# Suggestions for 8.1.9 to 8.1.53 upgrade **URL:** \ **Category:** Ignition\ **Tags:** ignition81\ **Created:** [April 7, 2026, 8:41am UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/suggestions-for-8-1-9-to-8-1-53-upgrade/114914 "2026-04-07T08:41:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![pgmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d07c76/32.png) [@pgmo](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/pgmo)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2026, 8:41am UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/suggestions-for-8-1-9-to-8-1-53-upgrade/114914/1 "2026-04-07T08:41:09Z")
Hi all, one of my customers asked me to upgrade its 8.1.9/10 Ignition installations to the latest 8.1.x (8.1.53 as of writing). I’m worried about next topics: 1. that customer has 2 plants, each with its own Ignition (1st is 8.1.9, 2nd is 8.1.10). The two Ignitions are connected in a Gateway Network: - they send messages each other - the 1st shares its gateway tags with the 2nd as a remote tag provider 2. both projects read/write many data from/to databases through `system.db.xxxxx`functions in python scripts Problem nr 1: I cannot upgrade both installations at the same time - may be there will be 1 or 2 weeks delay between the two. Will the Gateway Network still work correctly in the meanwhile? I mean in the time when plant 1 is already upgraded to 8.1.53 and plant 2 is still 8.1.10? Problem nr 2: I read in the manual that there are disruptive changes in some `system.db.xxxxxx`functions. What will I have to pay attention to? Will I have to rewrite any Python logic regarding db reading/writing? Are there any further disruptive changes I’ll have to pay attention to? (still a Vision project) Thanks in advance, regards ---
**Author:** ![michael.flagler](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/michael.flagler/32/26272_2.png) [@michael.flagler](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/michael.flagler)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2026, 11:41am UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/suggestions-for-8-1-9-to-8-1-53-upgrade/114914/2 "2026-04-07T11:41:30Z")
I don't think you'll have any issues, but to be safe, scan through the release notes for all the versions between the older versions and now to see what's been changed. If you were upgrading to 8.3.x you'd have to do more, but I believe the upgrade should be fairly painless. ---
**Author:** ![Sanganak\_Kasare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8c91f0/32.png) [@Sanganak\_Kasare](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Sanganak_Kasare)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2026, 3:48pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/suggestions-for-8-1-9-to-8-1-53-upgrade/114914/3 "2026-04-07T15:48:02Z")
I recently upgraded a redundant 8.1.24 gateway to 8.1.52 running Vision for the main plant SCADA with a few prespective pages mainly for engineering. It was also part of a gateway network with other gateway using it as a remote tag provider for reporting purposes. The upgrade ran smoothly with no issues with gateway network. Additionally, in terms of the system.db funtions i believe the changes have mainly been bug fixed or adding functionality. Nothing is deprecated until you get to 8.3 even then at least in the earlier verison they still work. However, if you want to be sure I would recommend taking the gateway backups and running it on a engineering machine/docker and uprgrading that gateway to the latest version and do some function tests if you dont have a dev environment. Good luck. ---
**Author:** ![JordanCClark](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/jordancclark/32/83362_2.png) [@JordanCClark](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/JordanCClark)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2026, 4:01pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/suggestions-for-8-1-9-to-8-1-53-upgrade/114914/4 "2026-04-07T16:01:09Z")
If you have any vision clients running on a Raspberry Pi, you may need to look at this (from painful experience): > [@Linux java 17 opens and exports](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/linux-java-17-opens-and-exports/83546/2): > > Inside the legacyClient.sh script there is probably a line like this: JAVA\_ARGS="" try changing that to: JAVA\_ARGS="--add-opens=java.base/java.lang=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.base/java.util=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.desktop/java.awt=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.desktop/java.awt.event=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.desktop/javax.swing=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.desktop/javax.swing.tree=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.desktop/javax.swing.plaf=ALL-UNNAMED --add-opens=java.desktop/javax.swing.p… ---
**Author:** ![jimender2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@jimender2](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/jimender2)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2026, 6:20pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/suggestions-for-8-1-9-to-8-1-53-upgrade/114914/5 "2026-04-07T18:20:01Z")
Its pretty painless. I did it recently for a few customers and the only thing I had to do was to install the new Vision client on all the computers beforehand. ---
**Author:** ![paul-griffith](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/paul-griffith/32/37249_2.png) [@paul-griffith](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/paul-griffith)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2026, 4:38pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/suggestions-for-8-1-9-to-8-1-53-upgrade/114914/6 "2026-04-08T16:38:54Z")
> [@pgmo](#): > > Problem nr 1: I cannot upgrade both installations at the same time - may be there will be 1 or 2 weeks delay between the two. Will the Gateway Network still work correctly in the meanwhile? I mean in the time when plant 1 is already upgraded to 8.1.53 and plant 2 is still 8.1.10? Yes, within minor versions (8.1.x -\> 8.1.y) everything is expected to be seamless and backwards compatibility is guaranteed. If one system were 8.1 and the other were 8.3 (different _major_ versions), that would also work, but you may have to opt-in to the backwards compatibility on the 8.3 side depending on how you upgrade. > [@pgmo](#): > > Problem nr 2: I read in the manual that there are disruptive changes in some `system.db.xxxxxx`functions. What will I have to pay attention to? Will I have to rewrite any Python logic regarding db reading/writing? Not relevant to 8.1. Any deprecations to scripting functions happen on major version boundaries, and are **always** designed to maintain backwards compatibility. > [@Sanganak\_Kasare](#): > > However, if you want to be sure I would recommend taking the gateway backups and running it on a engineering machine/docker and uprgrading that gateway to the latest version and do some function tests if you dont have a dev environment. Having backups before upgrade is definitely the best practice. The issue @JordanCClark highlighted is the one with the highest potential to bite you. Rare for our minor versions, we moved Ignition 8.1 from Java 11 to Java 17 in 8.1.33. That change _could_ have ramifications for the supported platforms if you're using unusual/legacy hardware. The Java upgrade, plus the change to our embedded webserver library, could also have ramifications if you're using any third party or custom modules.