The ClassicPress update mechanism will prompt you to keep your site updated.
Automatic updates from hostsLink to this section
It depends on your host whether or not automatic updates are enabled.
By default automatic updates between minor versions of ClassicPress are enabled (e.g. 2.7 to 2.8). Automatic updates between major versions are disabled (e.g. 1.1 to 2.0), as these updates may contain breaking changes for plugins and themes. If you installed ClassicPress with a tool like Installatron or Softaculous, there may be settings to manage the automatic updates behavior.
If you did not install ClassicPress with a tool such as Installatron or Softaculous, your host may not recognize ClassicPress automatic updates yet. Until this is resolved, hosts may prompt you to update your site to the latest version of WordPress instead.
After installing ClassicPress, please contact your host and ask them to disable automatic WordPress updates, and add support for ClassicPress automatic updates. The more users we have requesting this fix, the more quickly hosts will be able to get it done.
If you have more information about how a specific host handles automatic updates, please start a thread on our support forum so that we can update this document.
Updating ClassicPress manuallyLink to this section
Before doing anything else, back up your site files and database. This is especially important when you are updating files by hand.
- Download the latest ClassicPress zip file from our GitHub releases page.
- Unzip the file on your local computer.
- On your local computer, remove the wp-config-sample.php file and remove the entire wp-content folder.
- Upload what’s left over to your server, replacing the existing files (using either SSH or an application like CyberDuck or FileZilla).
- Visit your newly updated ClassicPress site.
Failed Updates
When ClassicPress does core, plugin or theme updates, it creates a temporary .maintenance file which puts the site in maintenance mode. If you’re updating manually after a failed auto-update and you see a “failed update” nag message, delete the file .maintenance from the main ClassicPress directory, by using FTP or the file manager of your host. This will remove the “failed update” nag message.
Updating ClassicPress automaticallyLink to this section
The ClassicPress update mechanism will prompt you to keep your site updated.
As mentioned before, it depends on your host whether or not automatic updates are enabled. By default only automatic updates between minor versions of ClassicPress are enabled (e.g. 2.7 to 2.8).
You may have heard of using the WP_AUTO_UPDATE_CORE constant in your wp-config file. A constant used by WordPress to modify the behavior of automatic updates. This constant does not work the same in ClassicPress, because we don’t allow automatic updates between major versions (e.g. 1.1 to 2.0).
Note that if you disable automatic updates, you may be leaving your site vulnerable to hackers.
Automatic updates help us ensure that your sites are safe after we release new security fixes and the details become available to the public. To put it another way, you want the window between public release of a security issue and the fix being live on your site to be as short as possible.
ClassicPress automatic updates are guaranteed not to contain breaking changes by our versioning policy (SemVer), and ClassicPress will never update between major versions that may contain breaking changes (e.g. 1.1 to 2.0).