Support » Fixing WordPress » 3.3.1 automatic update leaving blank front-end

  • (@disonancias)


    I manage several WP-powered sites. I just upgraded all of them from 3.3 to 3.3.1 and watched how the automatic update process broke the front-end (preventing it from loading at all) in many of them; I couldn’t get those sites to work even deactivating all plugins and switching to Twenty Eleven theme. I restored a backup, performed a manual update, and everything worked like a charm.

    It didn’t happen in all of my sites, some of them applied the automatic update just as expected.

    I didn’t have yet the time to track this down, so I don’t know if it’s a WP bug, a plugin-related issue or what. But still wanted to share it with you guys, in case someone else is having similar problems, so we can collectively work it out.

    Cheers,

    Ricardo

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • WordPress will usually create a .maintenance file while it is upgrading so that somebody trying to access the site knows what is going on. If something gets corruped/interrupted while the file still exists it could cause issues similar to what you describe.

    http://codex.wordpress.org/FAQ_Troubleshooting#How_to_clear_the_.22Briefly_unavailable_for_scheduled_maintenance.22_message_after_doing_automatic_upgrade.3F

    Did you notice a similar issue or was it something entirely different? If different, how exactly did the front end “break”?

    Thread Starter

    (@disonancias)

    I didn’t check for the .maintenance file, but the behaviour wasn’t as it is described there. The front-end wouldn’t even load, it was like loading a PHP file with no code at all in it.

    The other strange thing was that, in those sites, the automatic upgrade process switched the backend language from Spanish (the one we’re using) to English. That’s something I’ve never seen or heard before.

    My best guess is that there’s a plugin or function active in those sites which is preventing the process to complete, but it’s a long shot. As far as I know, the upgrade process updates core files and DB tables but doesn’t interact with plugins and themes.

    True, it ‘usually’ doesn’t break things but that doesn’t mean that a function couldn’t have been deprecated that a plugin is trying to call.

    Lots of different variables though!

    This happened to 3 out of 4 sites I tried it on. I’m waiting until the next update. I’m glad I run backups!

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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