{"id":1506076,"date":"2020-11-12T10:40:09","date_gmt":"2020-11-12T10:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpx.net\/blog\/?p=1506076"},"modified":"2023-11-02T12:12:24","modified_gmt":"2023-11-02T12:12:24","slug":"should-you-set-your-wordpress-site-to-automatically-update-everything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpx.net\/blog\/should-you-set-your-wordpress-site-to-automatically-update-everything\/","title":{"rendered":"Should You Set Your WordPress Site To Automatically Update Everything?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/span>The Argument FOR<\/u> Auto-Updating Your WordPress Sites<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to WordPress, there are at least THREE main software components to keep in mind: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[1] WordPress (sometimes called the “WP core”)
[2] Themes\/templates
[3] Plugins<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s start with WordPress plugins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my view, the single best thing and single worst thing about WordPress is plugins. On the one hand, these open-source software add-ons allow us to heavily customize our WP sites in ways not easily possible with a more ‘normal’ kind of website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They add flexibility, amazing value for (no) money, and specific functionality and have created a vast ecosystem of developers and software entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cool right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet at the same time, they have opened up something of a ‘Pandora’s Box’ in three distinct ways:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Security vulnerabilities<\/b> in (too) many plugins have proven to be a hacker’s fantasy and a lot of these aren’t even discovered for years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes, with popular plugins, hundreds of thousands of sites can be affected<\/b><\/a>, even when the plugins were built by experienced coders. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Software vulnerabilities are just a fact of life generally – even Intel had their own major issues with the Meltdown bug<\/b><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, even a completely up-to-date plugin can have an unknown exploit waiting for hackers or anti-hackers to find.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plus, an inactive plugin can still be a security risk even if it is disabled and not set to Active!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. WordPress sites can also become very slow and heavy<\/b> with too many plugins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wrote about this here<\/a> <\/b>and the all-time record for the most plugins on one site that we have seen at WPX was just over 200!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s not the worst part though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The worst part is that in most cases, the site owner isn’t even using many\/most of those plugins anymore – hello “shiny object syndrome<\/b><\/a>” – but didn’t get around to removing them, and probably never will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WPX is all about\u00a0the <\/b>speed of page loading<\/b><\/a>\u00a0(support too<\/b><\/a>!) and it’s a shame that sometimes our hard work on the hosting end gets undone by a ton of (mostly unused but not deleted) plugins slowing a site down – especially on the WP Admin backend – to a frustrating crawl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short, we’re all hoarding too many plugins, we all need to audit those and delete the unwanted\/unused ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But apart from the raw number of plugins, just one badly coded plugin can cause a ton of trouble for a server or other plugins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Software conflicts<\/b> – see the section below, “The Argument AGAINST Auto-Updating Your WordPress Sites<\/b>” (WordPress has these switched OFF by default too).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/span>How To Turn ON Auto-Updating For Your Plugins<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Since WordPress 5.5, auto-updating plugins and themes\/templates have been an option.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s start with plugins BUT make sure to read the case AGAINST enabling this option below BEFORE flicking the switch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inside your WordPress Admin<\/b> area, on the left menu<\/b>, click on Plugins <\/b>to bring up the full list of inactive and active plugins installed on your site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Above the list, you can see a check box called, mysteriously, Plugin <\/b>(the top red arrow below is pointing to it). Click it to tick it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From the drop-down menu above the Plugin <\/b>check box, choose Enable Auto-updates<\/b> and then click on the Apply <\/b>button – that’s it, job done:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Just make sure that you use a safety option like the one described below, in case a plugin (or theme) auto-update brings your whole site down (it happens).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/span>How To Turn On Auto-Updating For Your Themes\/Templates<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If you are NOT using a customized theme (e.g. you paid a developer to make one in a specific way), WordPress also allows the auto-updating of normal themes\/templates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To do this, and it has to be one theme at a time though you are probably settled on one particular template anyway, go to the left menu in your WordPress Admin<\/b> area to Appearance<\/b>–Themes<\/b>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click on Themes <\/b>to see the options currently available. Then hover your mouse over your current, installed theme\/template where you should see a Theme Details<\/b>. Click on that Theme Details<\/strong> button. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

You should now see a link – follow the red arrow below – called Enable auto-updates<\/b>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click on that to enable it and this must be done SEPARATELY for each theme\/template you want to update automatically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/span>Backup Warnings If An Update Breaks Your Site<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

One way to imperfectly monitor if your site has gone offline due to an auto-update of plugins, themes or WordPress itself is to create a free account at UptimeRobot.com<\/b><\/a> and monitor your site status there (they email you if your site goes offline).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, we track our own sites there and you can get occasional false positives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A quick way to cross-check whether your site is actually live on the Web is via downforeveryoneorjustme.com<\/b><\/a> or a Pingdom Tools<\/b><\/a> scan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If your site is broken, it will show a failed result on those services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/span>What About Auto Updates Of WordPress Itself?<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Apart from WordPress plugins and WordPress themes\/templates, there is the matter of updating WordPress itself (remember, this is often referred to as a core update<\/b>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is no option (yet!) inside WordPress to enable that AND WordPress core updates can be a little buggy for the first week or two after the update so it’s NOT recommended to set that on autopilot anyway – you have been warned!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But if you’re determined to do that, it can be set up with a free plugin (yes, another plugin) called Easy Updates Manager<\/b><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even hosting companies who automatically update all of their customers’ sites to the latest version of WordPress (WPX does NOT, for the reasons detailed on this page) usually wait a few weeks after a new core update release for any bugs to be ironed out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/span>The Argument AGAINST<\/u> Auto-Updating Your WordPress Sites<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Unlike some hosting services, WPX does\u00a0NOT <\/b>currently auto-update the sites of WPX customers (plugins,\u00a0 themes\/templates, or WordPress itself).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Huh, why not?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The simple reason is that in the past we have had far too many WPX customers’ sites break when a plugin, template, or WordPress auto-updated and it brought the whole site down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to hosting, a LOT of software has to get along peacefully with other software for a site to run properly.<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Often (too often!) though, there are software conflicts between plugins, conflicts between plugins and WordPress versions, and conflicts between plugins and PHP versions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plus, most plugins for WordPress out there are free (58,000+ at last count just in the WP repository<\/b><\/a>) and generally coded by well-meaning amateurs who often fail to understand the server or environmental impact of their programming decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you think it’s strange that <\/b>WPX<\/a> does not auto-update, remember that WordPress itself has auto-update turned OFF by default and it needs to be enabled for BOTH plugins and templates (and via a <\/b>plugin<\/b><\/a> for the WordPress core) – what does that tell you about the risk factor?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short, we leave that decision up to you about your site but if you DO want to enable auto-updates on your WP blog, the steps above show you exactly how to do that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Argument FOR Auto-Updating Your WordPress Sites When it comes to WordPress, there are at least THREE main software components to keep in mind:  [1] WordPress (sometimes called the “WP core”)[2] Themes\/templates[3] Plugins Let’s start with WordPress plugins. In my view, the single best thing and single worst thing about WordPress is plugins. On the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2015369,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[103],"class_list":["post-1506076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wordpress"],"blocksy_meta":[],"authors":[{"term_id":103,"user_id":1,"is_guest":0,"slug":"wpx_blog3826","display_name":"Terry Kyle","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9819e4a6f61650acc8fb4bcf3113de879a44c80a9cac414c99dc514ff0800331?s=96&d=mm&r=g","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1506076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1506076"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/wpx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1506076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2016678,"href":"https:\/\/wpx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1506076\/revisions\/2016678"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2015369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1506076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1506076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1506076"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=1506076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}