Download the new version from GmodStore
Delete the old folders
Delete them, do not copy over them. A leftover file from an older build is the one
failure mode this step exists to prevent.
Your data is not in those folders
Your Versions, groups, migrations, restores, deployments and packages live in:
Leave that alone and everything is where you left it, including your activation. The
server does not re-activate and does not consume another slot.
Never run two copies at once
Delete the old vetra-framework folder. Do not leave it beside the new one, under any name.
If more than one copy of vetra-framework is in garrysmod/addons/, the framework does not
start at all, and the server console names every copy it found and the version each one
declares:
It prints this when the server starts and again once the map has loaded. Until you fix it,
Blueprints does not open and its commands, vetra_license_status included, do not exist.
It refuses rather than picking one because Garry’s Mod merges every addon into one file
system: two copies are two copies of the same files, and no copy can prove that the files it
would load are its own. Quietly running the wrong mix would be worse than not running.
Delete the extra folder and restart. Nothing else is needed.
After the restart
Should still say ONLINE, with no reactivation and no new slot consumed.
Open Blueprints and check the Adapters screen: every adapter you expect should be listed
and available.
Adapter compatibility across an update
An adapter records, in every Version, the format of the data it was writing. When something
later wants to act on a historical Version, Blueprints checks that the installed build of
that adapter can still read that format.
If it cannot, that domain is blocked in the plan with a message naming both numbers,
rather than being interpreted incorrectly. The Version itself is never altered and never
loses records.
This applies to third-party adapters as much as to the ones Vetra ships. See
Compatibility and data versions if you maintain one.