This article will cover a few different ways to upgrade your WordPress website. Please note that upgrading WordPress is considered developmental and any issues that may occurs as result, KnownHost can not be held responsible for.
To check and see what version of WordPress you have installed, check out our How can I check what versions [...] article or simply check from your WordPress Admin Panel. To confirm the "latest" stable release of WordPress you can visit their official 1)WordPress Download page. You should see something similar to: "The latest stable release of WordPress (Version X.X.X) is available in two formats from the links to your right." X.X.X being the latest version.
Once logged into the WordPress admin panel and on the "Updates" page as mentioned earlier, there will also be a list displayed of any plugins or themes with updates available (if any). You can use the checkboxes next to the listed plugins and themes to select them, and then use the appropriate update button to update all selected plugins or themes.
If you have the Premium version of Softaculous, and if you have configured Softaculous to watch this particular instance of WordPress, you can use Softaculous to update it. From WHM you can go to "Home → Plugins → Softaculous - Instant Installs → Installations → Outdated Installations" to see a list of Softaculous-watched applications which are in need of updates.
WordPress can also be updated via Softaculous from within the cPanel interface. To do so, log into the cPanel interface as the desired user, then go to "Home → Software → Softaculous Apps Installer", then proceed as described 3)here. If any of the Softaculous-installed scripts have any updates available, there will be a notification near the top indicating this. Clicking on this will bring you to a list of Softaculous-installed applications in need of updating. In the "Version" column, any instance that needs to be updated will have a blue icon next to the version number, that looks like circular arrows. Clicking on this will lead to the Upgrade page for that script for confirmation, where there will be a larger rectangular blue button that says "Upgrade". Clicking this upgrade button will start the upgrade process for you.
Sometimes certain issues will make it necessary to upgrade WordPress manually. The process is briefly described 4)here. More detailed instructions can be found 5)here. If you are upgrading from a very old version of WordPress, it is recommended to use the more detailed "extended" version of the instructions, which provides more details about special cases that apply for very old versions. With either method, it is strongly recommended to create a 6)Full cPanel Backup of the whole cPanel account before starting, in case the process needs to be reverted. For your convenience, we also summarize the instructions here:
.tar.gz
files or are unable to use them on your local system, it is recommended to download the .zip
file instead. How long the file takes to download will depend on your connection speed.
wordpress
.public_html
, which is the main folder of the example site.wp-includes
and wp-admin
.
wp-admin
and wp-includes
from the zip archive.
wp-content
folder, overwriting any files existing in both places. Do not delete any files that are not being uploaded.
wp-config-sample.php
file, to see if there are any new settings you would like to add to your wp-config.php
file.
wp-admin
folder of the site