Things to Remember When Upgrading WordPress

If you’re a WordPress user, you would know that WordPress is clearly the leader in all of blogging platforms there is combined in terms of usability, design and efficiency. According to WordPress, the latest version, WordPress 2.8 has been downloaded 10,206,370 times and counting. However, you would have realized as well that WordPress is the most vulnerable platform out there prone to hacks, attacks and spams. We can’t have everything in one basket after all.

Every few months, WordPress users get a message on their dashboard reminding that it’s time for that upgrade again. This year alone, we would have upgraded 9 times including the upcoming Version 2.9 in December. From:

The upgrades are necessary because they are usually bug fixes of security vulnerabilities found on the previous upgrades. By not upgrading, we are opening up our blogs to hackers. Such was our case some months back.

Here’s what you must do and remember before upgrading to any version of WordPress:

1. BACK UP. BACK UP. BACK UP.
We all know what that means, yet we still fail to do it sometimes.

2. DEACTIVATE ALL PLUG-INS (except the maintenance mode announcement plugin if you have it)
Most people would go straight to STEP 3. If you are using over 5 plugins (we are using 20!), you need to deactivate those plugins first. OTHERWISE, you will receive a FATAL ERROR note like this:

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 2355240 bytes) in /home/blogstha/public_html/blogthatfollow /wp-includes/http.php on line 1331

3. Choose the “UPGRADE AUTOMATICALLY” button in the dashboard.

Since a few changes ago, WordPress can now be upgraded automatically right in the Dashboard area. AS long as you have backed up your files, this is the most convenient and fastest way of doing the upgrade.

4. Change the MEMORY LIMIT

Once the installation of the newer version is in place, all the wp- files that run our WordPress goes back to its default settings. As for the memory limit- it’s only 32M. They should just increase it automatically to at least 64M but they have not done it yet.

By going to your CPanel, /public_html/blog. Look for wp-setting.php, click edit. Find the lines:

if ( !defined(‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’) )
define(‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ’32M’);

and change the 32M to 64M or 128M if you want up to 256M. Don’t do anything else, just that number. SAVE and you should never see another memory limit fatal error again.

5. ACTIVATE ALL PLUGINS.

Re-activate all plugins used and don’t forget to turn off the maintenance mode. Check your site. Should be up and running great!

Breathe. Smile and enjoy your site!