In a first for this website, we (and one other site I had hosted in the same account) were brought down for about a day while I had to fix a little issue with a recent update to WordPress. I went from version 3.0.1 to version 3.1.2 and as I always do, I used the Go Daddy backend Application Center to perform the update because it has all the proper permissions and folder access required. If you perform an update through WordPress itself, then Go Daddy claims you can no longer do updates through their tool.
So, anyway, the update failed with the error: Fatal error: Call to undefined function require_wp_db() wp-settings.php on line X and to make matters worse, I was also having an issue with Plugins at the same time. I believe the issue with the plugins was due to me trying to install plugin updates before I had updated my WordPress install….I can surmise that the newer plugins had code that was designed to make them work (better) with the new WP, but who knows. Anyway, the plugins were failing to create their directories and when I looked via FTP, there would be a folder for the plugin but I didn’t have access to open it or delete it.
As concerns the WP update, their support line said that I was on my own with that patch because they only provide limited support for installed applications. Their suggestions:
- Rollback
- Fix manually
- Update through WordPress
To make a long story short, I found the fix to be a combination of #1 and #2. Here’s what I did.
- I rolled back the update
- I disabled or uninstalled all plugins
- Using info gleaned from this link, I decided to grab the wp-includes and wp-admin folders from one of my other sites which updated sucessfully and copy over the folders on the failed update websites. I tried to do this, but was foiled on my first attempt.  On the first site I was able to delete the old wp-includes folder, but after creating a new one, didn’t have access to it to add files. doh!
Go Daddy tech support offered to reset the permissions on my ENTIRE HOSTING ACCOUNT. They quoted me 72hrs but got it done in a day (they’re awesome like that). - I tried again, and was able to copy the folders over. Then, I went back to the Go Daddy App Center and reapplied the update.
- Done.
NOTE: For one of the failed update sites, I had to do this process several times before it finally worked. Please note that there are probably much better ways to manually update a WP install, but I wanted to maintain the ability to perform updates from GD’s App Center. That being said, if anyone out there is a WordPress backend guru and wishes to add to this article some advice that is easier or safer or just altogether better, by all means, please leave a comment! Thanks for reading guys.
