Newbies ready to upgrade WP version

  • Hi All

    We are total newbies to WP. We are an online business & science college in Australia, are using WPLMS package, and have never upgraded our WP version by ourselves. Our web designer did it for us, but now he’s gone. We are ready to upgrade to the newest.
    We know how to do it, but our question is about our database files held at Hostgator. When we go to ‘export’ under Databases/phpMyAdmin etc, we just want to make sure this sends a ‘copy’ of the database files to our c/:drive, but doesn’t delete them from HG thinking that we are migrating to a new server. It might seem like a dumb questions, but we want to be very careful we can ‘restore’ the site to how it was, if the upgrade goes ‘south’.

    Brent Havill
    Founder
    Australia Online Courses
    https://www.australiaonlinecourses.com

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

  • Hey Brent,

    The easiest way, in my opinion for you do to this, is to create a backup of your site and download it should anything happen whilst you upgrade. I often tell lots of clients to use a plugin called “Duplicator” which is available in the WordPress plugins directory.

    It creates a backup of your website and of your database.

    What you could then do, should the worst happen, is re-upload that backup to your hosting account and restore it.

    Alternatively, there is a plugin called Updraftplus that backs ups and restores everything from within the WordPress dashboard. You could make a backup and then, again, should anything go wrong, you can restore directly from the WordPress dashboard.

    Hopefully this helps you out somewhat, ask if you have any more q’s.

    jack randall

    (@theotherlebowski)

    if you have access to the server cpanel on hostgator you could use the database backup wizard. it gives you choices to download the database and the home directory so i’d do both and then you’ve got a full copy of your entire site and the entire database if you need to restore.

    after that, just follow the guidance on deactivating all your plugins before updating the core and then reactivate them one by one to see if they make your site fall over. if a plugin makes your site behave oddly or disappear after upgrading then just go into the server to wp-content -> plugins and rename the offending plugin’s folder. your site should work again after that.

    (it’s also nice to see a post from someone who knows there’s stuff to do before an upgrade and doesn’t just push the shiny button! ?? )

    Thread Starter Brent Havill

    (@brent-havill)

    Wow – thanks Innuvo & JR – You guys are the best!!

    PS for JR ‘the dude abides…..’

    LoL

    bh

    jack randall

    (@theotherlebowski)

    ??

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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