Legacy updates from v2.8 to v3.x or later

For anyone who, for whatever reason, needs to update a very old version of WordPress (like 2.8.x era) to the newest 4.X.x release…

Problem: When you attempt to use the automatic update function, you get a blank page (update-core.php) that says: “You do not have sufficient privileges to access this page” – so you cannot update your WP installation.

Solution: Don’t bother with file / directory chmod changes yet. Try this simple fix FIRST, it seems to work for many people. Read the last post on the page…

https://wordpress.org/support/topic/you-do-not-have-sufficient-permissions-5

Basically you do this:

0. Yes – backup your existing site as a failsafe
1. Use myPHP admin to get into your database
2. wp_options > db_version
3. Whatever it says, change it to: 8204
4. Reload your WP site admin page
5. Let it “update your database”
6. The automatic update should now work

Don’t ask me why…LOL… but it seems to work for lot’s of old WP sites.

Shalom 🙂