* Uggh .. version 2.1 update – Have you updated yet?

I’ve successfully updated PapillonLvr.com/blog/ from wordpress version 1.5.2 directly to the latest version 2.1 .. There was a few issues, because the template (believe it or not) was Pre-version-2.0 compatible. As well, a lot of the plugins that I have .. were also Pre-version-2.0+ compatible. So, it’s not like I had plugins that worked in, say .. version 2.0.7 and wouldn’t work in the new version 2.1 .. it was like the plugin is just not supported anymore and never worked since version 2.0 hit the world!

Besides that .. certain of the plugins that I had that could work, needed an upgrade before the plugin can be reactivated. And, if that wasn’t enough .. most of the older plugins weren’t “template smart” like a lot of them are today .. Code had to be everywhere in the header, the footer, the sidebar, and the index. I made the mistake of fixing this first – before I realized that the template I was using (Oxymod version 0.2) didn’t work. I had to replicate on version on the newer version (Oxymod version 1.4).

This Is How I Updated

* Ignoring the template fiasco…

1) FTP’ed old site onto my hard drive c:\PapillonLvr.com\blog\*.*

2) Logged into phpMyAdmin and backed up my database..
– You select database on the left
– Select Export on top right
– tick the “Add DROP TABLE” in the Structure fields
– tick the “Save as File” and leave File Name template as is
– press GO and store backup on my local C:\backups\MySql\2007-01-22\ folder

3) Downloaded the latest 2.1 version into my c:\INSTALLS\wordpress\versions\2.1\ folder and updated all of the plugins I use

4) copied the new version into a new folder on my hard drive c:\2.1\ to speed up FTP’ing process .. and copied all of the updated plugins into c:\2.1\wp-content\plugins\ etc (a few had files that needed to be copied into root of wordpress or c:\2.1\ folder itself

5) went to my plugins manager, printed the page and then deactivated all of them

6) FTP everything overwriting existing files without concern to deleting anything .. although, I did first delete all backups and cache files and folders existing in the wp-content online

7) did the upgrade script ../blog/wp-admin/upgrade.php

8) Went back into the plugin manager and only activated the plugins that were added from my local c:\2.1\ files (I’ll delete the inactive ones later .. I want to wait and see if there are ever any updates to them before removing)

9) And, this is where everything would have worked out well – except for the template issue that I had.

Plugins That Are Activated

* Admin Menu 3.2
* Akismet 2.0
* Audio Player 1.2.3
* Auto-hyperlink URLS 2.01
* AutoMeta 0.8
* Auto Social Poster 1.5
* Exec-PHP 3.0
* Feedburner Feed Replacement 2.2
* Spam Karma 2.2r3
* Subscribe2 2.1.4
* WordPress Database Backup 2.0
* WP-Amazon 1.3.1
* WP-ContactForm 1.4.3

Plugins That I Can’t Use Anymore – I guess

* Bunny’s Technorati Tags
* Image Browser
* KG Archives
* Random Excerpt
* WP Admin Bar 2
* WP Shortstat

Plugin That I missed The Most

* Random Excerpt – For every post I have been making in the blog for instance, I was replicating the picture of my dogs that I have been posting with a width size of 150px and having it randomly showing up in the sidebar with a link back to the URL it originally showed up, in original size.

How many Blogs Have I updated Since

None. But – I am convinced that each blog should only take about 10-15 minutes to upgrade – for the ones over 2.0+ version but the ones that are below this version needs a double take on the plugins and template version to see if everything will work. I will be able to automate things a little. For instance, The sites on my ISP#1 are all domain aliases of PetLvr and as such, also folders of the mega site’s root folder. The backup MySQL is about 250MB in size when I backup up it all in one shot. All the sites on the ISP#2 are easily accessed from the cPanel and will take about 1 hour to backup all the 30 domains – which, isn’t bad for ME – at this time. If I don’t do it all at once, it would probably take me about 10 minutes per domain .. and ultimately take longer.

So, I’ve decided to wait until I have a block of time during the upcoming weeks to do this in a few shots or all at once – most likely the weekend .. or, if I can’t do that – after many January 31st deadlines that I have to do.

I’m still checking out the plugins and interested in reading other people’s successes and issues they have received while upgrading – especially in a few sites from my Bloglines.