[wp-testers] Does auto update deactivate plugins?

[Kirk M]

Ideally, that would be true but with all the various combination of 
server set ups/WordPress configurations this is not often the case.

In my experience in helping out other WP bloggers when their upgrades go 
bad, I'd have to say that close to 90% of the problems in upgrading 
(milestone releases) were caused by attempting to overwrite the 
"wp-admin" and "wp-includes" directories (with all their respective 
sub-directories) rather than deleting these directories first and then 
uploading the new ones from the next version. And nearly 100% of those 
problems were fixed by going back in and deleting the "wp-admin" and 
"wp-includes" directories and re-uploading them. Ideally overwriting 
these directories should work with no problem but in practice, it seldom 
does (even the instructions for upgrading at Wordpress.org says to 
delete those two directories first).

I could be wrong but if I remember correctly, the auto-update feature 
overwrites any files/directories that need updating. For the minor "in 
between" security/bug fix releases, this is fine.

But with major milestones, whole directories/sub-directories are 
replaced and if overwriting during the core auto-update is the current 
way of doing things then I would definitely do this type of upgrade 
manually.

But to answer your question directly, since the larger portion of WP 
upgrades are those minor ".# " security/bug fix updates that come out 
between milestones, encouraging upgrading and promoting a more secure 
blog is exactly what the new auto-upgrade feature accomplishes. But I 
think it's important for all WP bloggers to realize that it's still very 
necessary to know how to work/manually upgrade their install via FTP 
because there are many times when that's all they'll have to rely on. 
The new core auto-updater is not a replacement for FTP, it's a supplement.

Dissenting views welcome. (and sorry for the long reply...I'm a wordy 
bast***)

On 12/7/2008 12:04 PM, Michael E. Hancock wrote:
> From: "Kirk M" <kmb42vt at gmail.com>
> <snip>
> Then again, it's probably a very good idea not to use the core 
> auto-upgrade feature at all when upgrading to the next major milestone 
> anyway.
> </snip>
>
> I can't imagine why the core upgrade wouldn't be used for ALL updates. 
> Isn't that the point of the whole thing to make it easier to upgrade, 
> to encourage upgrades, to leaving users with more secure blogs?
>
> MichaelH
>
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