Andrew Arthur Dawson

@jeherve I never got any response from my last posting. I’m hoping you can help me have some understanding.

I had to go through that process of FTP deleting Jetpack files and installing fresh to upgrade to the latest version. It worked thankfully and I’m now on 7.0 BUT…I have a few questions:

1. Will I have to go through this every time from now on. @bobbydurrettdba said he didn’t have to for 7.0 but he did for 6.9. And he runs on a similar platform. I mean did the change from 6.8.1 to 6.9 and moving forward get that large that on a shared server it’s going to time out and cause issues? Or was this a big jump in software technology that once we on shared servers did the delete FTP once, that it won’t happen again, as it didn’t for Bobby. I’m still waiting on @jayceezay to let me know if they successfully updated to 7.0, as I think they were on GoDaddy.
2. Since I don’t really want to spend $300 to upgrade to a CPanel hosting and another $150 a year for my basic blog, I’m stuck on Managed WordPress and worst case scenario, if I have to delete Jetpack through FTP every time and reinstall fresh, can I wait out for a good while on say 7.0 to prolong it? Since you know the options I use and I don’t have any plans on changing any of them, can my setup work by remaining on 7.0 until say Jetpack gets to 8.0?

Any help in making sense of this and making the best of my crappy shared server setup would be great…

Thanks,
Andrew

@bobbydurrettdba @jeherve @jayceezay Great news! Well, first it wasn’t so great, as I tried to update from 6.8.1 to 7.0 and got the same issue that you guys had with 6.9. It outright failed. So, I deleted those two directories (the jetpack upgrade folder and the jetpack folder itself) and the .maintenance file that was created after the failed update.

I then went and clicked “add new” and selected Jetpack. At first I had a slight panic because I get an update failed message on the plugin screen where I clicked the add button for Jetpack. But when I went over to my plugins listings, Jetpack was now there with the 7.0 showing. I clicked activate and yes, all my settings were back and everything seems back to normal!

What I don’t get is why @bobbydurrettdba you didn’t get this issue on the update to 7.0 from 6.9 again? What time do you do your updates usually? Maybe once you had 6.9 that it wasn’t so intensive of an update to 7.0? It just seems odd that you wouldn’t keep having the timeout issue going forward. I just hope I don’t have to keep doing this delete process and re-add process every time I go to future updates here on GoDaddy. Do you have any theories on why it didn’t fail for you on the update to 7.0? And by some chance do you happen to remember when you did update to 6.9 by going through that process and then clicking “add new” for Jetpack did you get an “update failed” message on the plugins page, even though shortly thereafter it was in your plugin listings with the correct version?

@jayceezay I think I remember you saying you were on GoDaddy like me. Did you have any update to 7.0 issues? If you didn’t, then maybe it was necessary to delete and clean up the Jetpack installation once? And because I didn’t update to 6.9, I still failed on 7.0 until I followed Bobby’s steps? Maybe Jeremy can enlighten us on this?

• This reply was modified 6 years ago by Andrew Arthur Dawson.

@bobbydurrettdba Did you have any problems with upgrading to 7.0 for Jetpack and where is the .maintenance file you spoke of? Is it at the root directory in FTP? I was just perusing through it to get familiar and make sure I know where things are in case I have a problem and have to follow @jeherve guidance with deleting and reinstalling. The only .maintenance file I found was a .maintenance.bak file?

• This reply was modified 6 years ago by Andrew Arthur Dawson.

@jeherve @jayceezay I was just wondering two things, as I’m about to attempt to update to 7.0.

1. @jayceezay did you have any issues updating to 7.0?
2. Where is the .maintenance file that Bobby spoke about earlier in this thread, if I need to delete it. I have found the folders specifically that you all spoke about to remove if I should have a problem in my FTP session. But I can not find any .maintenance file, other than a .maintenance.bak at the root of my site session. Is that the file that would need to be deleted?

I hope you will still get this response given it’s slightly an old threat now…

• This reply was modified 6 years ago by Andrew Arthur Dawson.

@jeherve I actually had another question for you. It’s something I asked in email but thought it might be best posted here for others and for me of course to have as a repository for the future.

When 7.0 is available to the WordPress plugins update…
1. Will the update on my screen currently that says 6.9 is available, show 7.0 instead?
2. After looking at the new functionality that 6.9 has, is there going to be any conflict with my site because I’m not using the block editor and am using that WordPress Classic Editor plugin that the WordPress team created and is supporting? I have the old subscription widget still being used and still use the custom message area and such on my classic editor screen. Are those features compatible with 6.9 since you are pushing out all these blocks? Or are both functionalities still there depending on which editor is being used?

@jeherve got it! Thanks! I guess didn’t realize just how many of those features were Jetpack driven. Never really paid attention to it. Although sharing has become limited with Facebook now having to manually post and google plus going away imminently. All that will remain there for me is Twitter. Nevertheless, it looks like a delete isn’t the best option after all. So I’ll try the update when 7.0 comes around and hope for the best and only use FTP if it doesn’t work. Wish I knew when the best time was to do the update when resources are more available…

@jeherve ok, I think I must just wait then till 7.0.

BTW, I checked with GoDaddy yesterday about my options to have more memory allocation. I have only one. I can switch to a cpanel business hosting plan that I’d have to pay $350 a year instead of $150 and I’d have to pay $100 to migrate my site over. Doing so would give me 2 Gigs of memory versus my current situation which isn’t defined by them. Pretty frustrating, given my lack of income and job and the fact that this was just supposed to be a free blog for myself to write my thoughts. I really hope that Jetpack will modify their update process next release and also test it on a Managed WordPress account.

Anyway, I just want to make sure one final thing. Given I’ve been up and running the past bunch of days fine after my restore from an older backup, that does mean that none of my Jetpack files are incomplete or corrupted right? And if I do decide to delete and have it run the cleanup, I just want to make sure it won’t delete my email subscribers list and all I’d need to do is make sure that option is on after reconnecting to Jetpack because besides it and using the built in meta data, I’m not using any other Jetpack setting. Let me know if I’m correct in these assumptions or whether I’m missing something.

@jeherve I can try the update again, but was thinking about waiting until 7.0 is released given I don’t think the two things I use Jetpack for are going to be affected by remaining at 6.8.1. That being meta data and email subscribers. I don’t use Jetpack for anything else really anymore. Do you see any risk in me waiting to 7.0 for the update?

Also, in regards to the cleanup routine that would be run, I guess I don’t know what settings you mean would be deleted? Currently the only setting I really have active is email subscribers as far as I know? And wouldn’t that be safe? I think you said the subscribers aren’t stored in key tables or database right?

Just a quick question thing as well. When the last time I tried the update and my WordPress deleted Jetpack from my plugins because the update got corrupted and failed (late Thursday night), I did try to do the reinstall by adding Jetpack new again, but it kept failing, almost like there were still Jetpack files stored, preventing it from moving forward. Have you ever seen WordPress delete the Jetpack plugin during a failed update and then prevent it from being re-added?

@jeherve thank you for responding. I only sent the email because I had thought it might involve sending personal files through and didn’t want to do that on here. Nevertheless, well currently I still have the update message on my dashboard showing for Jetpack to update from 6.8.1 to 6.9. I have only been hesitant to do anything because I don’t want to screw anything else up and go through what I had happened last Thursday night.

1. Regardless, so if I deactivate the Jetpack plugin and then delete it, it deletes the three things mentioned above that both others users did manually through FTP?
2. The issue is with host resources, at least when it comes to Jetpack. I have not had this issue with any other plugin EVER. My earlier issue was with an outdated level of PHP and a theme conflict and had nothing to do with my hosting provider. WordPress supported themes now require PHP 7.2. But ever since Jetpack 5.0 came around, the resources Jetpack takes up in an update have made it very difficult for updating it. I’m guessing @bobbydurrettdba has noticed this as well. Again, no other plugin has ever given me an issue here. And no other plugin update brings me to a blank screen with a “maintenance message”.
3. Honestly, I wish Jetpack would take a closer look at ways to make the update less resource intensive as until they do, my option seems to be having to delete Jetpack each time an update comes through or switch to my own server (can’t afford to do this) or to a new provider (also can’t afford to do this or have the knowledge to do it either). So that’s why I’m asking for the Jetpack developers to make sure they test the next release in their Managed WordPress shared hosting to see if the update works smoothly. There had got to be a solution with why the update handles as intensive as it does from your end?
4. Lastly, just so I’m on the right page here, when I finally do this. By deactivating and deleting the plugin and reinstalling from scratch, whether through the dashboard or FTP, the only thing I need to do is reconnect my website back to Jetpack right once I click activate and all my email subscribers and Jetpack settings will still be there right?

Oh and is the next version of Jetpack going to be 7.0 and when is whatever the next version coming out?

@jayceezay I meant to ask you, or @bobbydurrettdba is the .maintenance file also in that /wp-content/plugins/jetpack folder. Was wondering if either of you might be willing to do a screen shot to show me exactly what I’m looking for, given I’m a little hesitant to do anything at this point with having had to rebuild my whole site from a backup after this mishap. And did @jayceezay you also just do an “Add new” under Wp-admin and select Jetpack as a new install and it worked fine that way where your settings were still there as well? I’m also wondering if Jetpack is going to now force all of us under shared servers to always have to delete those files and redownload Jetpack new each time. I seriously hope not, as it seems like they have some responsibility to make this update process a little easier for the many of us who are on the shared server setup. I’ve got to believe that many others have this same situation and I don’t think people are going to want to FTP each time a new update comes out and do this all from scratch?

@bobbydurrettdba thank you for responding. So when you redid the new install, you said you did it in the blog admin page? Not sure where that is as the only place to instal a plugin I thought was the “add new” under “plugin” in the wp-admin dashboard? And once you did the fresh install, what did you have to do after that? Click a button to reconnect Jetpack to your site and all the former settings and such were still there?

• This reply was modified 6 years, 1 month ago by Andrew Arthur Dawson.

@jayceezay thank you for all your help so far. Just curious, you said you DID NOT have to FTP to reinstall? All you did was go to the plugins page and click install? And once that was done did you have to do anything else to reconnect Jetpack to your site? Also @jeherve Why would the reinstall work only after deleting the files through FTP, I don’t understand why it just wouldn’t time out again? @jayceezay when you installed a second time after deleting those files, did you site go into that “maintenance mode” like mine does every time I update Jetpack?

How do you install Jetpack via the FTP userface is that needs to be done m? And is that how you @bobbydurrettdba and @jayceezay did the reinstall? Through FTP?

@jayceezay Thank you so much for responding! A few questions with step 16. Is the FileZilla program work on a Mac? And when you said you reinstalled once you deleted those files, did you do that through FileZilla or go to your plugins page on wp-admin and click ‘add new’ and reinstall Jetpack from scratch? Lastly, why would deleting those files work since the update is suppose to delete those files and wouldn’t the resource issue arise again during the attempt to reinstall? If you can expand on that last step number 16 that would be great. I really appreciate your help and any further explanation.

Oh, and I did look at my Managed WordPress settings area… there is an SFTP user area and also a DatabasePHP where you can click View for both… do I need both? And when you have Filezilla active, how does it ask first for your site name and then you would input the username and password from that “view” area?

• This reply was modified 6 years, 1 month ago by Andrew Arthur Dawson.

@bobbydurrettdba Yes, you are correct I don’t have access to that area, the control panel that is. Under Managed WordPress it’s users are only able to access the wp-admin dashboard. goDaddy tells me it’s an issue with Jetpack. Jetpack tells me it’s an issue with godaddy. Neither seems to want to fix this resource issue. Yet, I don’t have this problem with any other plugin EVER. And with this latest update affecting you on another platform and having to go behind the scenes to fix it, doesn’t that suggest that maybe Jetpack is the resource issue and not our hosting providers? So, with that being said, I don’t know what to do now since I can’t access FTP and Jetpack thus far hasn’t given me any other option seems willing to fix why this is so resource heavy every time I update.

Just curious, when you normally update Jetpack, does it normally put you into a maintenance mode with a black message saying so? I used to be able to update Jetpack right from the plugin page and it would automatically just finish with me in the dashboard. Now I get locked out until it completes and in this last case permanently locked out forcing me to have to get GoDaddy to restore my site to a previous day.

I really don’t know what to do and could use some help here? I’m sorry I don’t understand much of this. I only use Jetpack for their email subscription and for meta data at this point and would like to continue using them because it’s so easy but with this latest update problem, I really am dead in the water and can’t flock the update button with hosing my site up. ??