Ohmystinkinheck

In the series, Ditch Your Blogging Training Wheels, I strongly suggested self-hosting your WordPress blog with Liquid Web, or any web host running cPanel with Fantastico’s Auto-Installer.

Fantastico’s automated processes make it easier to initially install a self-hosted Wordpress blog, as well as manage future upgrades (of which there are many).

In this entry, I will walk step-by-step through the process of upgrading my WordPress blog from 2.5.1 to 2.6.1**.

How do you know when a new WordPress Version is available?

The WordPress Dashboard is built with an auto-reminder script that posts a notice when an updated WordPress version is available. For the past several weeks I have seen the following notice when I log-in to write or manage my blog.

Be aware a new WordPress version may be available for MANUAL upgrades before it is available for upgrades through cPanel’s Fantastico Auto-Installer.

Do yourself a favor and don’t lose any sleep over it; your blog will not self-destruct for the few days/weeks it takes for the automated upgrade to become available. Believe me, you don’t want to bypass the auto-process for a manual upgrade - I’ve been there and done that; it isn’t pretty.

Deactivating Plugins is your FIRST STEP!

The first thing you must do before upgrading your WordPress Blog is to deactivate all plugins. At times, plugins will be incompatable with newer versions of WordPress. When this happens, it can cause all sorts of issues across your WordPress blog. The absolute best way to remedy this - the only way, really - is to deactive ALL plugins BEFORE upgrading. Here’s how to do it.

Once in your WordPress Dashboard, Go To Plugins (orange link in top right corner).

Within ‘Plugin Management’, click the white square to the left of the word ‘Plugin’ (found in the dark grey horizontal table header right below the blue button that says ‘Deactivate All Plugins’) to auto-check ALL PLUGINS.

Then, click the blue button, ‘Deactivate All Plugins’.

This will deactive ALL your plugins immediately; your blog is now ready for a clean upgrade.

Upgrade using cPanel’s Fantastico Auto-Installer

Open a new tab in your browser window and log into your blog’s cPanel - typically found at yourblogname.com/cpanel. Depending on the version and/or skin of your cPanel, it may, or may not, look like mine below. Either way, find the link to Fantastico’s Auto Installer.

On my server it is called Fantastico Deluxe.

Click through the Fantastico Deluxe link and then, click on the radio button to the left of the ‘WordPress’ text link found in the left sidebar.

Once in the ‘WordPress’ window, your current version is displayed. As you can see, I was running 2.5.1 (*tsk*tsk*) and needed to ‘Upgrade to 2.6.1′**.

Click on the text link to Upgrade.

WordPress lets you know your current installation will be backed up. This means if it all goes debunk, you can get your ‘old’ blog back.

Click the ‘Upgrade’ button to begin the Upgrade.

As your blog upgrades, the status will show beneath ‘Upgrading…’. Once the Upgrade is finished, the text will read ‘Upgrade completed.’

Make sure to copy and save the information provided (see yellow highlighted area below). THIS IS AN IMPORTANT ‘JUST IN CASE’ KIND OF STEP necessary to retrieve the WordPress backup generated a couple of steps back in the upgrade.

I paste mine into a .txt file and name it something ominous like, ‘if-wordpress-upgrade-fails-09-24-08′. There will be no mistaking what this text file holds if I need to search for it later.

One more step and you’re outta here!

Go back into your WordPress Dashboard, and in the same Plugins Management window as before, click the white square to the left of the word ‘Plugin’ (found in the dark grey horizontal table header right below the blue button that says ‘Activate’) to auto-check ALL PLUGINS.

Then, click the blue ‘Activate’ button.

And that’s that!

Troubleshooting

On the rare occasion that something goes wrong when you click back to view your newly upgraded WordPress blog, it is PROBABLY one of your plugins. Go back and Deactivate your plugins again, activating them one by one and checking the face of your blog. Often times, this process of elimination will reveal the dirty little plugin that won’t play nice with the rest of the publishing software.

Check the plugin’s support page/site for upgrades, and if there isn’t one, do NOT click to Activate it again, but instead, contact the plugin’s programmer to request a fix to match the current version of WordPress.

The most popular plugins work to keep up with the most current WordPress version; when they don’t it is typically because the plugin function was integrated into the updated WordPress blogging platform.

** As of this post, the most recent version of WordPress is 2.6.2, but that version is not yet available for auto-upgrade through Fantastico on my server. I could manually install the newest version, but I prefer to wait for the auto-upgrade to offer the newest version to save me time and frustration.

16 Responses to “Upgrade WordPress Using cPanel and Fantastico”

1. Angela Tippets

   Scentsy is KICKING my butt right now with bus(y)ness. I really am wanting to give the whole “ditch the blog training wheels” a try. I like my blog, but I feel I have outgrown it. Soon OMSH, soon. :) Thank you for your teaching oh mighty blog leader!!

2. Angella

   Fine. I’ll go update…

3. Gayle

   I was going to try to do the upgrade to 2.6.2 without fantastico, because it wasn’t available there yet. But, I chickened out. I’m glad you said that it’s okay to wait for it to be available through fantastico!

4. Liz C.

   My husband will probably shoot me if I start my own blog. But I’m reading every word you write, and filing it in my brain for future use. You entirely rock.

5. Dory

   Wow. Thank you for this post. I lost my entire blog on my last attempt at updating to 2.5.1 so I have been a total chicken to try again. This post will hopefully walk me through upgrading without any issues… once I work up the nerve to try!

6. tHeSocKmOnKeY

   It’s always a good idea to have a recent back up of your entire domain, especially before taking on an upgrade. This way if something gets hosed, your not up the creek.

   If your a cpanel user, backups are a breeze using the backup wizard.

7. Kuky

   I’ve only updated manually. I didn’t even know there was another way!

8. mommyknows

   I wish I would have used cpanel / fantastico. I am afraid to update.

9. Leanne

   There’s a one click plugin for this: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-automatic-upgrade/#post-2560

   Absolutely a breeze to use. Turns your plugins off and on, creates database backups, the whole nine. :)

10. Brenda

    I was about to tell you about the plugin I use for this, but I see someone beat me to it. It really is so easy to do with the plugin! Though there may be reasons you don’t use a plugin like that…

11. KYouell

    Yes, do you have reasons not to use that plugin???

12. Kerry

    Thanks so much for this post! I have been wanting to upgrade forever. Now I know it will be so much easier. Your tutorials are the BEST and easiest to follow!

13. Kerry

    OK, I finally broke down and tried to upgrade. I got an error message when I clicked on Fantastico in my Cpanel: Fantastico is not installed at the default location /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/fantastico. Either move the Fantastico directory from it’s current location to /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/fantastico OR enable ioncube loaders in WHM -> Tweak settings.

    Do you know how to fix this? I have emailed my very commerce a few times with no resonse.

14. tHeSocKmOnKeY

    @Kerry

    I had the same error a week or so ago. This error is unfortunately a license issue with Fantastico, and will require your host to correct the issue.

15. OMSH

    Kerry - In this case I wouldn’t trust that you’ll hear from Alex. I’ve tried to help several of you on his server and he NEVER responds to me either.

    I’ve emailed you about Googling the WordPress Upgrade Plugin and going that route.

16. kerrysramblings.com » New blog host

    [...] I finally found the time to work on my blog. I had an hour or so and I decided to work my way through Heather’s tutorial. [...]