But the big problem driving a quick update is a bug in the core upgrade feature. It seems that in the case where the upgrade can’t be completed for some reason, the upgrade feature was deleting the wrong files when it attempted to clean up. Oops!

Fortunately, this problem can be easily fixed by performing a manual upgrade.

Not everyone has been affected by this problem but if it does rear it’s ugly head it can be frustratingly random in that it often doesn’t give a reason as to why it failed. In other words, when this problem does occur, more often than not it leaves no entry in any of the default WordPress error logs of what might have went wrong. And in that case it’s hard to discern from the usual flurry of upgrade problems due to the few non-compatible plugins that always crop up.

For myself and my two little sites it went rather strangely in that both sites use the same plugins, both were running 2.7.1, both are on the same host/server and both are setup the same way with the exception of themes (the site themes were irrelevant in this case anyway). One site auto-upgraded with no problem whatsoever while the other turned belly up and died—badly. And just for the record, I’ve never had any auto-upgrade fail in the past whether it was built-in or by plugin.

For all that it the problem was easily fixed by an old fashioned FTP re-upgrade so to speak and it’s all running along nicely now. And again, not all users have been affected by this although I’ve not come across any solid reason why this is.

Ah, the beauties of doing it yourself–gotta love it (if you didn’t then you’d never be doing it in the first place). And yet another fine reason for always backing up prior to any upgrade.

I’ve never had an upgrade fail, auto or otherwise. However…

The blog that I’ve done absolutely nothing with over the past few months upgraded without a hitch and putted happily down the road without a single hitch or hiccup. This one however, failed to extract the downloaded 2.8 zip file after 5 tries and upon the 6th it finally gave in and successfully completed the upgrade (or so it said) and then promptly threw a 500 error that absolutely refused to go away. To add an extra kick to the whole mess my error logs were completely ignorant of anything that might have gone wrong.

I threw up my hands in surrender, shut down the computer and spent the rest of the day reading a good book.

The next day I brought out my various implements of destruction and went after the problem. After much grunting, groaning and constructive cursing it turned out to be one of 4 plugins that are currently sitting in the penalty box for the foreseeable future until I feel motivated enough to hunt down the offender and have it promptly executed.

Now this old blog is humming right along and I’m liking WordPress 2.8 quite a lot. 795 bugs, many of which have been sitting around for a long time now have been fixed (the devs finally getting down and cleaning out Trac of all the dead weight), a new and much better widget interface (finally) and finely tuned (and faster) database amongst many other fine tunings and performance improvements.

Now if I can only get back to posting on a regular basis without the blog or my body throwing fits all will be well, yes?