Best practice for updating plugins – advice please

  • juliettem

    (@juliettem)


    8 years, 6 months ago

    Hi there,

    I have recently had a membership site built for me by a developer, which uses a number of different plugins including Paid Memberships Pro. I am getting regular notifications in my WP admin of plugin updates, especially for the PMPro plugin.

    I know that I’m supposed to keep my plugins updated, but I haven’t been doing this as I’m scared of breaking something (there were a number of plugin conflicts during the building process) which caused numerous headaches. As I’m not a techie, I am hoping that someone can advise me of the best way to safely update plugins.

    Do I just need to back up my site and then reinstall it if there is a problem (I don’t yet know how to do this), or do I use a staging site to test the plugins first (I’ve only just learnt about staging sites so don’t yet know how I would go about using one)?

    Feeling rather lost so any advice would be much appreciated!

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Archie Makuwa

    (@archie22is)

    8 years, 6 months ago

    The easiest method:
    – duplicate the project to the same server or a similarly configured server
    – use to test if the updates are successful

    How to do that:
    – Backup your plugins folder (duplicate and rename the copy to something like plugins_bk
    – Backup your database
    – Run updates
    – Check if everything works
    – Do the same on the live site if everything works

    Thread Starter juliettem

    (@juliettem)

    8 years, 6 months ago

    Thanks very much for your help @archie22is. Because of my ‘non-techie’ status, can I just clarify a couple of things:

    1) When you say ‘duplicate the project to the same server or a similarly configured server’, is that the same thing as creating a staging site?

    2) If I update and run the plugins on the duplicate project and they break something, do I then replace the plugins folder and database (on the duplicate site) with the back-up folder and back-up database that I made earlier?

    3) OR do I use the duplicate project/site to test the updated plugins and if it breaks, I then have to create another duplicated site and start again? ie, can I use the duplicated site numerous times for testing.

    Sorry, these questions probably sound really dumb, but all this stuff is very confusing to me.

    Archie Makuwa

    (@archie22is)

    8 years, 6 months ago

    1) When you say ‘duplicate the project to the same server or a similarly configured server’, is that the same thing as creating a staging site? – Yes, that way you have a similar project to the live that you can run your tests on.

    2) If I update and run the plugins on the duplicate project and they break something, do I then replace the plugins folder and database (on the duplicate site) with the back-up folder and back-up database that I made earlier? – Yes (but I recommend running one update at a time just to make sure nothing is broken)

    3) OR do I use the duplicate project/site to test the updated plugins and if it breaks, I then have to create another duplicated site and start again? ie, can I use the duplicated site numerous times for testing. No – if it breaks, you can simply restore the working plugin. You will get a hang of it 😉

    Thread Starter juliettem

    (@juliettem)

    8 years, 6 months ago

    OK, thanks very much for your help. Looks like I’ll need to get myself a staging site! Much appreciated.

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