WordPress and GoDaddy Hosting Issues

I’m creating this post in hopes that it helps others resolve the issue where plugins don’t properly update on a GoDaddy hosting account.

First a little background:
I’ve used GoDaddy for hosting and domain registration for years, and I’ve developed in a Windows (FrontPage and Expression Web) environment. About a year and a half ago I installed my first WordPress site and have since installed about a dozen more for my work and my freelance clients. The initial installs went fine, but I have had trouble for over a year when it came to updating the plugins. They would unpack, delete the correct files and presumably the folder, then try to create the folder to install the files only to show a “failed installation” message because the folder currently existed.

This was frustrating, especially if several plugin updates were available. I would ultimately have to log into GoDaddy via FTP and try to manually delete the folder. Sometimes it would allow me to, and other times I got a message that the folder didn’t exist, even though the FTP window shows it there. After about 1/2-hour, I could search for the plugin I was trying to update and then sometimes it would allow me to reinstall it.

This resulted in no less than 3 failed tech support attempts at GoDaddy, as their techs always tell me it’s a WordPress issue and not a server issue. Well, yesterday, July 17, 2011, I made my final call to GoDaddy with the thought that if it doesn’t get resolved this time around I would find a different host even though that meant a lot of my own time moving sites and hosting.

Resolution:
After spending over a 1/2-hour on the phone explaining my issues on two different domain names and installs of WordPress, the tech wasn’t able to help me. I was about to give up, when the tech said that he noticed that those two hosting accounts were set up on a Windows hosting server and WordPress would run faster and better on a Linux server. I made the changes through the GoDaddy Control Panel to move the hosting from the Windows to the Linux environment and that solved the issue!

I did that to all but 1 of my accounts and plugin updates went smooth and flawlessly, and even updating WordPress from 3.1 to 3.2.1 went smoothly and quickly. The account I left on the Windows hosting account would continue to hang during the WordPress 3.2.1 update and would give me the errors on the plugin updates.

Conclusion:
If you are hosting your WordPress at GoDaddy and are having issues with plugin or WordPress updates, make sure it’s on a Linux hosting account and not a Windows account and updates should go smoothly.