March 31st, 2008Wordpress 2.5 - Know Before Upgrading
Wordpress has released a major upgrade to the 2.x lineup. Wordpress 2.5 has several new features and a completely redesigned administrator area. But before you upgrade to the latest and greatest you should know a few things. Only after testing on a demo blog you should make the switch to your primary website. I rushed to upgrade to WP 2.5 and paid with a broken install and half working plugins.
How To Upgrade
Wordpress has their official upgrade procedure on hot to go about upgrading your installed files and MySql database. But there is a much easier way. Techie-Buzz has a Wordpress Automatiic Upgrade plugin which makes upgrading a breeze. This has saved me countless minutes on all previous WP upgrades. The plugin automates the whole process - deactivates active plugins, downloads the latest release, upgrades the files and directories and even upgrades the MySql database. On all Wordpress upgrades (including to current version) this plugin has worked like a charm.
Wordpress 2.5 Upgrade Woes
The sorrow starts when re-activating the plugins after the upgrade completes. Many of the plugins are generating fatal errors when trying to activate. Most of the popular posts plugins are following this trend. I am currently trying to circumvent the errors by using Mint Popular Posts plugin which uses its own Mint database for generating a list of most read posts. A sample screenshot is provided below.
Another gripe with Wordpress 2.5 is the lack of functionality of the hyped one-click plugin upgrade feature. This is one of the most important reasons why I moved to the new WP release so quick. But I have failed to see this feature become successful for many of the plugins I tried to upgrade. In my experience Akismet and Clean Archives plugins one-click upgrade has failed but Commentluv, All in One SEO and Automatic Upgrade plugins have worked.
Overall the upgrade experience has been bearable and has not crashed my website. Yet! I will have to keep an eye on the install over the next couple of days and test different plugins with caution. I would advise you to test plugins first and upgrade second.
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