Update to 9.0.2 failed…twice on Managed WordPress GoDaddy

Resolved Andrew Arthur Dawson
(@andrewarthurdawson)

3 years, 6 months ago
@macmanx @jeherve James/Jeremey/Jetpack, I have been running successfully for some time with Jetpack overall through version 9.0.1. I’ve updated every single time on my Managed WordPress all the way through all the versions of 8 forward with no hiccups on Managed WordPress. Tonight, I saw that 9.0.2 was out and I thought hey, I should update. I did, and I got the following:

Update failed: <!DOCTYPE HTML>500 Internal Server ErrorInternal Server ErrorThe server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.Please contact the server administrator to inform them of the time this error occurred, and the actions you performed just before this error.More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

The first time it eventually rolled back into my wp-admin dashboard and was back to running at 9.0.1 telling me there still was an update. I contacted GoDaddy and talked to their tech support and they looked at the server logs and saw nothing. The rep then said to update again. So I did. The second time completely hosed my WordPress account. From her end, she saw it was trying to make a core files update and crashed the system. They were unable to see what was being updated, but whatever you guys are trying to update in this version, it’s not ok with Managed WordPress.

I am now back to running on 9.0.1 again and am unable to update to 9.0.2 because it does not seem to be compatible with my Ultimate Managed WordPress account.

I am running Version 5.5.1 of WordPress.
I am running the WordPress 2016 theme.
I am on their latest PHP they have available under Managed WordPress which is 7.3.12.
I have been running fine with my site and all my plugins through 9.0.1 with NO issues AT ALL.

My plugins even deactivated still cause this update to fail. But as an FYI, my plugins are: Akismet, Classic Editor, Jetpack (of course), Really Simple SSL, Relevanssi, Scheduled Post Trigger, Search Engine Visibility

GoDaddy support ran debug on my second attempt and said indeed this is failing during a core file update and it doesn’t show where, just that it does. To correct the issue and get me back up and running, they had to roll me back to the last backup and resubmit the core files, essentially refreshing my entire site.

Oh, and I did run the Jetpack Debug, no issues. And nothing is coming up in my site health either. Deactivating and reactivating Jetpack doesn’t help either. This indeed is in the new version… and probably is something not compatible with the Managed WordPress.

Please have your developers look into this because I’ve exhausted all my avenues and debugs and such and can only wait until a new version of Jetpack that will hopefully work.
- This topic was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by Andrew Arthur Dawson.
The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 21 total)

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Sean
(@sean-h)

3 years, 6 months ago
Just updated all 8 sites in my Siteground GoGeek managed WP account to 9.0.2, zero problems. Divi theme, php 7.3, latest everything else.
- This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by Sean.
Thread Starter Andrew Arthur Dawson
(@andrewarthurdawson)

3 years, 6 months ago

@sean-h Well, the main difference is that you are on Siteground GoGeek which is not Godaddy and sadly Godaddy has notoriously had issues with Jetpack. Before version 7 came around, the plugin was too big and many of us on Godaddy Managed WordPress couldn’t update because of time outs. Did you know that more than 50 percent of Managed WordPress accounts are hosted on Godaddy? I’ve been with them for seven years and posted every day. To move off of them now and migrate to another platform is an expense and a lot of energy I don’t have with my lack of job and health issues. Regardless, Godaddy at least saw in the logs during the attempted update that Jetpack was trying to update the core files and that’s when it crapped out and hosed my entire site up. After trying it twice and being down for almost an hour and a half I gave up on 9.0.2 and am hoping Jetpack can figure it out as I’ve exhausted all my abilities to fix it on my end. All I know is that I’ve had zero issues updating Jetpack between the versions 7’s to 9.0.1. And other than this plugin updating and WordPress moving to the latest version, nothing has changed on my site whatsoever in over a year. I love jetpack for what it does for me but I honestly get really frustrated at the ongoing problems over the years with them and GoDaddy. Godaddy tells me it always Jetpack’s fault and jetpack always tells me it’s Godaddys fault. And I’m stuck in the middle with zero options. Ugh. Well anyway, I probably told you a lot more than you needed to know but I’m glad your update went well. Hopefully they can test their managed WordPress on godaddy and figure this out as there is nothing I’ve done that could have caused this seeing nothing has changed but jetpack in so long.
Sean
(@sean-h)

3 years, 6 months ago
It’s quite possible that GoDaddy has changed something on their servers, but will never admit it. All hosts are fiddling with their core server software all the time, Siteground included. Just some are much better at it than others.

If you have more than 1 site, have a look at Siteground’s Grown Big plan. (Their Starter takes only 1 site) Yes, prices are a little elevated compared to GoDaddy, but, you will spend a whole lot less time with problems like these. You will have less problems in general. You just admitted you’ve had problems in the past with GoMaddy (Yes, I spelled that wrong on purpose) Siteground also have their very own brand new, but very well developed control panel that is an absolute pleasure to use. It may well be worth it to just bite the bullet and move elsewhere.

How much is your time worth to you?
- This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by Sean.
Thread Starter Andrew Arthur Dawson
(@andrewarthurdawson)

3 years, 6 months ago

@sean-h I agree with you that Godaddy can be a little mad sometimes with things. Yes they indeed do change their server configs from time to time this screwing up plugins, except the only one this has ever happened with is jetpack. Regardless, here’s the thing, I have about a 1st grader understanding of WordPress and other than hitting update for a plugin I don’t know how to do much else. So to migrate it would either be me hiring someone to do so without money that I don’t have or expertise I don’t have. Hence why I stay with Godaddy. I also do like that they are available 24/7 by phone and I have many a times been on the phone with them at times like 3am. Other competitors don’t have that kind of service sadly. So long story to end here, I’m at the mercy of both them and Jetpack to fix this with little to no expertise or money to do a damn thing about it. 🙁

Sean
(@sean-h)

3 years, 6 months ago

Sorry I can’t be of much more help. I’m sure the Jetpack guys will be along shortly to shed more light on this, so hang in there.

If there is maybe one piece of advice I can give about updates; wait a full day or 2 before you hit the update button. No, I do not use any auto plugin/theme update feature. I do it all myself, one site at a time, and then I check each site, for this very reason. It happens to the best of them, Jetpack included, but sometimes an update is released a tad prematurely and they have to then issue another update in quick succession to fix the previous update. No idea if that’s the case here, but it happens occasionally.

Also, if you are interested, when you see updates on the updates page, there will be a link ‘view details’ just under or to the right of the respective plugin. Clicking on that will open a pop-up with brief details about the update, and what is being changed. It should help to know what is being fixed and how urgent the update is. If it is just cosmetic changes and tweaks, it can wait. If it’s an urgent security issue, it will say so.

Thread Starter Andrew Arthur Dawson
(@andrewarthurdawson)

3 years, 6 months ago

@sean-h I just want to thank you for responding. I don’t have auto updates on for that very reason too. I did look at the description of the update after it crashed my site but I was unable to understand a lick of it sadly. Whatever is causing the 500 internal sever error with each attempted update is beyond me and I pray Jetpack will have some better idea. I won’t be so quick now to update to a new version I can at least say that.
Plugin Author Jeremy Herve
(@jeherve)

Jetpack Mechanic 🚀

3 years, 6 months ago
Sorry to hear you’re running into issues during an update. This is not the first time it happens to you if I recall 🙁

On our end, we haven’t had any other reports from conflicts between Jetpack’s latest version and GoDaddy’s hosting plans. In fact, the update was successful on our own GoDaddy test sites. The problem may consequently be limited to your own hosting plan.

It may be worth trying to log in to your site via FTP or CPanel, and delete the existing Jetpack plugin folder.

You’ll find the Jetpack plugin folder here:
```
wp-content
   plugins
     jetpack - DELETE THIS FOLDER
```
If you’re not sure how to do this, you can ask your hosting company for help. They should also have documentation explaining how to edit or remove files from your site using FTP or a File Manager in your admin panel.

Once you’ve done so, you should be able to reinstall the latest version of the Jetpack plugin from scratch, by going to Plugins > Add New in your dashboard.

Let us know how it goes.

GoDaddy support ran debug on my second attempt and said indeed this is failing during a core file update and it doesn’t show where, just that it does

Would they happen to have more details about this? Plugin updates cannot modify core WordPress files, so if folks from GoDaddy support see core WordPress files being modified, it means that a WordPress version update is being run.
Thread Starter Andrew Arthur Dawson
(@andrewarthurdawson)

3 years, 6 months ago

@jeherve yes indeed it is not the first time. But it’s been at least over a year this hasn’t happened with any updates with Jetpack. With the plugins I just want to make sure you don’t see any conflicts with any of them with jetpack do you? Also very single time I had issues in the last and I mean every single time it was due to a time out. Basically not enough memory resources on their server. This was a 500 internal server error both times and something I have never seen before. I don’t even know what a 500 error indicates with this update? What changed between 9.0.1 and 9.0.2 that maybe could lead to this? I read the change log and it’s like reading Greek to me. Do you have the ultimate managed word press for your test platforms and could you mimic my site with the 2016 theme to see if the update causes the issue? I know this is a lot of questions but I don’t believe it’s truly related specific to me. Maybe not enough have upgraded to the mini new version. I’m running fine on 9.0.1 and have been on everything other version since the late 7’s. Maybe your developers can contact the server people at godsddy who I can’t speak to and find out if they changed something in the server configuration? And yes, I have deleted jetpack before in the past, it just was a very challenging effort for me so I would like to brainstorm and keep this forum open to see if anyone else has a problem. For me, with not having made any changes on my site other than theme or jetpack or WordPress updates, this again frustrates me as I didn’t do anything to cause this.
Sean
(@sean-h)

3 years, 6 months ago
Hi Andrew,

I’ve been looking to see if there have been similar issues, I think I found just one. I’m afraid to say it could well be something within your particular setup, but I don’t think GoDaddy nor Jetpack can help you fix it, even though it appears it is their fault. If it was a wider issue, it would be well covered by now. These things/anomalies happen all the time, but to keep on top of them you do kind of need to have a knack for it.

With that said, it would seem you have a choice to make; either hire someone to help you fix and maintain your site, as you have admitted this stuff is way over your head, or move to the free wordrpess.com platform where you will not have to ever worry about any of this. In fact, I think it is nigh impossible to break a wp.com website. What you could then do is keep your domain and point it at your wp.com site. You would only have to pay yearly for the domain which you could just leave registered where it is right now. So no, you don’t have to transfer your domain with your content.

https://wordpress.com/support/moving-from-self-hosted-wordpress-to-wordpress-com/

Assuming you want the free hosting, you will want option 2.

https://transferto.wordpress.com/self-hosted-wordpress-org/2/
- This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by Sean.
Thread Starter Andrew Arthur Dawson
(@andrewarthurdawson)

3 years, 6 months ago

@sean-h Did you happen to see what the setup was exactly with the other case? Honestly, my hope is that more will fail so that it gets fixed. My judgment though is the server setup is causing this. For the life of me I can’t see how my configuration is causing this. I barley use plugins, I’m running a WordPress theme (2016), and I’m running current PHP and WordPress. What really could be causing my specific setup? The only weird thing about mine setup is that I’ve posted every day a text article for seven years straight so there is a lot of data. That’s about it though?

Sean
(@sean-h)

3 years, 6 months ago

No, I don’t know more about that case other than it sounded similar. It is in this main support forum, a few threads above this one.

I hate to break it to you, but I don’t think more are going to fail, if they were, they would have done so by now.

Just because you barely use plugins doesn’t mean anything, it only takes one to bring the whole house down. In fact, a single syntax character in the wrong place will bring it all to an abrupt halt.

I’m busy now with a new proposal site for a prospective client, so I have to go.

Thread Starter Andrew Arthur Dawson
(@andrewarthurdawson)

3 years, 6 months ago

@sean-h i really appreciate your responses. Based upon others having full success with the upload to the new version, yes I agree there probably is a compatibility issue or weird snafu with my managed WordPress server. I have a tendency to believe it really has nothing to do though with a plugin I am using, as the ones I’m using don’t affect much at all and have been with me without changed for at least 6 months with multiple jetpack versions. For it to abruptly break with changed on my part leads me to believe that jetpack introduced something new in 9.0.2 to being this about with my specific server config. Of course it could always be a hiccup in the server going on that night I tried twice in a row and be fine if I tried again. Either way, I’m leaning towards waiting for a later version of jetpack we that is what I did back in the 7’s and it corrected itself and I personally never changed a thing. It’s funny though, I’ve not had a single issue on my WordPress in the past five years except for where jetpack is concerned. And ironically, all the tech support had said the majority of their WordPress tech support calls deal with the jetpack plugin. Go figure. I love the plugin but I don’t like how it interacts on Managed WordPress for me in Godaddy. I have a number of readers now subscribed and thousands of articles written that moving to another host or ditching jetpack just isn’t feasible for me. So I can either hope for more to fail on this to find the problem, for it to correct itself in later versions, or so just stick it out with an older version all the time. If by some chance you have the link to that other case that sounded similar can you put the link in a response as I’m not sure where it is? Thanks!

Sean
(@sean-h)

3 years, 6 months ago

Currently 4 topics above this one, ‘Fatal error while trying to update.’

https://wordpress.org/support/topic/fatal-error-while-trying-to-update/

Plugin Author Jeremy Herve
(@jeherve)

Jetpack Mechanic 🚀

3 years, 6 months ago

With the plugins I just want to make sure you don’t see any conflicts with any of them with jetpack do you?

None of those plugins should conflict with Jetpack.

This was a 500 internal server error both times and something I have never seen before. I don’t even know what a 500 error indicates with this update?

Without more details about the exact error, I’m afraid I can’t really tell you more about what could have caused this. You or someone from Godaddy support should be able to find the exact error message and the impacted file in your site’s error logs. Only then can we really know what happened.

Quoting your previous exchanges with Godaddy support, you said:

From her end, she saw it was trying to make a core files update and crashed the system.

This would seem to indicate that they knew what file was causing the error, and that the file in question was a core WordPress file. This would seem to indicate that the problem isn’t linked to Jetpack, but without knowing the exact error message I can’t really say for sure. Could you ask them to let you know, and then post the error here?

What changed between 9.0.1 and 9.0.2 that maybe could lead to this?

I can’t really think of anything right now, but maybe the error message will tell us more.

Do you have the ultimate managed word press for your test platforms and could you mimic my site with the 2016 theme to see if the update causes the issue?

We don’t. Our test sites use a lower hosting plan at Godaddy.

I have deleted jetpack before in the past, it just was a very challenging effort for me

If you don’t feel comfortable doing this on your own, you could ask Godaddy support to do it for you. You would then be able to install the latest version of the plugin straight from the Plugins menu.

The only weird thing about mine setup is that I’ve posted every day a text article for seven years straight so there is a lot of data.

You can rest assured. WordPress, even on very cheap hosting plans, should really have no issues handling that many posts. I personally have 8,475 posts on my own personal site, and I’ve never had any performance issues until now. You will also find eCommerce sites running on WordPress that have several thousands products with no issues.

It’s funny though, I’ve not had a single issue on my WordPress in the past five years except for where jetpack is concerned. And ironically, all the tech support had said the majority of their WordPress tech support calls deal with the jetpack plugin.

A lot of the different posts you’ve created here in the forums over the years point to multiple issues with server resources (failed core, theme, and plugin updates), server configuration (SSL errors), server caching, and server cron (scheduling issues).

Those problems have impacted the Jetpack plugin, since you rely on the plugin for multiple features on your site, and they’ve also impacted the other plugins and features active on your site.

I know we’ve talked about all this at length already, so I don’t want to bother you with this again.

I would however recommend that when faced with issues when trying to update a theme, a plugin, or WordPress itself, you try to run those updates again, but manually, or ask Godaddy to do this for you.

Thread Starter Andrew Arthur Dawson
(@andrewarthurdawson)

3 years, 6 months ago

@jeherve I appreciate the lengthy response. Yes I agree, there has been many server issues over the years that I’ve come across. Sadly, the bulk majority have been Jetpack’s way of handling things that have in turn caused the server to not handle it because it was set up to handle it. On some level I often think that the server team at GoDaddy have probably had to evolve and reconfigure their server configs to handle Jetpack specifically.

Nevertheless, tech support at Godaddy has changed now and not to any benefit of me that’s for sure. Now, if any plugin ends up crashing my site and hoses it up, I have to go to the premium tech support and pay them to fix it for $49 and it takes them 48-72 hours. I almost had to resort to this on this last update and was arguing with the support person about it as she was telling me it was the plugins fault my site’s database was trashed after the attempted update not their fault. And supposedly now when a plugin causes this and not an error that just comes from general wordpress issues it’s going to cost money. I’m pretty upset that I have so many years deep with them and they are now nickel and diming their tech support.

And speaking of tech support, I asked for more specific details on what exactly crashed and they of course were unable to see anything more. 😢 But were more than willing to have me pay money to look into it further with that premium group.

So, I wish I could switch off of them and had the money to do so and wished another hosting company like you guys had 24/7 phone support as that is crucial for me as I don’t operate well with emails and waiting around for responses. So I guess my only thing I can do is try again and if it happens again, I’m going to have to log into FileZilla and delete the jetpack folder.

When doing the jetpack delete, let me clarify these steps with you to make sure I have this right if I have to get to this again:

1. Do I need to deactivate Jetpack first on the plugin page to do this.
2. Is there any other folder necessary to delete for this to be successful other than the jetpack folder in the plugins, as the only other time I had to do this I followed what this guy that was communicating in the forums with you guys and he said he had to delete the .maintenance file?
3. When it is fully deleted, do you just go back to the plugins on the dashboard and select jetpack and download fresh and then activate which will ask you to connect your site with your email used for WordPress and then all my former settings are still there because they aren’t ever deleted in this process since they are stored on your end with my iCloud email address I use?
4. And as a last comment, not really in this setup though, why specifically do you think my site gets these often and rarely do others seem to get them on managed wordpress when my site is literally nothing other than text using a WP theme and bare bones plugins really? There are literally thousands of people probably on my platform using Jetpack and I never hear them on the forums, so why would my config do this on and off, always when I have jetpack updates, (I had this happen only once with a theme conflict and you guys acknowledged it and fixed it) especially when to put it bluntly my site is a dear diary type of setup with nothing special but my personal life in text?