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User:Converting2wp/Case study of upgrade from 2.3.2 to 2.5.1

For background, I've got more than a decade's experience as a UNIX sysadmim, so the technical details don't stump me -- it's the functional details... How does the core interact with the plugins? what's apt to break?

I appreciate all that's been done to make the upgrades technically easier, but the issues of incompatible code exist. Updating a site that depends on several plugins makes me ponder the maxim "free and open source software is 'free as in kittens'".

This upgrade of a relatively simple site took about six hours. It's a personal site. I administer one other (more lightly used personal site), four pro bono sites, and one site where I get paid for maintenance. This is the only site that's at the current rev of WordPress.

WordPress Backup Steps (my version)

  1. Download current version of WP to server: lynx http://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz
    • Uncompress, untar to create a wordpress directory
  2. Put site into maintenance mode (at least put empty index.htm in root)
  3. Synch plugin and theme files with local Subversion repository
  4. Backup database
  5. Backup files
  6. Print status of installed plugins.
  7. Deactivate all plugins
  8. Delete old files (see WP upgrade instructions for funky list)
  9. Install new WordPress files
    1. (cd ~/wordpress; tar xf - . ) | tar cf -
  10. Run upgrade script
  11. Upgrade plugins
  12. Activate plugins and test
  13. Update local subversion with new plugins

It's the plugins that make things take so long.

Plugin Update questions

  • Feedlist – still requires class-snoopy.php? Not included with the download. Added note to google group -- see below.
  • InlineTagThing – marked as upgrade needed, but no changes (except to default settings) when downloaded -- added comment on plugin page.
    • Needed to do "automatic upgrade" to get new files.
  • Also updated: My link order, Post Template, Search Everything

Plugin Activations

  • Category Access – OK and the bug with Edit/Save crashing PHP seems to have gone away
  • Akismet – OK
  • Category Order – OK
  • Event Calendar – needs patch: http://nymisoa.com/testing/eventcalendar3_patch_for_2_5.zip
  • Feedlist – needed to put feedlist.php in the feedlist directory, not in the main plugins directory as in earlier versions (and as indicated by the README). Have tried to add notes to the google group.
  • Inline Tag Thing – OK
  • My Link Order – OK
  • Post Templates – OK (but I thought I had a template – couldn't find it after the upgrade; not hard to recreate, though.)
  • Viper's Plugins Used - OK

Plugins Not Activated

  • Custom Query String Reloaded – May have been installed trying to track down bug (see above)
  • Organizer – Wasn't activated. Functionality now in 2.5?
  • Recent Posts – Don't think that was used – May have been installed trying to track down bug (see above)
  • Role manager – Don't think that was used - Would have been required for organizer
  • Search Everything – WP 2.5 now searches pages as well as posts; Not clear this is needed.
  • TinyMCE Advanced – may not need table editing, class selection, and such for this blog. Would require a plugin update.

Plugins to investigate:

Register Plus – requires 2.5, combats registration spam