Updating Wordpress Issues.
 

Every single time I try to update WP it always fails, usually with a different error and then I have to remove the maintenance file and manually do the update.

Today's error was, Not a big deal but annoying. I've tried a few things including CHMOD everything 777 (didn't leave it that way) but nothing I do allows me to auto update.

I have WP blogs on 2 hosts, on one host it auto updates just fine on the other one (same as Cleo probably) it always fails. i guess it's just a minor issue on the host's side.

The issue, and I've submitted numerous bugfixes, is that along the way, wp-content gets marked 777, and later plugins/themes write files, wordpress forgets that it should use the FTP layer, and later on everything is pretty much screwed up.

There are two ways to run the machines, setuid (which most companies do) where the apache process runs as the same username as your FTP account. The problem here, is, when wordpress (or any script is compromised), you've given those processes the ability to write over your entire website - every file that you have is able to be overwritten. The alternate way is to run apache in a low-privilege environment - in which case if wordpress is compromised, it is unable to overwrite most of the files.

Somewhere along the line, wp-content was chmod 777 on a system running in low-privilege mode, and some files got upgraded or written to as www-data, then, wp-content was changed back at which point FTP cannot overwrite the files owned by the webserver.

The simple solution, which wordpress has avoided for the last 2-3 years, is a patch that determines what mode it is running on, and, when running in a low privilege environment, uses umask to properly set permissions so that the FTP user can overwrite them.

I've been working on an alternate solution to fix this so that it isn't an issue, but, wordpress assumes that all hosts are running setuid, and doesn't see it as a problem.

I understand that you are saying the update fails because my server owns the files instead of me.

And since I don't own them or have admin access I can't chown them back to me.

How come I can overwrite them using SFTP or delete them if I don't own them?

Also kind of related...
Just to see if it helped I tried updating WP via its "FTPS (SSL)" using the same info that I use when I SFTP but I get Failed to connect to FTP on port 21. Is it because it is trying to use the wrong port?

That is because they keep rejecting the umask patch, which would fix that. :)

we don't support FTPS - but support Secure FTP (which runs over ssh) - FTPS is sort of a painful hack that causes quite a bit more trouble than it is worth.

On the plus side I've really gotten to know my WP files because of this and can manually update almost with my eyes closed. :D

I had a feeling that SFTP and FTPS were two different beasts but wasn't sure.

I gave up on updating WP. I install it and whatever plugins I need and if it all works leave it alone. The few times I have tried to update have been a disaster so I don't even bother.

One other point on the updates. Sometimes when you update wp some of your plug ins will no longer work until updated.

I don't do much with Wordpress myself, usually only for quick jobs for clients, but I treat my installations the same way.

Sometimes a plugin breaks when WP is updated, and there is no update for the plugin... permanent breakage sucks! |angry|

I have always done the manual updates. I'm just a hands on kinda girl I guess.

One server my updates autoupdate with ease. The other server I installed some autoftp plugin and then this allowed things to autoupdate with no problem.