WordPress Upgraded, from manual to Fantastico.
Just upgraded to WordPress version 2.7.1 from 2.6.3. I took a different approach this time. Manual upgrading wordpress has started to bore me since long time ago, and now I hope to get rid of the hassle once and for all, let cpanel’s Fantastico handle the upgrade from now on.
Please bear in mind that this is my very own personal experience. Try this at your own risk!
Situation:
Manually installed wordpress on my hosting account, getting tired of upgrading every new version. Decided to switch to Fantastico install, let it handle the upgrades.
Solution:
You must have these:
- A Cpanel hosting account with Fantastico bundled.
- A archiving tool(to zip your files).
- A FTP program(to upload big files).
Step 1: Backup everything.
I seriously mean EVERYTHING. Download a home directory backup, and a Mysql database backup from your cpanel to local computer. Extract the files to see everything is in place(compare to your current hosting account home directory).
Step 2: Purge everything.
Delete everything starts with wp* inside your wordpress directory on the server. For me it is the public_html directory, it has only 1 directory called cgi-bin by default.
Delete your old mysql database for wordpress as well. Please make sure you have all the backups on your local computer.
Step 3: Install a fresh WordPress with Fantastico.
Pretty standard procedures here. At the end you will get a fresh wordpress at your desired location, for me it’s the webroot. You don’t need to actually login to admin area to do anything yet. Let’s get back the old data first.
Step 4: Restore all old data
4.1 Database
You should have an old database backup with you. Extract it and you will get a file xx.sql. For me it’s wp.sql, which I named the database last time.
Now go to your cpanel, inside ‘Mysql Database’, there’s a link at the bottom for you login to phpMyadmin. Inside phpMyadmin, on the left shows the available databases under your account.
If you removed the old database already, you should see only one on the list which has the name ‘wrdp1‘. This is default database name for new wordpress installed by Fantastico.
Go inside wrdp1 database and choose to import, just upload the old wp.sql file and wait. After it’s done, there will be message telling you how many queries have been made.
Leave phpMyadmin now since the database has been imported.
4.2 Files
Now check the backup you have downloaded, inside wordpress folder you should have your old wp-content folder. You should only take care of 3 things:
- Upload everything in ‘wp-content/plugins‘ to your fresh installed wordpress, the directory structure should be exactly the same. Do not upload ‘akismet’ and ‘hello.php’
- Upload everything in ‘wp-content/themes‘ to your fresh installed wordpress. Do not upload ‘classic’ and ‘default’.
- Upload everything in ‘wp-content/uploads‘ to your fresh installed wordpress.
Step 5: Run the upgrade script
Open browser and go to yourdomain.com/wp-admin/upgrade.php
Step 6: You are done
Things should be okay now, you should be able to login to admin area and your front end.
Again I must stress that this is not a tutorial, it is just my personal experience. If you have previously manual install wordpress on your own, you should pretty much have a clue about I am writing here.
Result:
You are looking at my blog isn’t it? The only uncertainty is……I am not sure whether can Fantastico upgrade the next version for me or not!
Happy upgrading anyway! Feedbacks are appreciated.