Updates, avoid crashing updates.

Hello kristof, I don’t know what’s going on, it looks like my site is “on the ground”, it looks weird. You have to put it back in place.

This is an increasingly rare request from my clients and as an SEO agency in Montreal I am not unhappy with it. It should be noted that I am the one responsible for this task.

Remember that when a site “falls”, when it is displayed strangely or has suspicious reactions, the first reflex is to wonder if an update has not been made recently.

We know that some of these updates are automated by WordPress itself, which sometimes means that we don’t even have a “cookie” or “controller”.

Updates that go wrong, among the most classic:

• The site becomes inaccessible: nothing works anymore, you have a 403 error, or a 500 error…
• The site appears, but you can no longer log in to the admin interface
• There is a loss of CSS, your website looks like a blank sheet of paper with your text displayed without any organization. It’s ugly.
• Everything seems OK, but you can’t save your content anymore, you’re not allowed to do it anymore
• A function has disappeared or no longer provides the expected service
• Other…

Identifying the why is always tricky, time-consuming and therefore costly.

50 to 100 and more WP Updates per year

There are so many WP updates every year that it’s hard to keep up, minimum of 3 to 5 WP evolutions per year, plus the bunch of installed plugins that have to follow…

This requires the adoption of some good practices both for common sense and prudence.

If it seems simple to press the update button, and most of the time everything goes well, you will probably have a hard time fixing the bug THE time a problem occurs.

Update your web platform

• It’s about taking advantage of new features — a CMS is nothing more than software, so you might as well take advantage of the latest version –
• It is about plugging security holes and reducing the risk of intrusion.
• It is to ensure that your site follows the evolution of the Web, fast if ever there was one.

Alert message, the server won’t let you update

Server-level log analysis provides this type of information

“You were blocked because your action triggers a security rule.

The following rule: 210 590: COMODO WAF: Blocking directory traversal attempt||my-nice-site.ca|F|2

Request: POST/wp-ad min/admin-ajax.php

Action Description: Access denied with code 403 (phase 2).

Rationale: Matched phrase ‘wp-config.php’ at TX:matched_var. In

this case,
you are then invited to do a web search with this information with a good chance that you will find a way to solve the problem.

In the meantime, a security exception may be installed by the server (if you can reach it and if it is competent) however, it will be necessary for you to apply a patch so that the site is not vulnerable in the medium term.

Best Practices for WordPress Updates

• Always make a backup before an update
• Also master the reinstallation of this backup, otherwise your archive is useless.
• Update the CMS first, check that everything is fine (and re Back-Up)
• Wait a few days before switching to extensions
• If your site is installed on a framework , continue with it.
• Move on to the extensions one by one with checking that the pages are displayed after each of them.
• Only one person should be in charge of the work and not any administrator
• Don’t update on the same day of the alert, wait for extensions to follow suit, and then take action.

Of course this seems extreme, because you’re going to have a good time there, so you’ll probably still want to put all the updates at once.

It happens (too frequently) that updates blow up the CSS, if a simple re-registration of the permalinks can be enough to get the graphics back up and running, it can cost the developer a few hours to find the faulty function.

You have a problem, look for the cause

Disable the plug-ins one by one to identify the offender and replace it with a certified extension.

• Remember to lighten the load of your site, each function is a request (sometimes several) to the server which slows down the display of the site (SEO criterion)
• Remove disabled Pugin
• Only use certified scripts, essential and subscribe to professional licenses, it’s a little more expensive, but the peace of mind is priceless.

Making the updates seems like an easy job, in theory, just a few clicks and a little patience, but you have to stay on your guard and spend the necessary time in order to avoid unpleasant surprises.