WordPress 3.2, auto update fail

Today, while on my lunch hour, I decided to auto update my blog to WordPress 3.2. Usually it goes without a hitch; unfortunately today it didn’t. I’m not quite sure what happened but it failed within a couple of seconds. Damn it! It may be a Dreamhost issue as I’ve seen reports of other users having similar issues, or it could be just bad luck.

If you have a similar issue the first thing you may notice, when trying to get to your site is that maintenance mode is “enabled”. To disable this connect to hosting server via FTP (or SSH) and delete the file ‘.maintenance’. The file may be hidden so you may have to enable viewing hidden files in your FTP client. Once deleted you should once again be able to see your site (fingers crossed!).

The next issue I had was not being able to log into my site admin panel. Navigating to the page gave me a horrible fatal PHP error; a sure sign that something was very broken. Not to worry there’s a (fairly) simple fix.

While logged onto your server via FTP or SSH, delete the ‘wp-admin’ and the ‘wp-includes’ folder. Make sure you don’t delete the ‘wp-content’ folder! Once that’s done download a copy of WordPress 3.2, unzip it and upload the unzipped ‘wp-admin’ and the ‘wp-includes’ folders to your server. Once complete you should be able to see your WordPress login page again! Yay!

You may be asked to update your database, go ahead and click the update button and login. Now take in all the goodness that is version 3.2 of WordPress! The guys have done a superb job with the admin panel, love the new design. Glad to hear they have also dropped IE6 support too. About bloody time!

So a quick summary for the tr;dr’s out there:

1. Maintenance mode on? Delete ‘.maintenance’.
2. Delete ‘wp-admin’ and the ‘wp-includes’ folders (Not ‘wp-content’!)
3. Download a copy of WordPress and unzip it.
4. Upload the unzipped ‘wp-admin’ and the ‘wp-includes’ folders.
5. Navigate to the admin page, update database and login.
6. Extra: In some cases you may also need to upload the wp-settings.php file then navigate to the admin page.

Phew, crisis averted! Now’s a good time to reiterate what is mentioned on the updates page. Always remember to back-up your database and files before you run an update. If something does break with the auto update you can always revert to your backup!