I’m working in WordPress 2.3.1.
Whenever I open my administration page for this website, I am greeted with “WordPress 3.3.1 is available! Please update now.” As you can see, there are two links here. Presumably, they are here to help me Do The Big Update.
Some weeks have passed since I last had to take this nightmarish software seriously. My wounds are closed. Thanks to some superb nursing, and the secret knowledge of a South Carolinian herbalist, most of my scars are invisible. Nevertheless, I am cautious, even chary, as I approach the interface. I know these people for what they are, namely, deranged gearheads, hooked on PHP and XML, living lives of junk food and 5-Hour-Energy (or, worse, Red Bull) in windowless soundproofed basement rooms reeking of cigarette smoke because the 23-year-old “boss” smokes four packs a day. I’ll have to progress inch-by-inch, ever on the lookout for loose ends of razor wire whipping my face and concrete blocks lying at cockeyed angles under the muck, waiting to trap my feet and rip the tendons out of my ankles.
The first link goes to a promo for the New&Improved WordPress version. There’s no information I need here. Its presence pisses me off more than I am already, and I’m mighty pissed off. WordPress’s WestCoast tendency to provide promotional copy rather than the instructional help needed makes me want to kill. The ramp-time from “Gee, OK, how do we do this?” to “How much force does it take to push my thumbs through your c-spine?” shortens to instantaneous.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. What’s that second link do?
WordPress Updates
Last checked on January 5, 2012 at 8:31 pm. Check Again
Important: before updating, please back up your database and files. For help with updates, visit the Updating WordPress Codex page.
If you’re like me, you’d expect the next phrase/link to be about “How To Backup Your Database And Files.” However, the next sentence here is,
An updated version of WordPress is available.
- You can update to WordPress 3.3.1–en_US automatically or download the package and install it manually:
This is what I was warned not to do until I backed up my db&files.
So I click on the ‘back up’ link:
Database Backup Instructions
Don’t you believe it.
But they do let something useful slip through their groovy and really friendly foggy “information”. “Your server…”
Got it. WordPress doesn’t have a backup interface for the database. Do it yourself, on your server.
That’s all they need to say. Instead, they give links to every control panel currently in use so that users can do shit with their own files on their servers. What do I know? Maybe they’ve got some information I can use, after all?
My server uses “cpanel” to administer stuff, so I click on the “cpanel” link for more instructions.
cPanel
On your main control panel for cPanel, look for the MySQL logo and click the link to MySQL Databases. On the next page, look for phpMyAdmin link and click it to access your phpMyAdmin.
cPanel Access Databases
cPanel Access to phpMyAdmin
Can you see how to access your WordPress database? Never mind that my cpanel doesn’t look anything like this. It’s been ‘upgraded’ twice since this now-useless screen grab was made. Never mind that ‘backing up’ a database consists of exporting an XML textfile to your computer, and you need to click on “Export”, once you’ve found your WordPress database, and there’s nothing called ‘backup’ in the phpMyAdmin interface. WordPress provides specific instructions every bit as useful as those above for all those other interfaces, and then, pages later, tell you what my ISP support told me in the 26 words italicised above.
That’s why you need an ISP with strong, 24/7 live customer support. To protect you from WordPress.
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That’s only half the backup process. We still need to find and back up The Files. Stylings? Copy? I’m not sure what “and files” means.
I have all the copy in its original textfiles. The pictures are all in their folder. What I don’t have are any Categories, Tabs, external links, etc. But: wouldn’t they all be in the db?
How about the formatting? The WooTheme I’m using (“Canvas”) – where’s all that shit?
I’m gonna have to check with my Woo Guru. She’s in London, I think. 5 hrs ahead.
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Oh! I think maybe I have it! After scrolling down until I can’t scroll any further, I’ve come across a link (fourth in a column of seven) – “Backing Up Your WordPress Files“. It goes to another page.
“There are two parts to backing up your WordPress site: Database and Files.” it says. I find it reassuring.
“Everything that has anything to do with the look and feel of your site is in a file somewhere and needs to be backed up. Additionally, you must back up all of your files in your WordPress directory (including subdirectories) and your .htaccessfile.”
That’s cool. But if I’m backing up all the functional software, all the programming and everything, what’s going to be “upgraded”?
Slowly comes the dawn. I’m “backing up”. In case something bad happens in the upgrade to 3.3.1, I can at least go back to 2.3.1 and try my upgrade again.
See, if everything goes right, I won’t need this backup. Ever. If things go wrong, however, it may save my ass. Fine. I can deal with that.
What’s confusing me, I realize, is that I didn’t install WordPress on my server. My ISP did.
Back to the phone: “Do you do this, O Provider of Internet, or do I?”
Well: I do. OK.
Only one other thing to check. Where’s the WooThemes stuff? As I back up the javaScript and the php, I see it flying by. Fine.
Then – and only then – do I notice, at the top of the administration ‘dashboard’, the menu item. “Updates”, it says; and when I roll over it, “2 theme updates” are mentioned under the pointing finger. Sheepishly, I click.
“Hi, you’re done, Welcome to 3.3.1. Watch for the wonderful new features…”
Good programming. Very flexible. Still developing, and I think doing a damned good job. Awful documentation, though. You’d think, software for writers, there’d be more instruction in the manuals.
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