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How To Upgrade Wordpress To a New Version

Who is using wordpress self-hosted blog cannot avoid from upgrading the blog to new version. Currently the new version of wordpress is 2.8.6 version. I just finished upgrade my blog to the new one. I didn’t make any post on how to upgrade it since I start blogging. This is the right time for me to show you my way on upgrading it. Actually, I’m quite boring because everything was done including my final exam. So I upgraded all my blogs to the new wordpress version and wrote this tiny tutorial post for you.

There are two ways to upgrade the wordpress blog which are manual upgrading and automatic upgrading. I’m prefer using manual upgrading because I feel it’s the safiest way to upgrade. Besides, I can take a look at each of my folder and my file when using manual upgrading (I love technical stuff). Using manual upgrading is the only way to make sure all new files being upload correctly.

Automatic Upgrade

If you noticed, recent version of Wordpress feature an automatic upgrade. You can easily launch automatic upgrade by clicking the link that appear at the top in your admin site. But if it’s not there, you can click Tools and choose upgrade menu. Then it will do the rest for you (upgrading). You can have your drink while waiting for it LOL.

There are certain things that made me sick while using automatic upgrade. Sometimes, it failed though, remember to backup your database first, backup your old wordpress file and deactivate all the plugins you have before starting the upgrade.

In order to use the feature, you must an owner of all your files otherwise it will ask you for connection information. If it happens, no matter what you enter, it won’t work. Seriously. Don’t panic, you still got another way to upgrade. If automatic upgrade doesn’t work for you, use manual upgrade (my favorite way).

Most of bloggers afraid to upgrade their wordpress to a new version due to lack of upgrading knowledge or low self confident to upgrade. Dude, if you afraid to play with a technical stuff don’t be a blogger. Blogger is not just writing an article but blogger is more than that nowadays. Blogger is a webmaster too. If you don’t take care of your blog who else want to do it for you? Learn from now how to upgrade and it will become easy later. Trust me it’s easy and it just take less than 5 minutes(for me LOL)  to upgrade using a manual step. Okay, lets learn.

Manual Upgrade

1. Backup your database – Use phpMyadmin to backup your database, Your database contain users, post, pages, links, categories and comments. If you done this step, all your posts and comments are safe.
2. Backup all your wordpress files – You must use FTP client to do this step. I’m using Filezilla as my FTP client to do this step. If you don’t know what I mean by ‘all your wordpress files” it’s ok. Just open your FTP and look at your root directory(if you installed your wordpress at root directory), backup all the files and folders that you see there. How to backup them? Download them to your computer and make sure place them in one folder because you will find them easily later.
3. Deactivate all your plugins - All the plugins you use must be deactivate to avoid conflict during upgrading. Don’t ask me how to deactivate them becasue I’m sure all of you know how to do that. If not, kick your ass.
4. Download and extract a latest wordpress version - Go to wordpress.org and download a new version of Wordpress then extract it.
5. Delete all your old wordpress files – Just now I ask you to backup your wordpress files but now you must delete them except the files below.
6. Upload you new wordpress files – Again use FTP client to upload the new wordpress files from you computer hard drive to your site.
7. Run the wordpress upgrade program – Go to Wordpress admin page at the /wp-admin location and follow the instructions.
8. Update permalinks and .htaccess if necessary.
9. Installed updated plugins – make sure you check the list of plugin that compatible with a new Wordpress version.
10. Reactivate plugins

The first 3 steps is very important. Make sure you do it before proceed to the next step.

Files that you should not delete!!!

• wp-config.php file
• wp-content folder
• wp-images folder – only older installation have this folder)
• wp-includes/language/ folder – do not delete this folder if you’re using a language.
• .htaccess
• robots.txt – if you have created this file don’t delete it.

Files that you should not delete!!!

Now What?

Run outside your room and shout out loud! Horray!!! because you just did upgrade successfully. Play around with your new wordpress version and see what has changed.

Let me know what I miss in this post. Let me know too which one do you prefer, manual upgrade or automatic upgrade?