6 Ways to Update WordPress Manually and Automatically?
Forget to update WordPress.
To access WordPress’s new features and capabilities and increase your website’s performance and security level, you must update WordPress, for which you can use manual and automatic methods.
If you want to update your WordPress in the safest possible way and not encounter any problems in this process, do not miss the beautiful methods that we will review in this tutorial:
Why should we update WordPress?
WordPress is a free platform whose development team constantly works to improve performance and fix bugs. So every time a new version of this platform is released, you can be sure that the bugs of the current version have been selected, and by improving the performance and adding new features, you have a version compatible with the latest standards at your disposal.
For example, when you don’t update your mobile phone, you will not only be deprived of its new and attractive features, but because of the old system and software, you will face problems such as slow software and lower security level, which WordPress also suffers from. The rule is not an exception.
Security is one of the essential needs of websites and online applications, and when you have chosen the WordPress platform to launch your website, then you must be sensitive to the security level of your website by installing WordPress security updates, all information, passwords Protect your passwords and all the details related to your website and customers.
As hackers try to break into websites and improve their skills daily, if you continue to use your old WordPress and ignore new security updates, hackers will use their experience to log in to the website, steal data or insert malicious code into your website.
Also, if you want to improve your WordPress website’s performance and increase your website’s speed is one of your top priorities, don’t forget to update WordPress. Your SEO strategies attract and retain customers when visitors access your website pages quickly and benefit from the service/product or content they need.
Now that speed and performance have been discussed, it is appropriate to point out that the power of the server plays a vital role in improving the performance of the website, and if this issue is critical to you, it is better to buy a virtual server and reach your goals step by step. And get closer to your ideals.
So, in general, by updating WordPress, you will not only benefit from new features and capabilities, and by using them, you can create a new and modern experience for visitors, but you will also improve the security, speed, and performance of your website, which is Invoices play an essential role in maintaining website credibility and customer trust.
What should we do before updating WordPress?
The most important thing to do before updating WordPress is to create a complete backup copy of the website and store it in another system or a cloud storage space such as Google Drive. This is just to be sure and should not cause you any concern.
Even if you have an automatic backup plugin that does this for you, you should still create a full backup copy so that you can safely restore your WordPress site from that copy if an error or problem occurs during the WordPress update process.
A complete WordPress site backup should include the following:
- WordPress database
- All images and media uploaded
- WordPress plugins and themes
- WordPress core files
After the backup process is finished and you have successfully saved the backup version, it is time for other actions that you should do before updating WordPress:
Disable all plugins and themes.
Plugins and themes are among the things that can make the WordPress update process more complicated because their reaction to the update is unpredictable. The best thing you can do is disable them all and re-enable them one by one after the updates are complete.
Of course, you should keep at least one theme because you need an article to load your WordPress site after the update process. It is better to prefer relatively simple music that is always compatible with WordPress.
Disable the cache or firewall plugin.
Although this case is similar to the previous point, it is worth mentioning that cache and firewall plugins affect the loading order. In addition to saving site copies, they block some processes. So there is a possibility that a cache or firewall plugin interferes with the WordPress update process. It is generally better to disable and re-enable them after successfully updating WordPress.
Install a repair mode plugin.
Note that this is only necessary for manually updating WordPress via FTP, which we will examine below. All methods keep the site in repair mode when WordPress is updated so that when users enter the site, they realize something is happening and cannot. Install a repair mode plugin if you want this function activated for the FTP method.
WordPress automatic update methods
WordPress dashboard and cPanel make things easier for users by providing automatic updates.
Advantages of automatic update
- Saving time
- Reducing the overall amount of work related to the update
- Automated access to the latest security updates
Disadvantages of automatic update
The possibility of website disruption if the main WordPress files are changed
Loss of traffic (showing “ERROR” page on some pages of the site) due to incompatibility of plugins with the rest of the website
Possibility of data loss
1. Automatic update of WordPress using the dashboard
If you see the following message by visiting the Updates page, your WordPress update is done automatically.
If you did not see this text and your WordPress update page was as below, click on Enable automatic updates to enable this feature.
If there was no such link at all or if you didn’t have access to the admin dashboard section at all, this is where you should proceed through cPanel.
2. Activating the automatic update feature of WordPress with cPanel
This can be solved by adding a new line to the wp-config.php file. Just follow the steps below:
Log in to your cPanel account.
Click on File Manager from the Files section.
Open the public_html folder. Next, right-click on the wp-config.php file and select Edit.
Add the following line to the file or replace it if it already exists.
define(‘WP_AUTO_UPDATE_CORE’, true);
Finally, click on Save.
After you go through these steps, WordPress auto-update feature will be activated.
Of course, you have another option to update WordPress by cPanel. It is a Softaculous tool integrated with cPanel, making installation and update tasks easier.
How to update WordPress with Softaculous
This tool has the same functionality as the WordPress admin dashboard, and you can update your WordPress with a simple click.
To use this tool, you must first install cPanel on your server. Connect to your server with SSH and run the following commands.
wget -N https://files.softaculous.com/install.sh
chmod 755 install.sh
./install.sh
Next, go to the WHM section, select Softaculous from the Plugins section, and install it. After the successful completion of the installation, you will see this page.
But this tool is generally placed in the Software section of cPanel.
If you need to update a program that includes WordPress, you will see the red outdated installations box when you open this tool.
Click on this red button. If WordPress is among the programs that need to be updated, select it and then click on the Upgrade button.
Please note that the latest versions of WordPress are not provided by the Softaculous tool from the first day of release, and it may take several days.
WordPress manual update methods
If the WordPress auto-update feature isn’t working, or for whatever reason, you’d like to do it yourself, you can use one of the manual methods below.
Advantages of manual update
- Ensuring access to the latest security patches and newest features
- Deciding when to update and activate repair mode on the website
- Guaranteeing the successful update of original versions with large volumes
Disadvantages of manual update
- The possibility of human error, such as forgetting to update the version in the database
- The time-consuming process of updating the prominent WordPress and database separately
- The case of internet interruption when uploading files and disrupting the website
1. Manual (semi-automatic) update of WordPress using the dashboard
If you have access to a WordPress admin account, this method is one of the easiest ways to update WordPress. You will update your website to the latest version of WordPress with one click and a few minutes of waiting.
To update WordPress with the admin dashboard, follow the steps below:
Enter the WordPress admin dashboard.
Click the Please Update Now link (if there is no such link on your dashboard, click the Updates icon directly and follow the next steps).
After the Updates page opens, click the Update to Version or Update Now button.
After clicking on the update button, the update process will start, and after it is completed, you will see the “What’s New” page which will provide details about the latest update.
Until the WordPress update process is finished, your site will be under repair, and after its completion, your site will be available to visitors again.
Now you can update all your themes and plugins to be compatible with the latest version of WordPress, and your website pages are not disturbed.
2. Manual update of WordPress via FTP
If you cannot access the WordPress admin dashboard, you can use FTP to better control the WordPress update process.
First of all, download the latest version of WordPress.
Then unzip this file and extract its contents.
Connect to your web server using an FTP client, preferably FileZilla, and open the public-html folder.
Then delete the two folders wp-admin and wp-includes from public-HTML.
Do not have anything to do with the following folders:
Wp-content: All the contents and plugins of the WordPress site are located in this folder, and you should not delete them in any way.
wp-config.php: This folder also keeps all the information related to database connections, which is necessary and should not be changed.
Then open the extracted folder and delete wp-content.
Copy the address of the WordPress folder in the Local site section of the webserver to access the files of the new WordPress folder.
Then select all the files, and after right-clicking, select the Upload option.
When rewriting files, you don’t need to worry about replacing old files with new files, and if you get the message Target file already exists, click on overwrite. Of course, note that server configurations such as htaccess should remain unchanged.
Once all the files have been uploaded, go to the URL below to see if the update was successful!
yoursite.com/wp-admin/upgrade.php/
You must change the database version if you see the following page instead of the above page.
To complete the WordPress update process with FTP, reopen the public-html folder using FileZilla or CPanel File Manager and select wp-includes.
Among the files in this folder, find version.php, and after right-clicking on it, select View/Edit.
Copy the database version from the wp-db-version line.
Then open phpmyadmin and find the DB-version field after clicking on wp-options.
And paste the copy you copied in the option-value section.
Save it and click Go from the bottom section.
The update of the database version was done successfully.
3. Manually update WordPress using WP-CLI
WP-CLI is a command-line interface for WordPress that allows you to manage plugins, configure multiple sites, and more without using a web browser. Although it is said that this tool requires a Unix-like environment such as Linux, FreeBSD, etc., if needed, you can also use this tool in a Windows environment.
* Before doing anything, you must connect to your SSH hosting account.
Although most hosting packages are equipped with this tool by default, if needed, you can use the following command to install wp-cli. Pharm.
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wp-cli/builds/gh-pages/phar/wp-cli.phar
Then give execution permission to this file and, to identify it by authorities, place the desired file in the local path.
chmod +x wp-cli.phar
sudo mv wp-cli.phar /usr/local/bin/wp
If you want to see if the tool is installed successfully, you can use the following command.
wp-info
Then use the cd command to go to the WordPress root path.
cd /home/user/public_html
To check the latest version of WordPress, run the following command.
Wp core check-update
If there is a new version of WordPress, the output of this command will be as follows.
Otherwise, you will see the following message.
Success: WordPress is at the latest version.
To start updating WordPress, run the following command.
Wp core update
This command is used to update WordPress to the latest available version. After completing the update process, the output will be as below.
After updating the main WordPress files, it is time to update your database, themes, and plugins. To do this, just run the following commands.
wp core update-db
wp theme update –all
wp plugin update –all
And finally, the WordPress update process was completed with the WP-CLI tool.
4. Manual update of WordPress on localhost
If you plan to update the WordPress version of the website you have set up on your local host, the following method is almost the same as the FTP method.
First of all, download the latest version of WordPress.
Then open the new version file that you have extracted and copy the two folders, wp-admin, and wp-includes.
Next, please open the website’s root folder, which is located in the htdocs folder in our example, select the two files wp-admin and wp-includes and delete them.
Paste the two new WordPress wp-admin and wp-includes folders you copied into this folder.
The process of updating your WordPress website has been completed successfully.
Although you can quickly go through the WordPress update process with these methods, in general, you face challenges, which we will mention three below:
WordPress update challenges
Most of the website admins find it a bit challenging to update WordPress due to the following issues:
Frequent updates
If you want to update your WordPress, you should not just stick to the original version of WordPress. Security updates and bug fixes are also essential, and you should keep track of them all and apply them to your site. Also, in addition to updating the WordPress core, you should consider updating the installed plugins and themes.
Apply updates to multiple websites.
Updating WordPress for a site is hard enough and comes with risks. Imagine that you are going to do this for several websites. Big businesses that use several locations for their various services and products, which, considering the time required to update WordPress, plugins, and themes, certainly need to spend a lot of time and energy updating their website to the latest version of WordPress. do
Failure to receive plugin update notifications
Although, in most cases, notifications are sent to users when a new version of WordPress is released. But some developers do not do this for their themes and plugins. So you must regularly check and install the latest version to know about the updates.
With all these challenges, access to the ideal level of security and new and modern features of WordPress is worth spending some time and energy updating WordPress to provide a better user experience.
Conclusion
WordPress is one of the best content management systems, and if you have used this platform to launch your website, learning how to update WordPress will help you keep your site safe and use its features and capabilities. More modern, improve the performance of your site. A well-performing site has more potential to attract visitors, which means higher conversion rates.
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