WordPress has a pretty big fan club and an enormous installed base. When an upgrade to one of the world's most popular blogging packages is released, there are an awful lot of long evenings for cutting-edge, version-monkeys and, a whole lot of finger-crossing as bloggers become weekend web admins, flipping the switch on a fresh upgrade and hoping for the best.
Lorelle on Wordpress has taken the plunge, and has written
a really sharp document to get you through it as well.
Lorelle gives some strong practical advice, as well as a step by step on the process. For those who've been through a Wordpress upgrade cycle before, Lorelle's words are solid and true;
Turn off plugins,
make backups,
follow instructions and
don't try to rush. With Lorelle's help and a little patience, even the most neophyte blogger turned weekend web warrior can manage to walk the path leading to WP 2.1 joy, even if you've skipped a version or two in between.
Tags: lorelle on wordpress, LorelleOnWordpress, opensource, wordpress, wordpress 2.1, wordpress plugins, wordpress upgrade, Wordpress2.1, WordpressPlugins, WordpressUpgrade
Comments
5
Subscribe to commentsemmzeeJan 26th 2007 5:14PM
Sound advice. The steps given in the guide are all important. The install went smoothly for me ... except that I accidentally didn't disable one of my plugins (a smilies plugin) and that one ended up screwing up the template design. Luckily it was easy enough to figure out what was causing the problem and I was still able to access the admin area to disable it.
Disable your plugins, people! :)
cavalierexJan 26th 2007 6:45PM
I just updated my site this past week. Easy as pie, thank goodness.
#1 thing before any such venture: Make backups. Don't skip this step! Backup your database; and backup your customized themes, plugins and hacked files.
The folks at Wordpress put together a great step-by-step upgrade instruction guide. Take things slow and follow the directions, and it should all go smoothly.
Dave M.Jan 27th 2007 2:49AM
I not only went through an update with no sweat (following the instructions described above and on the WordPress site), but I finally managed to move all my WordPress.com posts and comments to my hosted site. Finally.
Dave M.Jan 27th 2007 2:50AM
Oh, one thing. When you turn plug-ins back on, you might find yourself stuck in a state where you can't adjust the plugins due to a compatibility problem. I had to delete the plug-in via the FTP connection.
Wasn't horrible, but I wish there was a better way to deal with plug-ins that don't work. :shrug:
LorelleJan 27th 2007 12:42PM
Thanks for the link and the kind words.
Even I, who knows this stuff inside and out, thought I could get away by saving some bandwidth by just copying over the new files. An hour later and a lot of bandwidth, I did it right and it worked.
Sometimes even I don't follow the directions. ;-)