WordPress core and plugin updates

[Craig_Paterson]

Hi there, I have been deleoping a site for a client and they required it to be hosted on BT Business hosting so that they had no disruption to their internal systems.

I had no problem with this until I tried to automatically update some plugins in the WordPress install. This seems to happen every time I try updating plugins. Clicking on the update plugin link seems to progress normally, but towards the end of the update process, the update fails and leaves the installation with a broken plugin. I have to disable the plugin and manually update through FTP. Not an ideal situation.

WordPress has recently been updated to 3.3 and I do not want to have to go through the rigmarole of fixing a broken install if I try an auto update (I have successfully updated many websites on other hosting platforms with no issues).

Please advise as to whether there is an issue with BT Business hosting which prevents successful auto updates of WordPress and WordPress plugins.

[gsharp · Accepted solution]

Hello Craig_Paterson,

i spoke with one of my colleagues and he provided the following fix for your WordPress issues.

Wordpress install

1. Unzip the package in an empty directory and upload everything.

2. Open up wp-config-sample.php with a text editor like WordPad or similar and fill in your database connection details.***

3.Save the file as wp-config.php and upload it.

4. Open wp-admin/install.php in your browser.

This walks you through the 30 second install.

***
DB Name
DB Username
DB Password
Local Host (For BT this is 209.235.144.9)

Thanks for participating,

Graeme

BT Business Support Forum Moderator

[Craig_Paterson]

Thanks for that Graeme, but is there a reason why automatic updates won't work on the BT hosting platform?

Cheers,

Craig

[gsharp]

hello again Craig_Paterson.

There is an issue on our platform that is being looked into but that fix should resolve the issue and automatic updates should work correctly also once those steps have been completed.

Graeme

BT Business Support Forum Moderator

[Craig_Paterson]

Hi Graeme,

Sorry for the delay, been away on holiday and have just tried to connect to the MySQL server, but it has failed at the supplied IP address for the location of the MySQL database.

The IP 209.235.144.9 doesn't allow me to connect, the current website uses sql5c30a.carrierzone.com as the MySQL server which does allow me to connect. 

Tried to Ping 209.235.144.9 and got this result - 10 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100.0% packet loss

I am also very reluctant to mess things up for the current live website (although I do have current backups of all files and database). The instructions provided seem to intimate that a second instance of WordPress would be installed in a separate directory. Is this the intention? And if so, why would this help my situation?

I could do a clean install of WordPress (which is what I did in the first place), but the whole point was that I was trying to avoid having to do another clean install of WordPress and just wanted to be able to update the current installation and its Plugins.

If it comes down to it, I will have to bite the bullet and do a clean installation, but I would rather there was a fix.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Craig

[GarethM]

Has this been completely solved ?, had to reload everything due to not being able to update the plug ins.

This issue has been dragging on for some time now, since January in fact, especially with the ever growing use of Word press websites its an important matter to rectify before customers are forced elsewhere as we can' afford downtime or loss of functionality of plug ins.

Gareth

[Craig_Paterson]

Hi Gareth,

As you will see, there was no reply to my last message. I have yet to try and update any plugins, or the WP core, but I will be doing this shortly. If there are still issues, I will be transferring away from BT servers, as the setup seems rather antiquated in comparison to professional hosting companies.

C

[warriorfullight]

I have also been waiting for an update on this issue for quite some time. I hope BT can take a look at this.

[GarethM]

I've raised a report fault with BT regarding this issue, along with link to the discussion.

Its obviously been faulty since i began hosting my website with BT, so they need to finally get this fixed for everyone's sake.

The number of word press sites is always increasing and considering the costs of hosting a website this shouldn't be an ongoing problem, especially considering the issue was raised in January on a monitored forum!.

Gareth

[GarethM]

This is the response i got regarding this issue :-

Firstly, we don't officially provide support for Wordpress or any third party software for that matter.

Without seeing the error for myself it is difficult to say what is causing the problem. However, after searching online for this problem it seems that Wordpress tries to update the plugins directly, and if this fails due to the folder permissions being incorrect it tries to update using FTP.

I can advise that the FTP method will never work, as the server is configured not to allow FTP connections to itself. This is not a fault but is a deliberate policy by our web hosting admin.

As mentioned, without seeing this for myself it is difficult to say what is causing this, but it sounds like the permissions are incorrect and it is then reverting to FTP (which will not work).

If you need any further assistance, just let me know.

My apologies for any inconvenience this issue has caused.