Regular update on your WordPress website is important to keep it safe and secured from attackers and also to keep up with new functionalities added to the WordPress blog. In this post, we examine how to update your WordPress safely.
You will also want to read:
Automatic Update in WordPress
Changing your WordPress website location
Configuring the basic settings in your WordPress website
How to Backup Your WordPress Website Automaticaly Using Backup Plugins
How to update your WordPress installation:
1) Go to Update.
2) Click Update Automatically.
3) The install process can take up to several minutes to complete. Once WordPress has been upgraded, information about the install will show up here. Click Go to Dashboard.
We can now see the current version has changed.
That is all. You now know how to upgrade your WordPress installation.
Also read:
How to Install and Setup Your Premium WordPress Theme
How to Keep Your WordPress Website Updated
How to Manage 403 Forbidden Error in WordPress
How to Optimize and Speed Up Your WordPress Website
How to Secure a WordPress Website
How to fix WordPress Download failed errors on update
There are times you could run into problems when trying to update WordPress, it could be caused by the temporary directory WordPress uses for downloads. You can easily fix this by defining a WP_TEMP_DIR in your wp-config.php file below.
WordPress update failing
If you're trying to upgrade WordPress itself, you might encounter this error when trying to update:
Download failed.: Destination directory for file streaming does not exist or is not writable.
Installation Failed
WordPress core update failed.
WordPress plugin update failing
If you were trying to update a WordPress plugin, you might have encountered this error instead when updating:
An error occured while updating (Plugin Name). Download failed. Destination directory for file streaming does not exist or is not writable.
Define a WP_TEMP_DIR in your wp-config.php file
If you've encountered issues trying to update WordPress, you can simply follow the steps below to resolve them.
Open you wp-config.php file with the cPanel File Manager Code Editor
You should see this code towards the top of the file:
* @package WordPress
*/
// ** MySQL settings - You can get this info from your web host ** //
/** The name of the database for WordPress */
define('DB_NAME', 'anotherd_wrd1');
Place this definition of define('WP_TEMP_DIR', ABSPATH . 'wp-content/'); in-between the lines mentioned above, so it ends up looking like this when you've completed it:
* @package WordPress
*/
define('WP_TEMP_DIR', ABSPATH . 'wp-content/');
// ** MySQL settings - You can get this info from your web host ** //
/** The name of the database for WordPress */
define('DB_NAME', 'anotherd_wrd1');
Now Save your wp-config.php file.
Try to update WordPress again, if for some reason it is still failing, be sure to check file permissions on your wp-content folder, and ensure it's set to 755 so that the server can write to it.
Also read:
How to create a simple portfolio website with WordPress
How to create and manage a page in WordPress
How to safely disable the WordPress automatic update feature
7 Security Tips for a WordPress Website
WordPress Update Takes Long to View on Website
WordPress Changes Take Unusually Long to Update After Publishing.
Most likely, this could be due to a caching plugin which helps reduce server load.
If you have WP Total Cache or WP Super Cache enabled, be sure to purge the cache after publishing. If you do not empty the cache, you will continue to see old information on your blog, even though new changes are published.
If you do not have these plugins, simply try refreshing your browser or clearing your browser's cache.
Revisit your blog and hopefully you will see the changes.
If you continue to experience issues viewing changes made to your WordPress site, please contact Todhost support for further assistance.
Also read:
The Many Uses to Which You Can Put Your WordPress Website
What you should know about optimizing your WordPress website for speed
WordPress Search Engine Optimization Tutorial
My WordPress posts are not updating
Why are my WordPress posts not updating? This issue is most likely related to the cache system. When using the WordPress Super Cache plugin, it is not uncommon to edit a post or page and have it fail to update. The editor will continue to show the previous content instead of updating to the new content. To resolve this, try disabling the WP Super Cache plugin.
If the issue persists, the In-Context Comment plugin has access to rewrite posts to add tags for in-line comments which will resolve the issue. While we do not often recommend the use of plugins, we do recommend the In-Context Comments plugin to correct the issue of non-updating posts when using the WP Super Cache plugin.
We recommend making a backup of your WordPress from within the WordPress Dashboard before adding or activating a new plugin.
Install In-Context Comment Plugin
Log in to WordPress Dashboard via http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin.php or http://yourdomain.com/wp-login.php
Replace yourdomain.com with your actual domain name.
From the left menu, click Plugins > Add New.
Search for "In-Context Comment" and click Search Plugins.
Click Install Now > Ok.
Click Activate Plugin.
You have now successfully installed the In-Context Comment plugin.
Configure Plugin Settings
From the left-hand navigation menu, click Plugins > ICC Configuration to be taken to the plugin configuration screen. You will be able to configure the plugin's settings from this page.
The Good and Bad Side of WordPress Automatic Updates
Starting with WordPress version 3.7, the developers of this popular blogging application incorporated automatic updates in order to promote better security and “streamline the update experience”. There are some potentially good and bad side with the WordPress automatic updates.
We shall examine each of them in this article.
The Good
1. It provides for the latest version of WordPress - You will always be running the latest version of WordPress. That means cutting edge blog hosting technology
2. Security updates are automatically sent, so your site will stay secure
3. It will make website maintainance easier with multiple WpordPress sites.
4. Your WordPress themes and plugins may also automatically update, simplifying the process
The Bad
1. You are compelled to run latest version of WordPress whether you like it or not.
2. Customizations could be a problem with sites that alter codes. The way to cope with this is to disable automatic updating to avoid breakage.
3. Disabling automatic updates is currently not available in the Dashboard. You will have to edit your wp-config.php file to disable automatic updates.
Obviously, the benefits of running automatic updates outweigh the disadvantages, and most blog hosting users will want to keep automatic updates enabled for the sake of simplicity. If you are using a standard WordPress installation and a well-supported theme, you should not have any troubles with the updates.
How to update a WordPress plugin
Updating your WordPress plugin is of paramount importance as it affects the security of your website. When you upgrade WordPress plugins to the newest release from the plugin developer, this ensures your plugins are fully compatiable with the most recent version of WordPress, which increases speed and security.
Another benefit is that updates can bring new features or functionality to your WordPress website. If you're not familiar with WordPress plugins, they are small PHP scripts that extend the things you can accomplish in WordPress. You can take a look our our current recommended WordPress plugins for a quick idea of some of the function a plugin can bring to your website.
Before you begin any major update such as this one, please always abide by the rule - backup your database, and also backup your website files or simply use the backup tool to backup your entire website. That way if something stops working with the new version of the plugin, you can easily restore your WordPress site to the previously working configuration.
Using the steps below you'll be able to quickly update all of your WordPress plugins that are currently out of date up to their latest version.
Login to your WordPress admin dashboard.
wordpress admin click on updates or plugins pageYou can click on either the update icon towards the top-left of the screen, or the Updates link from the left-hand menu to get to the WordPress updates page.
Alternatively you can also click on the Plugins link from the left-hand menu to end up on the plugins page where you can also update plugins from.
If you went to the WordPress updates page, you can simply check the box beside Select All underneath the Plugins section, then just click on the Update Pluginsbutton.
This will update all of your WordPress plugins at once to their newest releases, you should see a success page after the updates have completed.
How to update your WordPress theme
This tutorial will take you through the process of updating your WordPress theme to its latest version. It is important to run the latest theme for security purposes. Working with an older theme can put your website at risk and you must check to see that your website is updated to the latest theme.
Ensuring that your WordPress themes are kept up to date can help keep your WordPress site secure, and sometimes even provides improved functionality and bug fixes.
Typically you'll want to update WordPress themes right after you update WordPress itself to the latest version. Sometimes after you update WordPress you might have issues with your theme, and updating to the newest version will usually resolves these issues.
Prior to updating your WordPress theme it's always recommended to go ahead and backup your website. You can choose to back up your databases as well as backup your website files. This way if for something goes wrong in the updating process you can easily restore your WordPress site back to how it was when still functioning properly.
Update WordPress themes
The steps below will guide you on how to quickly upgrade all of your outdated WordPress themes.
Login to your WordPress admin dashboard.
Click on either the update icon at the top of the admin dashboard, or on the Updates link in the left-hand menu.
Under the Themes section, place a check beside Select All, then click on Update Themes.
After your WordPress themes successfully update you should see a success page.
You should now know how to keep your WordPress themes up to date with the latest version released from the theme developer. It is also recommend that you should update WordPress plugins for maximum speed and security on your WordPress site.
How to Fix WordPress Theme and Plugin Errors
Theme errors on WordPress installations occur with new theme installations. Your WordPress installation could be running fine and suddenly becomes blank with a new theme installation. No panic, the error can be fixed.
The quick fix will be to login with aN FTP client and delete the theme directory found in “wp-content/themes.” Once that is done, you will be able to login to your WordPress admin area and change the theme back to one that if functional.
For plugins you will need to find the plugins directory associated with your rogue plugin in “wp-content/plugins” and remove it. It will be very helpful if can remember the plugin you installed most recently so that you can remove them very quickly.
At this point, you should be able to login to WordPress, and it will inform you that the plugin is missing and has therefore been deactivated. If WordPress still shows remnants of the plugin, make sure you remove it completely.
