Automaitic WordPress and plugin updates

First of all, let’s just make sure we’re talking about the same thing.  Since version 2.7, WordPress received one of the most useful features ever: automatic update. What this means is that every time a new version of WordPress is released, you now get a “click here to upgrade” option in your admin dashboard. When you click the link, it should ask for a confirmation and then proceed with automatic downloading and upgrading of your blog. But because of misconfigurations, this feature isn’t always working, and then you end up with a configuration dialog suggesting that you provide FTP credentials for accessing your server.

Possible reasons for automatic WordPress upgrade not working

There’s only a few reasons why WordPress or plugins upgrade feature will not work.

1. You’ve upgraded from older versions of WordPress

… and therefore don’t have the right configuration setting in your wp-config.php. Just add this to it:

define(‘FS_METHOD’,'direct’);2

2. Your blog is stored in a directory which webserver can’t update.

Quite often this is a result of someone (host administrator) installing you a new blog, but mistakenly leaving all the files owned by their own user or root (superuser). Since webserver software is running as something else (webservd in Linux distributions, or sometimes even user nobody), the software can read blog files but can’t overwrite them. Obviously, overwriting files is kind of critical for any upgrade process, so this scenario will result in automatic upgrades failure.

How would you fix this issue? Easy! If you have command line access to your hosting server, become root and change ownership of your blog’s files.

Assuming that your webserver runs as webservd user, and that your blog is in the /var/www/myblog.com directory, here’s a command line that will do the trick:

# chown -R webservd:webservd /var/www/myblog.com

3. Some files in your blog’s directory are read-only

This means that even if files belong to the user that your webserver is running as, there is still a chance that some files won’t be possible to overwrite because they have the read-only attribute (or read-only permission).

Fixing this from a command line isn’t hard at all. Assuming the same /var/www/myblog.com location, here’s what you should do:

# chmod -R ug+w /var/www/myblog.com

That’s it, I hope you liked this tutorial. Do ask questions in comments so that I can expand this article and make it most useful to all the future visitors!

DigWP.com blog has a great collection of links in a single post with some very good ideas: Admin Bar Tricks.

My personal favorites are: move admin bar to the bottom of screen and disabling admin bar for non-admins.

I’ve just spent a good few minutes trying to figure out why most recent changes to one of my forums never applied, and it seems that although I’ve changed the template files, there was a step with cache refreshes which had to be taken before any change is visible to forum users.

This is a really basic piece of advise, but since it’s not the first time I forget to check for internal caching, I thought I’d share it and save you some time in the future.

Lesson learned: review your blog’s plugins regularly, and don’t hesitate to disable or even delete the ones you no longer use! With the recent WordPress versions, maintaining most of the plugins is really easy.

Your chance to get a great looking blog

I wish I could post about it earlier, but there’s been something wrong with my blog and there really was no time to fix it. So here it is – I’m sharing great news with you, but time is running out very quickly for this incredible offer.

Dawud had been working with small businesses for the past 10 years or so. This allowed him to perfect the design of a blog up to such a level that he can get you amazing results in just a few days. His services usually cost more than $1000 for a typical website, but since Dawud has got a few reasons for celebration, he’s doing this special until Sunday afternoon.

Please head over to The Website Habitat site to read all the details of the complete website for $350 offer, but here are just a few things which you should definitely know:

• there really are no hidden fees, $350 is all you’ll need to get a fully working copy of your future website
• everything can be customized, and things like logos and photos will be integrated at no extra charge
• there’s quite a few base designs to start with, all fully customizable to suit your needs, and matched to your color palette if you have one in mind
• unless many others on the current marked, Dawud is always reachable and welcomes a chance to help you with your new website – no question is too simple or too technical for him – just ask him and you’ll be surprised with the professionalism of the support

Professionally made websites don’t get much cheaper that this!

There’s a short audio for you explaining much more, but I were you I’d just on this offer right now – $350 is an amazing offer and there’s less than 18 hours left to avail of this deal. If you haven’t done it yet due to prohibitive cost, here’s your chance: get yourself a professionally looking website now!

]]> http://www.perfectblogger.com/2009/08/get-a-website-with-professional-design-for-just-350/feed/ 0 http://www.perfectblogger.com/2009/07/wordpress-2-8-1-brings-stability-and-security/ http://www.perfectblogger.com/2009/07/wordpress-2-8-1-brings-stability-and-security/#comments Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:00:50 +0000 Gleb Reys http://www.perfectblogger.com/?p=222 I really like the way first releases of WordPress 2.8 come out! The most recent update, WordPress 2.8.1 posted a few hours ago, brings some great improvements which make your blogs more stable and much more secure.

WordPress 2.8.1. highlights

Here are some of the features I really like in 2.8.1, please be sure to read the official WordPress 2.8.1 announcement to see more changes:

• Stability: reduced memory usage footprint for the dashboard – should help all the blogs running on modest servers and with strict php memory usage quotas
• Stability: automatic upgrade no longer accidentally deletes files when cleaning up from a failed upgrade
• Stability: disabled code highlighting due to browser incompatibilities
• Security: extra security has been put in place to better protect you from plugins that do not do explicit permission checks
• Security: stricter menu security

Don’t know about you, but I’m going to be upgrading all my blogs in the next 30min.

See also:

• WordPress – official website
]]> http://www.perfectblogger.com/2009/07/wordpress-2-8-1-brings-stability-and-security/feed/ 4 http://www.perfectblogger.com/2008/09/interesting-reads-sep-21st-2008/ http://www.perfectblogger.com/2008/09/interesting-reads-sep-21st-2008/#comments Sun, 21 Sep 2008 10:51:53 +0000 Gleb Reys http://www.perfectblogger.com/?p=219 Here are the articles I found interesteding this week, leave a comment with a link if you have something interesting to share:
• Tux Training: Configs to tweak Firefox 3
• Dependencies maps for popular PHP-based software – if you ever wanted to see how a certain file is used in WordPress, that’s a great way to finally find out
• DLM: 10 Tips to Move Your Blog to Stardom
• Justin Tadlock: Tips on Using and Developing WordPress happily – great post for WordPress blog owners
• Why Reputable SEO firms won’t promise guaranteed search engine ranking – a great article from SEOmoz demystifying some aspects of SEO
• Lifehacker: Enable Chrome’s Best Features in Firefox
]]> http://www.perfectblogger.com/2008/09/interesting-reads-sep-21st-2008/feed/ 0 http://www.perfectblogger.com/2008/09/wordpress-logos-and-buttons/ http://www.perfectblogger.com/2008/09/wordpress-logos-and-buttons/#comments Mon, 15 Sep 2008 08:00:20 +0000 Gleb Reys http://www.perfectblogger.com/?p=216

WordPress

Gone are the days of manually clipping the WordPress logo from the official website! Last week I’ve discovered a wonderful page with all the official WordPress logos and buttons offered in PDF (with vector graphics) and PNG versions of everything.

There’s a set of WordPress wallpapers and a neat table with current colors used by WordPress engine.

Like WordPress? Find out more:

• Upgrade to WordPress 2.6.2
• WordPress 2.5 release
• Download WordPress
]]> http://www.perfectblogger.com/2008/09/wordpress-logos-and-buttons/feed/ 3 http://www.perfectblogger.com/2008/09/upgrade-to-wordpress-262/ http://www.perfectblogger.com/2008/09/upgrade-to-wordpress-262/#comments Mon, 08 Sep 2008 22:36:36 +0000 Gleb Reys http://www.perfectblogger.com/?p=212

Looks like WordPress 2.6.2 with a few fixes is out, so I’ve just upgraded all my blogs to this new milestone.

For all the details, read the official WordPress 2.6.2 announcement or glance through the list of bugs fixed in 2.6.2 release.

See also:

• WordPress download page
]]> http://www.perfectblogger.com/2008/09/upgrade-to-wordpress-262/feed/ 1 http://www.perfectblogger.com/2008/09/follow-me-on-twitter/ http://www.perfectblogger.com/2008/09/follow-me-on-twitter/#comments Mon, 08 Sep 2008 07:11:37 +0000 Gleb Reys http://www.perfectblogger.com/?p=209

It was bound to happen: I’ve joined Twitter! It would be great to hear from you there!

Follow me or leave your Twitter name in comments below so that I can follow you:

http://twitter.com/PerfectBlogger

]]> http://www.perfectblogger.com/2008/09/follow-me-on-twitter/feed/ 0