Someone just alerted me to a set of duplicate posts here…it looks like there are two of everything I’ve posted up to April or May. This must have happened after I tried updating to the latest version of Wordpress, version 3.0. Things got messy around here and I ended up going back to the previous version. It turns out that a lot of people are having problems with Wordpress 3.0. After reading the forums at Thesis, I discovered some other bloggers who had disastrous experiences with this new upgrade. I feel for them, I really do!
Listen, if you’re like me and you like to manage your blog and website, always, ALWAYS do a few things first.
- Upgrade all of your plugins. You’ll know if they need upgrading if a little colored number shows up on the side of the Plugins category on your Dashboard page.
- Back up your blog. In Wordpress you go to Tools>Export and then save the whole thing into an XML file. You’ll be happy you have this if you have to restore your old settings.
- Back up your contents on your server. This means going through your FTP server or your CPanel on your webhost and making a copy of everything to a safe place on your computer.
- Back up your database. This can be a bit of a pain, but do it. There are tutorials at Wordpress.org that tell you how to do this step-by-step. Use search terms like “backup database.”
- Once you’ve backed everything up, then do a search for updating to the latest version of Wordpress. I found out AFTER things got messy around here that other people were having problems with this version. Gee thanks Wordpress. Thanks for alerting me to this. Thanks for letting me find out about this after the fact – oh, never mind. Wordpress, sometimes I ‘m hatin’.
- Make sure you know how to restore your settings. I use the Thesis theme here, and the forums are uber awesome, which is why I paid for this theme. If you use something other theme or a free theme, go to Wordpress.org and search for information on restoring your blog settings after an upgrade. There’s a chance you won’t need to, but check anyway.
- If everything’s updated, you know how to restore everything, people are raving about the update, then, and only then, go for it.
- Once you’ve completed the upgrade, reactivate your plugins, save your settings and check to see how your blog is not only looking but functioning.
That’s my take on updating, upgrading and upstuffing.
cheers, mari
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Cheers, indeed. Wow.
I was thinking about doing my web site in Wordpress, but do you think that’s such a good idea?
p.s. I love leaving you comments but I’ve noticed that whenever I leave one these days, I have to enter all my info all over again. I don’t think I hadda do that before . . . is that something that can be “fixed”?
Linda, Wordpress rocks. But updates, upgrades and all that stuff can be problematic every now and then. You just have to be careful, backup everything beforehand, and know how to restore settings.
As for comments, that’s weird. I wonder if that got messed up during the recent attempt to upgrade? I’ll look into it pronto.