Introduction

To be able to upgrade to the latest and greatest version of Helium you may need to go through a specific upgrade path. We provide information about how to go on with this from each specific version below.


If you are currently on any of these Helium versions:

  • Helium 7
  • Helium 8
  • Helium 9
  • Helium 10

You will first need to move to Helium 11.5. Please first consult the Upgrading from Helium prior to 11.5 help section, then come back here.


Important note

We refer to Helium 11.5 and Helium below. Helium 11.5 is the most recent release of Helium 11 which can be downloaded from this link: http://dl.imploded.com/helium/archive/helium_11.exe. When referring only to Helium, we mean the latest release available from this link: https://www.imploded.com/download?product=helium


General preparations

  • Make sure that Helium 11.5 is installed on the same computer as the latest release of Helium.
  • Make sure that Helium 11.5 is configured to use the database that you want to import into Helium. The import feature can import data from any of the supported database types (the default SQL Server Compact, MySQL and SQL Server).
  • The Helium 11.5 database needs to be upgraded to the most recent Helium 11 version (11.5 - see link above).
  • If possible, delete users that are no longer needed in Helium 11. This will improve performance during importing.
  • Make sure that the latest version of Helium is connected to the database that you want to import into. The import feature can import data info any of the supported database types (the default SQL Server Compact, MySQL and SQL Server). 
  • The Helium database needs to be entirely empty.
  • If you are importing from and/or to a MySql database, be sure that your my.ini file is correctly configured. There are various tips available on the Internet which describe a MySql setup for large bulk operations. Also, a tip is to restart the MySql service before the start of the import. Click here to read more details about configuration of MySql/MariaDb
  • User categories, podcasts and radio channels are not imported since they are not supported in Helium.

Preparations for importing album and artist pictures

It might not be possible to import all pictures from Helium 11.5 since Helium uses a different way of handling pictures. In Helium 11.5, picture thumbnails were stored in the Helium database and shown throughout the program. This had a performance impact as well as a quality limitation (pictures were only stored in 128x128 pixels). It also made the database file grow significantly which had an impact on the size of a Helium backup file. In Helium, pictures are instead read from a folder on the hard drive which speeds things up.


Helium will be able to import and show pictures that are currently available on the hard drive. You can verify whether your pictures will be correctly imported from Helium 11.5 by:

  • In Helium 11.5, open Options (CTRL-O).
  • Go to the Views > Artists page.
  • Select the Indicate if original artist picture is missing option.
  • Go to the Views > Albums page.
  • Select the Indicate if original album picture is missing option.
  • Click OK to save and close the Options window.

If you go to the Album or Artist views, missing pictures will be marked with a red cross icon. You will need to replace these pictures with a file on your computer in order to make them show in Helium, after importing the database. You can also chose to correct the pictures later in Helium, of course. The latest release of Helium contains handy features to automatically assign album and artist covers if you have them somewhere on your hard drive.


Importing using Helium 14

To start importing your Helium 11.5 database into Helium 14:

  1. Close Helium 11.5.
  2. Start Helium 14. If you do not have it installed, it can be downloaded from our Customer center.
  3. Click on the File > Import from Helium 11 menu option.
  4. Verify that the details in the dialog that shows are correct.
  5. Click OK.

Importing into the latest version of Helium

The last step is to open the database imported into Helium 14 to the most recent version of Helium.

This process will upgrade the database and do some additional cleanup.

Follow the below steps to perform the upgrade:

  1. Close Helium 14
  2. Start Helium
  3. Click on the File > Library management menu option
  4. Open your migrated database 


If you experience problems during import

If you experience problems with lost tracks or whatever during the import, try to:
  1. In Helium 11, create a new database of the same type as the database you would like to import to Helium
  2. In Helium 11, start Library management
  3. Select Import and then the database type you would like to import from (e.g. your Helium 11 database is a MySql database, then select "Import Helium Music Manager MySql database"
  4. Select your original Helium 11 database from the dialog that appears
After the import is done, you have migrated your original database to a completely new database structure, and therefore have eliminated possible entries with bad data and/or indexes.
Now try to import the migrated database into Helium.

If a problem remains, please contact us and be prepared to send us a copy of your Helium 11 database so that we can assist with the importing procedure.

Please note that we can only offer manual migration assistance to registered users.