "soon." I'm not sure what "soon" is, but I hope it's not too soon. As a beta tester, I'm not feeling it's ready at all.

The problem is, I haven't been able to test streaming the update into a site with a lot of third party modules. I really want to see that before feeling comfortable with the mass-update that is planned.

My suggestion to MM5 users is, don't update right away. Let other early adopters try it first. You also can ask your host about setting up a development duplicate of your site to try it on and test before doing it live. Your host might charge $30-50 to set it up, but it's well worth it. Then, when you do the update live, be sure to have the host ready to restore from backup (and I mean have your host on hold on the phone or via instant messenger while you do it). You might also want to have a consultant expert nearby to help. It could be the update is 99% effective, but you need a few tweaks that a consultant can find quickly.

In other words, proceed with caution and you'll be fine.