When it comes to upgrades, I generally have no fear of them, mainly because I know worse comes to worst I could always simply recopy all the old files I had and use the old version instead. However, updating my blog is another matter entirely. I will admit that I’m a rather big coward of that, as I’m simply terrified of doing something wrong and kissing Broken Shield and Sword goodbye! Still, I wanted to do it; it was something of the line I know it can be done, and it should be done by me, considering that the blog does belong to me while being administered by someone else *looks at a certain person’s direction* but I just kept delaying it.
When WordPress 2.5 came out and [Edrei] detailed how to upgrade your WordPress, I knew I couldn’t delay it any longer. Which was why that night I went to bed and slept. It was late Sunday night and I had work! 😛
So today, while I was getting some stuff for Sachiko, I decided to upgrade my WordPress. Installing the WordPress Database Backup plugin was a cinch, but I was surprised when it gave me an unwriteable error. A quick check in Google revealed that my directory was not written to. No problem, I thought, so I fired up Filezilla and attempted to write. Uh oh.
For some reason I could not connect to Filezilla, and that scared me. So I checked around, decided to upgrade my Filezilla, asked [Raz] to help me set permissions, etc etc, and finally I could run the backup. As the backup was running, I tried to get to my FTP, gave up on the old Filezilla (I was running 2.0.0.13, I think) and installed the newest. Once that was done, the errors persisted, but this time they gave me the address not found message, so I played around with my domain name and voila! I was in.
The rest of it seemed like a walk in the park after that little scare. Within a few moments, I had unzipped WordPress 2.5 and then threw it into Filezilla for it to be uploaded. The new Filezilla has a much slicker interface and has divided the bottom bar (where you see your files being uploaded) into Queued Files, Sucessful Transfers and Failed Transfers. This makes it much easier to keep track of your files. There was a whopping 500++ files to be uploaded, but the process was so fast that I barely noticed it (was it supposed to be that many files to be replaced, [Edrei]? Yes, you could leave your comp to get a drink and it would be done by the time you got back.
After that, I logged into my WP Admin Dashboard, clicked on the link to upgrade, logged in and voila! Upgrade completed. It looks like the few plugins I used were also in good working condition. So yes, minus the little scares, this was actually pretty easy. Thanks to [Edrei] for the instructions and to [Raz] for being patient with me especially when my FTP wasn’t working.
Also, no, this is NOT an April’s Fool’s joke. I’m too lazy to think up of one.
Edit 1: Posting from Google Docs works just fine!
Edit 2: And I just love the new Dashboard colours! Baby blue!
I updated it to 2.5 too.. after soooo long being stuck at 2.1. I like the new media library though. 😀
Geminianeyes: Hahah! I’ll have to see how the new media library works. It sounds interesting.
Yeah, there is quite a few files that needed replacing. In fact, it’s actually a little under a mb more than Version 2.3.
What you can do and I highly recommend this though is to use SSH if you can to update your WordPress. What it does is use an input terminal (kinda like DOS but for servers) to update your WordPress directly from the WordPress repositories to your blog so you don’t need to download and upload using the FTP.
The learning curve isn’t that steep, but it only works if your webhost allows you to do such a thing. Unfortunately most cheap webhosts don’t allow you. But it’s something you might want to try out.
Geminianeyes: It sounds like an idea. I’ll have to check it out and see if my webhost lets me.