I would strongly urge everyone that hasn’t upgraded to 2.8 to hold off for a while. It has been an unmitigated disaster and has completely messed up my blog. I’m four days into trying to fix all the problems it has caused and still nowhere near fixing all the damage.
Save yourselves the agony and don’t upgrade.
WordPress 2.8 has a lot of new features which make managing your blog easier. The upgrade process is now one of the easiest as far as blogging and Content management systems go.
The important thing to do is to go through the checklist WordPress has and make sure you backup your files and database.
This way, you can “roll back” if you need to.
If you are on day 4 of your blog having problems, there may be a problem in the configuration file.
Make sure to visit the WordPress Forums to search for the same error someone else probably had or post your issue.
The video makes it look so easy. Unfortunately, when I try to upgrade automatically it doesn’t work the same way. When I click on upgrade automatically it takes me to a page which asks me for
Hostname
user name
password
And when I put the information in it always says that it is the wrong information. I know the user name and password are definitely right so the problem must be with the hostname. What on earth am I supposed to put in there? I’ve tried everything I can think of but nothing works.
And why am I being asked the question at all? No-one else that I know has been asked these questions. For them it worked as in the video and they had no complaints.
If anyone knows the answers to these questions I would be delighted to hear from them.
If it’s asking you for the hostname, username and password, it sounds like WordPress can’t find the wp-config.php file. That file holds all the info to connect your WordPress install to the database.
You can view your wp-config.php file by connecting to your WordPress install with a FTP client like Filezilla and choosing “Edit”.
The other thing I recommend people do is when they setup WordPress to document their database name, database user, database password, domain name, etc so they have all this info in case a problem occurs.
I haven’t had a problem with the blog working unless having my fonts not work in Firefox count; no matter the changes I make to css; the fonts are so tiny I can barely use admin; having to shuttle back and forth from IE8 which I also hate just to be able to read text; also affected site fonts. Very strange.
A Full Web Site Backup will include both the files and the databases. It is also a complete backup of your cPanel account which also includes emails, cPanel settings and anything else on your account.
Note that you CAN restore anything listed under “Partial Backups” yourself. However, the Full Web Site Backup will need to be restored by your web hosting company.
I keep getting Fatal Error while trying to autoupgrade. From the comments above, I see that it could be the plugins (I use a lot of plugins). Thanks to Annie, I am holding off!
Don’t hold off. On the blog I updated, I have 35 plugins. I have upgraded 3 of my blogs in the last week and had 0% problems.
1. Read the directions
2. Make a backup
3. Check your backup
4. Ask your host for help if something goes wrong
5. Visit the WordPress forums if you need help
Most people will not have any problems upgrading their WordPress blog if they follow these best practice steps.
We Always, Always wait till .1 of any version. Except for testing on non production sites or security issues that normally have a patch instead of the need to upgrade.
On our test sites we are happy to test and comment to wp, plugin or theme authors.
On our site with a modest but important 1,000 readers we would like 100% success.
When I click “Upgrade WordPress Automatically”, the screen is stuck with “Downloading update from http://wordpress.org/wordpress-2.8.zip” message and doesn’t do anything.
My current version is 2.7.1
Hi there,
I upgraded and it seemed to be no problem. I have about 30 plugins. I reactivated half of them one by one. But then I got to a point where I can not activate the other 14 plugins. I am getting the following error message everywhere on my admin page under wordpress….
Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 122880 bytes) in /home2/greatmlm/public_html/wp-admin/admin-header.php on line 122
I would love to use this comments template in my wordpress blog, can you give me an example of how you did this. I am having a hard time finding out the best way of editing my style.css and comments.php file to get the comments the way I want after creating a theme using artisteer.
Your best bet for getting some help is to check either the Artisteer forums or the WordPress.org support forums for help with making adjustments to your theme files.
This was a very useful video because it covers the AUTOMATIC upgrade function. A significant percentage of the tutorials, blog entries and other material in the WordPress codex and help pages only cover the manual procedures, which may be daunting for some “non-geeks” — and even for some very computer savvy folks who just don’t want to take a chance with a manual upgrade.
June 29, 2009 at 9:18 pm |
I would strongly urge everyone that hasn’t upgraded to 2.8 to hold off for a while. It has been an unmitigated disaster and has completely messed up my blog. I’m four days into trying to fix all the problems it has caused and still nowhere near fixing all the damage.
Save yourselves the agony and don’t upgrade.
LikeLike
July 1, 2009 at 5:47 am |
Really? I upgraded all my blogs the same day it was released and didn’t have a single problem :S
It probably was an old outdated plug which messed things up with 2.8, probably a widget or something because of the new widget API.
LikeLike
July 2, 2009 at 6:48 pm |
Annie,
WordPress 2.8 has a lot of new features which make managing your blog easier. The upgrade process is now one of the easiest as far as blogging and Content management systems go.
The important thing to do is to go through the checklist WordPress has and make sure you backup your files and database.
This way, you can “roll back” if you need to.
If you are on day 4 of your blog having problems, there may be a problem in the configuration file.
Make sure to visit the WordPress Forums to search for the same error someone else probably had or post your issue.
LikeLike
June 30, 2009 at 11:42 am |
The video makes it look so easy. Unfortunately, when I try to upgrade automatically it doesn’t work the same way. When I click on upgrade automatically it takes me to a page which asks me for
Hostname
user name
password
And when I put the information in it always says that it is the wrong information. I know the user name and password are definitely right so the problem must be with the hostname. What on earth am I supposed to put in there? I’ve tried everything I can think of but nothing works.
And why am I being asked the question at all? No-one else that I know has been asked these questions. For them it worked as in the video and they had no complaints.
If anyone knows the answers to these questions I would be delighted to hear from them.
LikeLike
July 2, 2009 at 6:51 pm |
If it’s asking you for the hostname, username and password, it sounds like WordPress can’t find the wp-config.php file. That file holds all the info to connect your WordPress install to the database.
Did you use the instructions at http://codex.wordpress.org/Upgrading_WordPress or just click “upgrade” without backing up?
You can view your wp-config.php file by connecting to your WordPress install with a FTP client like Filezilla and choosing “Edit”.
The other thing I recommend people do is when they setup WordPress to document their database name, database user, database password, domain name, etc so they have all this info in case a problem occurs.
LikeLike
June 30, 2009 at 2:22 pm |
Thanks for this post, I am holding off.
LikeLike
June 30, 2009 at 3:45 pm |
I haven’t had a problem with the blog working unless having my fonts not work in Firefox count; no matter the changes I make to css; the fonts are so tiny I can barely use admin; having to shuttle back and forth from IE8 which I also hate just to be able to read text; also affected site fonts. Very strange.
LikeLike
July 2, 2009 at 6:56 pm |
In Firefox, have you gone under View > Zoom > Reset to make sure you didn’t change the font size in Firefox?
Video
http://screencast.com/t/l27u8Ji5
LikeLike
June 30, 2009 at 7:15 pm |
A Full Web Site Backup will include both the files and the databases. It is also a complete backup of your cPanel account which also includes emails, cPanel settings and anything else on your account.
Note that you CAN restore anything listed under “Partial Backups” yourself. However, the Full Web Site Backup will need to be restored by your web hosting company.
LikeLike
June 30, 2009 at 9:18 pm |
Only people I have seen with WP 2.8 issues, had incompatible plugins. As always make sure your plugins are current first!
LikeLike
July 1, 2009 at 1:58 pm |
I keep getting Fatal Error while trying to autoupgrade. From the comments above, I see that it could be the plugins (I use a lot of plugins). Thanks to Annie, I am holding off!
LikeLike
July 2, 2009 at 6:59 pm |
Don’t hold off. On the blog I updated, I have 35 plugins. I have upgraded 3 of my blogs in the last week and had 0% problems.
1. Read the directions
2. Make a backup
3. Check your backup
4. Ask your host for help if something goes wrong
5. Visit the WordPress forums if you need help
Most people will not have any problems upgrading their WordPress blog if they follow these best practice steps.
LikeLike
July 1, 2009 at 2:02 pm |
I always wait for the 2.x.1 release anyway. What’s the rush? 2.7.1 is working perfectly for me, so if it ain’t broke…
LikeLike
July 2, 2009 at 12:59 am |
We Always, Always wait till .1 of any version. Except for testing on non production sites or security issues that normally have a patch instead of the need to upgrade.
On our test sites we are happy to test and comment to wp, plugin or theme authors.
On our site with a modest but important 1,000 readers we would like 100% success.
LikeLike
July 6, 2009 at 10:55 pm |
When I click “Upgrade WordPress Automatically”, the screen is stuck with “Downloading update from http://wordpress.org/wordpress-2.8.zip” message and doesn’t do anything.
My current version is 2.7.1
Any tips on what I’m doing wrong.
LikeLike
July 7, 2009 at 7:34 pm |
Hi there,
I upgraded and it seemed to be no problem. I have about 30 plugins. I reactivated half of them one by one. But then I got to a point where I can not activate the other 14 plugins. I am getting the following error message everywhere on my admin page under wordpress….
Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 122880 bytes) in /home2/greatmlm/public_html/wp-admin/admin-header.php on line 122
What happened ?
LikeLike
July 27, 2009 at 7:39 pm |
I would love to use this comments template in my wordpress blog, can you give me an example of how you did this. I am having a hard time finding out the best way of editing my style.css and comments.php file to get the comments the way I want after creating a theme using artisteer.
LikeLike
July 28, 2009 at 12:34 am |
Your best bet for getting some help is to check either the Artisteer forums or the WordPress.org support forums for help with making adjustments to your theme files.
LikeLike
August 21, 2009 at 3:53 pm |
Here is the best link when it comes to upgrading Worpdress : http://codex.wordpress.org/Upgrading_WordPress
LikeLike
September 13, 2009 at 11:29 pm |
This was a very useful video because it covers the AUTOMATIC upgrade function. A significant percentage of the tutorials, blog entries and other material in the WordPress codex and help pages only cover the manual procedures, which may be daunting for some “non-geeks” — and even for some very computer savvy folks who just don’t want to take a chance with a manual upgrade.
Thanks for this information.
LikeLike
October 5, 2009 at 10:33 am |
definitely worth watching the video but i had the latest version in my cpanel when i bought it
LikeLike