WORDPRESS USERS: Don’t Run The WordPress 5.0 Update Immediately!

WordPress 5.0 is officially live! This is a big update for all WordPress websites, so we write this post to inform you to NOT run the update immediately! There are some steps that we highly recommend you take to ensure your website doesn’t break.

Don’t run the update?

Our support department has noticed a trending issue where users are updating to WordPress 5.0 and the update is causing major errors across the user’s website. Not only does this bring it’s own challenges, but users have not been backing up their website before updating. This makes it very challenging to restore if there are any issues.

We are not saying that all websites are experiencing these errors, but want to inform users of these issues before running the update!

We aren’t advising against running the update. We do recommend running it at some point.

PLEASE follow the recommended steps before completing this update!

#1. BACK UP YOUR WEBSITE

The first step to take before you upgrade is to BACK UP YOUR WEBSITE! This is very important as it will allow you to easily revert to the previous version if the update causes any issues. You can use a plugin to run this backup or login to cPanel and run a full backup.

#2. Clone your website

Now that you have run a full backup, we recommend cloning your website to a subdomain where you can test the update on your cloned website. Use the Duplicator WordPress plugin to clone your website.

#3. Run the update

If you decided to not clone your website, and you have backed up your full website, you can proceed to run the update. If you did clone your website, you can copy over the files to your domain using the same Duplicator tool.

To run the update: Click the “Update” menu item under “Dashboard” in WordPress.

Just because WordPress 5.0 has been released, doesn’t mean that you have to update to it right away. Matt Mullenweg , the co-founder of WordPress states, “there’s nothing that says you must update the moment there’s a new version released. You can push the button whenever you’re ready.”