Make sure that your installed and activated plugins have all been updated to their latest versions. Be absolutely certain that you do not have an encircled number beside the “Plugins” section of your Dashboard’s sidebar. Non-current plugins might give you the same disappointment I had a while ago when my Automatic Upgrade always got stuck in the “Installing the latest version” phase, consequently making my site show the “Maintenance Mode” sign of dread.
I remembered something I read about these plugins getting in the way of a smooth upgrade (from a similar predicament I had in the not so distant past). Good thing I did because after two failed attempts, I made the plugin upgrades on the 6 that were then pending, reran the upgrade, and, voila, WP 2.8.2!
If you get stuck like I did, apparently, WP’s upgrade facility has a built-in logic in place that will revert your blog to normal around 5 minutes after a failed attempt. When this happens, do as I did and upgrade those plugins, pronto, or manually install WordPress as the pros do it (which I can’t and won’t be arsed to do ever). In my POV, an automatic upgrade facility exists because it should make everybody else’s lives easier. It is there because it works. If it doesn’t work, something went wrong along the way and it may most probably be from the user’s end. If it isn’t, then the program is stupid. End of discussion.
Twitter Updates
20 July 2009 at 3:51 pm
The official advise is to disable all plugins first before doing an upgrade. Then you re-enable them one by one to check for errors. Pero nakakatamad yung ganun. Hehe.
20 July 2009 at 3:58 pm
The reminder for users to disable all plugins should then be up there with the reminder to back up you databaseseses, dibs? Gosh, what a complicated with WordPress biznis.
20 July 2009 at 6:57 pm
Yeah, they should put it there too. Generally, manual upgrades don’t cause problems; I guess it’s the automatic upgrade that did it for you.
20 July 2009 at 10:13 pm
I just remembered! During automatic upgrade, the first thing that the program does is download the zipped file of the update, unpack it then install. During install the first thing it does is put the site on maintenance mode, deactivate the plugins, update WP, attempt to reactivate the plugins, then BOOM, all is well. You are right, Markku sensei, it is critical that all plugins be deactivated before an upgrade. :D