Storefront Upgrade: Preview, Upgrade & Roll Back

Your storefront stays exactly as it is until you choose to move to a newer release. Preview a new release on your own store, upgrade when you are happy, and roll back if you are not.

Every BillionBiz store is shown to customers by one specific storefront release — a frozen version of the shopping site. BillionBiz publishes newer releases over time, but your store does not move to one on its own. It stays on its current release, looking exactly as it does today, until you decide to upgrade. This page is where you make that decision safely.

Screen: Online Store → Storefront Upgrade (in the new admin sidebar, go to storefront → Storefront upgrade).

What you can do here

See which release your store is on, since when, and which editor it comes with.
Preview a newer release with your own products, pages and settings, without touching your live store.
Upgrade your live storefront to a published release.
Roll back to the release you were on before, in one click.

Who can open this page

Only store admins and super admins can open Storefront Upgrade. The menu entry also only appears once the release system answers for your store — if you do not see it, see Why is Storefront Upgrade missing from my menu? below.

What "stays exactly as it is until you upgrade" means

New releases never change your live store by themselves. Upgrading is always something you press.
Your products, orders, pages, theme and settings are not part of a release. They belong to your store and are the same before and after an upgrade or rollback.
A preview is private to the link you open (see below). Customers browsing your store keep seeing your current release the whole time.

Reading the page

When the page loads you see two cards, plus a preview panel once you open a preview.

Current release

Release id — a short 12-character code identifying the release you are on.
Status chip — Published, Deprecated, Sunset or Withdrawn. A release moves out of Published when BillionBiz retires it; a store on a retired release keeps working, but you should plan to upgrade.
Editor chip — New editor or Classic editor. This tells you which page editor your release provides. Moving to a release with the new editor changes the editor you get in Online Store (see Troubleshooting).
On this release since — the date and time your store was put on this release.
Roll back to button — appears only when your store has a previous release to return to. The button names that release, for example "Roll back to" followed by its id.

Available releases

Every other release you can move to, one row each:

Release id, a status chip, and the date the release was published.
Recommended chip — shown only on a release that is newer than your live one and is the release BillionBiz currently recommends.
Older release tag — shown instead of Recommended on any release published before your live one.
Preview new storefront — opens a preview of your store on a newer release. On an older release the same button reads Preview this release.
Upgrade — moves your live store to a newer release. This button is disabled unless the release status is Published; deprecated, sunset or withdrawn releases can be previewed but not chosen. Older releases have no Upgrade button at all. Roll back to returns you only to your previous release; any other older release can be previewed but not switched to.

If there is nothing newer, the card says "Your storefront is up to date. No other releases are available."

Previewing a release

Open the page

Go to Online Store → Storefront Upgrade.

Click Preview new storefront

Press Preview new storefront on the release you want to look at. While BillionBiz creates your link, the Preview buttons on every row are disabled.

Look at your own store on the new release

A new browser tab opens with your store on that release, and the same preview also appears on this page in a panel titled "Preview of your store on the new release". The panel has an Open preview in new tab button if you want the full-size view again. Click around: your real products, pages and theme are shown, rendered by the new release.

Decide

Happy? Press Upgrade on that release. Not yet? Just close the tab. Nothing was changed.

The preview link is temporary and private

The link carries a private access token that expires after 30 minutes. Only the browser that opens the link sees the new release, and it is marked so search engines do not index it. Your customers are never switched to the preview. If the link expires, press Preview new storefront again for a fresh one.

If a link cannot be created, the card shows "Could not create a preview link. Try again." — press the button again.

Upgrading

Preview first

Preview the release as above and check the pages that matter most to you — home page, a product page, cart and checkout.

Press Upgrade

Press Upgrade on the release row. A confirmation titled "Upgrade your storefront?" explains that your live storefront switches to that release right away and that you can roll back afterwards.

Confirm with Upgrade now

Press Upgrade now (or Cancel to back out). On success you see "Your storefront was upgraded." and the Current release card shows the new release. The release you left becomes your previous release, which is what Roll back returns to.

If the upgrade fails, the dialog stays open with "The upgrade did not go through. Nothing was changed." Your store is still on the release it was on; try again or contact support.

Rolling back

Rolled out an upgrade and something looks wrong? Roll back:

Press Roll back to

On the Current release card, press the Roll back to button. It is only there when a previous release exists.

Confirm

The dialog "Roll back your storefront?" says your storefront returns to the previous release right away and that your products, orders and settings are not affected. Press Roll back to confirm.

Check your store

You see "Your storefront was rolled back." and the Current release card shows the earlier release.

If it fails you see "The rollback did not go through. Nothing was changed."

Rollback can be refused

Your previous release must still be available. If it has since been retired (sunset), withdrawn, or is no longer on record, the rollback is refused and nothing changes: you see "The rollback did not go through. Nothing was changed." and the dialog stays open. Your store keeps running on its current release. Preview and upgrade to a Published release instead, or contact support.

Rolling back twice switches you back

Rolling back swaps your current and previous releases. After a rollback, the release you left becomes your previous release, so pressing Roll back to again returns you to the newer release you started on. Use it to compare the two looks.

No previous release means no rollback

A store that has never been upgraded has no previous release, so there is no Roll back to button. Once you upgrade for the first time, the release you left becomes the one you can roll back to.

If you open the page editor while your store is still on an older release, you may see a banner across the top of the editor: Upgrade your storefront to use the new editor, with a link Open storefront upgrade.

Why you see it: the live preview inside the editor is rendered by your store's release. Older releases cannot talk to the editor's interactive tools, so those tools are switched off rather than left silently broken: clicking a section in the preview to select it, hover outlines around sections, editing text directly in the preview, and the canvas keyboard shortcuts such as undo and redo. You can still edit everything from the editor's panels.

What to do: click Open storefront upgrade, preview a newer release, and upgrade when you are happy with it. After the upgrade the banner goes away and the interactive tools work again.

Troubleshooting

The entry is only listed once the release system answers for your store. If it is missing, your store has not been set up on the release system yet, or it could not be reached when the admin loaded. Reload the admin; if it is still missing, contact support. You will also not see it unless you are a store admin or super admin.

The page says "Storefront releases are not available for this store right now"

The page could not load your release information. Press Retry. If it keeps failing, contact support — your live storefront is not affected either way.

Why does my editor look different from a new store's?

New stores are created on a current release, which comes with the New editor. Your store stays on the release it had until you upgrade, so it may still show the Classic editor (check the editor chip on the Current release card). Upgrade to a release whose chip reads New editor to get the same editor a new store gets.

I upgraded and want the old look back

Open Online Store → Storefront Upgrade and press Roll back to. Your store returns to the previous release right away. If the button is not there, your store has no previous release.

The preview panel is blank, or says the preview did not load here

Some browsers block a store from loading inside another page. If the preview has not loaded after about 10 seconds, a warning appears: "The preview did not load here. Use "Open preview in new tab" to see it." Press Open preview in new tab, just under the panel title, and view it there.

Publishing is blocked and a warning appears at the bottom of the editor

When your page uses sections that the release your store is on cannot display, publishing is refused and nothing goes live. In both the classic and the new editor you see a warning banner at the bottom of the editor that stays until you close it, with:

the message "This store's storefront version cannot display these sections: <types>. Upgrade the storefront from the Storefront upgrade page, or remove these sections before publishing." where <types> is the list of blocked section types;
a second line, "Blocked sections:", naming the same section types;
a link, Open Storefront upgrade, which takes you to this page.

A red error message may also flash briefly. To fix it, either open Open Storefront upgrade, preview a release that supports those sections and press Upgrade, or remove the listed sections from the page and publish again.

The Upgrade button is greyed out

Upgrade is only available for releases marked Published. A deprecated, sunset or withdrawn release can still be previewed but cannot be chosen. Pick a Published release instead, ideally the one marked Recommended.

My preview link stopped working

Preview links expire 30 minutes after they are created. Press Preview new storefront again.