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On the test, I will update the phpBB 3.1.9 forum to the version of phpBB 3.2.2.

System requirements phpBB 3.2 if necessary, you can see here https://www.phpbb.com/support/docs/en/3.2/ug/

Be sure to make a backup copy of the database and forum files.

I recommend that you perform an update on the test virtual server, running a copy of the forum from the backups, because in my case there were errors and it took them a while to fix them, and then you can update them to the main one in a similar way quickly.

We proceed to update, download the archive with the new version of phpBB 3.2.x and unpack it:

wget https://www.phpbb.com/files/release/phpBB-3.2.2.zip
unzip phpBB-3.2.2.zip

In the unpacked forum data, delete the file config.php and these directories: files/, images/, store/.

In the phpBB data, what’s on the web server will be deleted except for the ext/, files/, images/, store/ and config.php file.

Move the remaining downloaded data to the directory with the forum data, agree to overwrite the file in the ext/ directory.

If the rights to files and owner change, for example, you can specify them as follows:

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/forum/

If the database of the forum is large, then you can execute the command in the root directory of the forum:

php ./bin/phpbbcli.php db:migrate --safe-mode

Open the forum address in the browser by adding /install/app.php/update or /install/database_update.php at the end, select the “Update” tab, select “Update database only”, start the update process and wait for the completion.

After the successful update, delete the install directory:

rm install

See also my articles:
Solution of error “A module already exists” and “The installer detected a timeout” when updating phpBB
Import and export MySQL databases
Updating phpBB 3.1.8 to phpBB 3.1.9
Updating phpBB 3.0.x to phpBB 3.1.x
Other about phpBB

I updated phpBB 3.1.9 once to phpBB version 3.2.2 and noticed the following error:

The installer detected a timeout
The installer has detected a timeout, you may try to refresh the page, which may lead to data corruption. We suggest that you either increase your timeout settings or try to use the CLI.

Cleaned the table “phpbb_migrations” in the forum database:

TRUNCATE TABLE phpbb_migrations;

And again launched the update, but got another error:

A module already exists: UCP_AUTH_LINK_MANAGE

The standard Profile module was naturally installed, it could be disabled, but not deleted.
Therefore, I found it in the “phpbb_modules” table and deleted it, thus causing the update script to think that it is not installed:

SELECT * FROM `phpbb_modules` WHERE `module_langname` LIKE 'UCP_AUTH_LINK_MANAGE';

After continuing the update noticed another error:

A module already exists: ACP_CONTACT_SETTINGS

The Contact module was not even installed, after that I also found it in the table and deleted it, and also found and deleted “UCP_AUTH_LINK_MANAGE” once again, because the update script restored it:

SELECT * FROM `phpbb_modules` WHERE `module_langname` LIKE 'ACP_CONTACT_SETTINGS';
SELECT * FROM `phpbb_modules` WHERE `module_langname` LIKE 'UCP_AUTH_LINK_MANAGE';

After removing the modules from the “phpbb_modules” table, I cleared the “phpbb_migrations” table:

TRUNCATE TABLE phpbb_migrations;

I launched the phpBB update and it was successful.

See also:
Updating phpBB 3.0.x to phpBB 3.1.x