For Jetpack users on Managed WordPress when updating to new version of Jetpack

This is just an FYI to all GoDaddy Managed WordPress Jetpack users if you should ever encounter errors when updating to a new version of Jetpack. I was successful in finally updating to the latest version of Jetpack tonight, that being version 9.5, by using a new method of updating, and wanted to at least share that method for other GoDaddy Managed WordPress Jetpack users to employ in future Jetpack updates.

Because of limited resources in the shared environments that GoDaddy Managed WordPress uses, and because the Jetpack plugin in so large, especially when doing an update, many often deal with timeouts that end up creating errors on the update. I have personally had to restore my entire files and database from backups because of Jetpack update failures in past updates I’ve attempted. Each time I’ve had to go into the files as well and delete out the Jetpack folder and the .maintenance file and then downloaded Jetpack from the plugins page. This is very tiresome and a timely process. Thankfully, I finally got a GoDaddy senior support tech one night who has seen the same Jetpack issues with updates with many other users in WordPress who use Jetpack. He suggested the following steps which successfully worked for me with no issues..

1. Have a user.ini file active that allows for a greater length of response time, mine is set to 5 minutes just in case. (Shared Managed WordPress from what GoDaddy told me defaults to about 90 seconds.)

Example of a user.ini file –

memory_limit = 1024M
max_execution_time = 180
max_input_time = 180
post_max_size = 64M
upload_max_filesize = 720M

(I personally make my max execution time much higher, often to about 5 minutes.)

2. Deactivate Jetpack so it’s not trying to update files while actively running in the environment as well.

3. Do the update. (Typical time I’ve seen on my Managed WordPress GoDaddy environment for this to complete is somewhere between 3 to 4 minutes.)

4. Activate Jetpack. (Go through the prompts and ensure to keep the same email address when linking. Also verify that your shared settings are still active once complete.)

5. Remove the user.ini file and go back to the default parameters that are built into the the Managed WordPress environment on GoDaddy.

That’s it. Just wanted to let other GoDaddy Managed WordPress users know of what worked for me in case they run into problems.