WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin

by Jason Clarke Apr 9th 2008

We know, it sounds too good to be true. A plugin that can automatically upgrade your WordPress blog? That's what we thought, too, until we tried it. Successfully. Twice.

The fact that WordPress Automatic Upgrade isn't a default part of WordPress 2.5 is a crying shame! It installs just as you'd expect: you download the zip file, unzip it, upload the resulting folder into your plugins folder and activate it.

Once activated, you have a new entry on your Manage page in your blog's WordPress admin, called Automatic Upgrade. When you activate it, it will walk you through the following eight steps:

Backs up the files and makes available a link to download it.
Backs up the database and makes available a link to download it.
Downloads the latest files from http://wordpress.org/latest.zip and unzips it.
Puts the site in maintenance mode.
De-activates all active plugins and remembers it.
Upgrades wordpress files.
Gives you a link that will open in a new window to upgrade installation.
Re-activates the plugins.

There is a fully automated mode, but we weren't quite brave enough to try that. Considering that we didn't experience so much as a hiccup on the two blogs that we upgraded to 2.5 using this plugin today (one was at version 2.2.1, and the other at 2.3.0), we're more than happy to stick to the manual mode which involves occasionally clicking the next button and downloading a couple of backup files once they're ready. Plus, it's nice to know what's going on in case there's a failure and you have to recover manually, and the plugin is great about giving verbose explanations as to what is actually going on.

Tags: automatic-upgrade, automatic-upgrade-plugin, wordpress, wordpress-automatic-upgrade, wordpress-plugin

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Sean said 11:37AM on 4-09-2008

Well I was holding off on upgrading and this made it a lot easier!

It even figured out that it had permissions issues and went in and fixed them for me (which was very nice).

Champzilla said 11:58AM on 4-09-2008

I ran the automatic upgrade on a 2.3 and it worked flawlessly!

I'm thinking about getting really brave and hitting a long overdue 2.1 later this afternoon! I'll let you know how it turns out.

http://champzilla.com

Tito said 12:11PM on 4-09-2008

Dunno if I´m going blind but I´m looking for the download link and I can´t find it in the article!
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-automatic-upgrade/

Champzilla said 1:07PM on 4-09-2008

Its in the upper right hand corner... in orange.

Tito said 2:32PM on 4-09-2008

Actually, I meant the downloadsquad article.
I´m just providing the link for other users too lazy to use google.

Jason Clarke said 2:35PM on 4-09-2008

Hi Tito - you're right, I forgot to put the link in the body of the post, but I've put it there now. There's also always a Read link at the bottom of all Download Squad posts that links to whatever site or product we are talking about.

Tristan said 12:13PM on 4-09-2008

I used this last week, but i chose the automatic process. it failed at some point for some unknown reason. After that i tried the semi-auto mode and it worked perfect on two 2.3 blogs. It's really a nifty little utility.

Chris Webb said 4:28PM on 4-09-2008

Another vote of confidence - went from 2.3.2 to 2.5 on http://ckwebb.com with absolutely no issues.

I was a little worried during the plugin deactivation step (since the upgrade tools is a plugin) but it seemed to handle everything nicely.

farhang said 7:27PM on 4-09-2008

This is simply incredible. Amazing.

djevrek said 1:57AM on 4-10-2008

Excellent plugin, i just update my wp 2.5 beta to 2.5 full and all goes well. I have about 20+ plugins so i was afraid that this could make some problems. But, as i say, it's all good. *THUMBS UP* for this plugin and Download squid.

http://djevrek.info/blog

moby said 11:18PM on 4-12-2008

The plugin will not work if you have WordPress running in any directory but your root. Be warned.

Tim said 4:27AM on 4-21-2008

not true, it worked for me within a folder. AWESOME plugin, great for users with multiple wordpress sites or has to do this for work (me)

Anna said 8:27PM on 4-30-2008

Has anyone tried to use this plug in for 2.5.1? You can't update the database. It just gets stuck. Anyone know a work around or is just my blog.

Holly said 1:06AM on 5-01-2008

I'm stuck at the same place, upgrading from 2.5 to 2.5.1 with WPAU stuck at the database upgrade step, and I can't access any part of my blog - I get 403 or 500 errors. If I delete all the plugin parts and reinstall 2.5.1 manually, will my blog come back? (Trembling fearfully...)

Relequestual said 12:12PM on 5-01-2008

gesh where have you been guys?
ive been using this one for the last 6 WP upgrades!

Anna Hackman said 12:47PM on 5-01-2008

Holly, I got so frustrated that I turn to my host, Asio.net, and paid them to fix my blog. It took a couple hours but this is what he found. The issue for me was a line in wp-admin/upgrade.php. See my support topic at
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/173281?replies=1#post-748552

Check out the following support topic at wordpress too. http://wordpress.org/support/topic/172244

Before you do anything copy the file before you delete that line just in case this solution does not work for you.

Prior to the fix, my ability to comment was not there anymore since it was caught in that loop. I have put a support question up at wordpress to see what techie people think about the fix because I don't want to give bad advice since I myself am not techie.

Let me know if this works for you and add to my comment. (Ihttp://wordpress.org/support/topic/173281?replies=1#post-748552) so if is a problem, wordpress can fix it. Anna

Mr. Chuck Masterson said 12:25PM on 5-04-2008

Yes, don't worry about the 2.5.1 "Getting stuck" issue. You can just load 2.5.1 with FTP and change the config.php file and you'll be fine. All your data is in the mysql that you have setup safe and sound.

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