Upgrading to Wordpress 2.7.1
Posted by Netsato on February 18th, 2009Thank God for backups. I recently took the dive and upgraded to Wordpress 2.7.1 for my personal blog. I had been stuck on Wordpress 2.1 since the day I launched this thing, but finally decided to do the upgrade when a client asked me to assist them with starting a blog. I figured, it was time to see what the latest software was like. The upgrade was a nightmare.
My executive summary of my experience for anyone taking the upgrade leap: 1) backup everything, 2) research the upgrade process, 3) document your customizations so you can duplicate them, and 4) don’t start at 1:00 in the morning!
Of those four points, I was careful about the first - I did a full backup of my site AND backend database. I failed on the other three. Result? By 2:00 am I had totally hosed my website. Oh Sh@!%*! But because I had been careful about my backups, by 3:00 I was back to an operating website on Wordpress 2.1.
Where did I go wrong? My primary mistake was not fully preparing for the really minor customizations I had made to the core Wordpress files sooo many years ago. Without making those simple changes in my new install of Wordpress, I had broken the relationship between the software and my database.
After getting handle on these customizations, and tried the upgrade process again and am happy to report that it was pain free. It pays to be prepared. My thoughts on 2.7? From the short time I’ve spent with it so far, it looks like a worthy upgrade…but a full review, well, that’s another story.
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