One item that did not make it into the WordPress For Dummies book (not because it’s not an important piece, but because there is only so much room in a book and my editor kept me on a tight leash on actual page count!), is the process of upgrading your WordPress blog. This is important to know because WordPress releases new version so frequently (like almost every 4 months) - so, knowing how to manage your own upgrade is good info to have.
STEP ONE - BACK UP YOUR DATABASE AND FILES!!
This is a crucial step. If you get to the end of your upgrade and find that something has gone wrong, if you haven’t backed up your database and files, you might be completely out of luck with no one to blame but yourself! I did a post here: How To Back Up Your WordPress Blog - have a read and then do it. Before you upgrade, it’s a very good idea to verify your backups…that is, to make sure the system backed up your files correctly.
STEP TWO - DELETE YOUR CURRENT WORDPRESS FILES
This may sound rather drastic. The WordPress Codex suggests that you leave the old WordPress files in there and just over write them with the new files - - which is one way to do it. However - I got burned by that once. I think it was the upgrade waaaaaay back when I was using WordPress 1.2 and I was upgrading to 1.5. There was a big security flaw in 1.2 that had to do with some xlmrpc file. They removed that file in 1.5.
However, when I upgraded and simply overwrote files - - that old file was still stuck in the directory and still caused vulnerability issues, even after the upgrade (because overwriting the files doesn’t remove files that are no longer used - so they stay orphaned on your server). Since then, I’ve gotten into the practice of just deleting the necessary WordPress core files before uploading the new upgrade. But you don’t delete all of the files - here’s the rundown of files you need to delete:
- Delete the entire /wp-admin folder
- Delete the entire /wp-includes folder
- Delete the index.php file
- Delete any file in the root WordPress directory (this is the directory you installed WordPress in, originally) that begins with wp-
HOWEVER DO NOT DELETE THE WP-CONFIG.PHP FILE!! - Do not delete your .htaccess file
Once you have done this, upload the new WordPress files from the latest release and set your FTP settings to overwrite files that already exist.
By NOT deleting the /wp-content folder, you dont’ run the risk of accidentally deleting your themes, plugins and any images you’ve uploaded into the /wp-content/uploads folder. By setting your FTP to overwrite files - any new files in /wp-content will be overwritten (for instance, if there is a new version of Akismet, or any new updates to the Default and Classic themes - they will overwrite the old one that exists on your server).
STEP THREE - HIT THE UPGRADE LINK
Once you’ve completely uploaded the new WordPress files - go to your blog and hit the /wp-admin/upgrade.php link so that your WordPress database is updated for this new version. That is - your blog URL plus /wp-admin/upgrade.php. For example, on this blog - the url would be:
http://wpassist.com/wp-admin/upgrade.php
(if you hit that link on this blog, you’ll get a 404 because I deleted the upgrade.php file after I upgraded. Probably not a bad idea for you to do, as well).
When you hit that link - you’ll see and upgrade message appear on your screen:
Click the “Upgrade WordPress” link and let the upgrade script do its magic.
STEP FOUR - TEST AND TROUBLESHOOT
Check that your permalinks are still in place and that your .htaccess still contains the necessary re_write rules needed for your nice permalinks to work correctly. It *should* - but it’s always good to double check.
Some folks like to de-activate all plugins prior to upgrading - and then, after the upgrade is complete, re-activating them one-by-one (checking your site each time) to make sure that your current plugins work with this latest release. Usually, the WordPress Codex has a nice listing of plugins (and themes) that are compliant with whatever the latest release is.
Make sure all your posts, comments, archives and everything else are working properly.
*NOTE* This post is assuming that you have not made any prior changes to the WordPress core files at anytime before you upgrade. If you have made any changes to the WordPress core files - you will need to make sure that you re-edit those files after you upload the new ones. This post also assumes that you are NOT using any special language files for your WordPress blog. Language files are located in /wp-includes/languages/ - - if you are using a special language file… be sure to save that file before you upgrade (either by not deleting it in step two, or re-uploading that file when you are done).
If you run into any problems, you may have to back up and repeat the upgrade steps again.
If you really, really get stuck - you can always Hire an outside WordPress Consultant to do the job for you
Happy upgrading!
