Deactivate automatic plugin updates

Can you please try logging into the WordPress.com dashboard and then viewing the ‘Plugins’ tab for your site? There should be an option to turn plugins on/off for auto-updates there. If WooCommerce is showing having that feature turned off then can you please try adding this line of code into your wp-config file:

define( ‘AUTOMATIC_UPDATER_DISABLED’, true );

Thank you for your reply. On the night I posted, I was unable to view my plugins via WordPress.com. I received a message that they could not be retrieved. Jetpack was working fine otherwise. I could see that I was connected and other Jetpack features were working properly. In addition to WooCommerce, another plugin updated on its own the following day.

Now I can see my plugins via WordPress.com. All have autoupdates set to off. I do not know if the problem will recur because I have not had any of my plugins make updates available during the past few days. So I guess I will have to wait and see.

I’d rather not turn off updates via my wp-config file because I do not want to miss out on minor security updates that are pushed out automatically.

My host (SiteGround) does offer auto update, but I currently have it disabled on all my WordPress installations. Also, I know it was not my host that caused the plugin updates because my WordPress version would have also updated (from 4.7.5 to 4.8) and it did not. The WooCommerce site is the only one that is running Jetpack 5.0. My other installations are still running 4.9 and have not had any plugins update on their own despite having updates available. I have been with SiteGround for over a year and have never had plugins, etc. update on their own unless I had their auto update feature enabled on a particular WordPress installation (in which case WordPress itself was also updated automatically).

@jjbte

Same thing happened to me. Highly aggravating. I thought that there might be a switch in the database for it but could not locate it. Is the setting only stored at wordpress.com?

See images below for the reason that I cannot turn it OFF at wordpress.com.

This needs to be fixed. We cannot operate our sites if we cannot turn this OFF. (Fixed means that we need to be able to revert it back to OFF, not a “workaround” fix.)

Thank you.

In site admin on the domain:

In wordpress.com jetpack dashboard for plugin management:

All of my plugins had Autoupdates off, yet Jetpack updated on its own earlier this evening. I need to have control over my own website.

I do not recall ever enabling Jetpack Manage on my WooCommerce installation and I do not want it on. I found a way to deactivate it by going to the Debug link at the bottom of my site’s Dashboard page. On the next page is a link to “Access the full list of Jetpack modules available on your site.” I clicked that, found Manage in the list, and deactivated it. I hope that will stop this autoupdate problem, although I don’t believe Manage was enabled last week when my WooCommerce plugin updated on its own.

@jjbte,

Perfect. Great work!

I’m still anxious about this, @finlanderid. I won’t know for sure one way or the other until I have a plugin that has an available update. I’ll try to remember to report back here when that happens and what the outcome is. I am encouraged by the fact that, on my Jetpack Dashboard, Plugin Updates now shows a slider switch set to off rather than displaying “ACTIVE” as it did before.

And for those who wish to use Jetpack Manage and prefer at least some of their plugins to NOT autoupdate, there is still a problem. As I stated, I had all my plugins set to autoupdates OFF. I checked and rechecked that setting at WordPress.com. Yet Jetpack autoupdated last night. I didn’t see any indication that 5.1 was a security update that was pushed out automatically, so this should not have happened on my site even with Jetpack Manage enabled. Judging by your earlier post, it looks like the same thing may have happened to you.

re: the setting at wordpress.com showing as “disabled” ..

That might be misleading, that it shows or showed as disabled. On my wordpress.com dashboard, it also showed as disabled, per plugin, but on hover it said something about connection was not being allowed. And, the area at the top for enabling all the plugins, in bulk, to have auto-updates was greyed-out. Together, those two symptoms indicated something else interfering with those controls.

Then, I noticed in Debug (on site Jetpack admin) that I did not have a clean connection to Jetpack. One of the tests was not passing re: the site being connected to Jetpack at wordpress.com. That may have been caused by the major Jetpack upgrade. That would explain the odd appearance and behavior of the controls at wordpress.com for the plugins’ auto-update slider (and not being able to move it back and forth).

So, I disconnected and reestablished the primary Jetpack connection to the site, and that error was resolved. Now, on wordpress.com, each plug-in has a normal-looking On/Off slider with the label Active.

In other words, prior to fixing the “Jetpack connection” to the site, the fact that the plugins showed as Disabled on wordpress.com may have been meaningless. The ACTIVE setting (reflected on your site and stored at wordpress.com) may have been controlling, causing your updates.

Jetpack does seem to have its quirks. Sometimes I get that connection problem message and sometimes I don’t. Disconnecting/reconnecting doesn’t help. I have a few WordPress installations on the same hosting account, and the WooCommerce one is the only one having this autoupdate issue (and only since I updated to 5.0). I don’t have any of the plugins known to conflict with Jetpack, and my XMLRPC file works properly. Other Jetpack functions (e.g., Protect, Monitor, Photon) work properly as well.

For me, the option to bulk turn off autoupdates was available (at WordPress.com) and I used it before I deactivated Jetpack Manage. Before that, I did not hover over my plugins, but they all correctly displayed their status. I have one inactive plugin, and it displayed as such. I have several plugins that didn’t come from the WordPress repository, and they properly displayed as having autoupdates disabled (as opposed to a slider turned off).

I guess we’ll both have to wait and see what happens the next time we have a plugin with an available update. Fingers crossed!

Hi there,

Jetpack won’t be able to interface with your sites for auto-updates if Manage is turned off, this is a definite way to stop this. Another option is to try using this filter:

add_filter( ‘auto_update_plugin’, ‘__return_true’ );

Which will turn off auto-updates from your WordPress install.