18 May Why should automatic updates not be enabled?

In its great generosity, WordPress offers automatic updates for your site’s plugins and theme, as well as the WordPress core. Some less-than-scrupulous hosting providers even suggest it, using automated tools.

We strongly advise against it!!!

This is because an automatic update can have the following unpleasant consequences:

1/ Technical bugs: A plugin may become incompatible with your theme, your WordPress version, or another plugin after it is updated.

2/ White screen: More commonly known in the industry as the “White Screen of Death” (the one that kills), this is an error after an update that makes the site completely unavailable. Not funny, is it?

3/ Display: Changes to CSS, theme or plugin files, or structural changes can break your pages’ layout. Are you a fan of Picasso’s Cubist period? If not, you need to consider making backups in specific locations.

4/ Temporary vulnerabilities: Sometimes, a new plugin version contains a critical bug that was not present in the previous version. Yes, new is sometimes the enemy of good. For new major versions, it is better to wait a little rather than rush in.

5/ Server conflicts: A new WordPress version (plugins as well as themes) may require a more recent PHP version than the one currently used by your hosting… Therefore, it is best to carry out at least once a year an inspection of the hosting PHP version before any update.

At CybSyn, we assign a specific PHP version to each hosting plan, to ensure the choices made with you for your site are optimised.

For our extremely cautious hypochondriac clients who want complete peace of mind, we even go as far as creating an identical copy of their site to test updates before applying them to the live site. This way, we ensure everything is correct and operational before pressing the red button.

In all cases, we perform a temporary backup of the directory and the database before any update, we check certain versions, PHP, and we never rush to install a new major “super version” that could break everything.

If we detect an anomaly, we find a solution; at worst, we restore the site as it was and inform the client promptly.

Find us just one other hosting provider that updates your WordPress site manually AND with expertise…