WordPress Updates, Backups and Automatic Rollback

Old plugins are the most common way WordPress sites get hacked, and updates are the most common way they break. FlyNode's updates are built so you can do the first without the second.

Update from the Security tab

Open your app, go to Security and choose Updates & scans. The list shows the updates available for WordPress itself, your plugins and your themes. Choose what to update and start it.

What every update does

1. Backup. A copy of the database and of the files that are about to change is saved on the server.
2. Maintenance page. Visitors see a maintenance page for a moment.
3. Update. WordPress, the plugins and the themes you chose are updated.
4. Health check. FlyNode loads your home page and the login page, checks that WordPress starts and that no fatal error is on the page.
5. Automatic rollback. If the health check fails, everything is put back from the backup and you are told why. Nothing is left half-updated.

FlyNode keeps the three newest update backups of each site.

Automatic nightly updates

Switch on Update automatically every night and FlyNode runs the same process around 3:30 am server time. You choose whether it covers WordPress core, plugins and themes. Core only gets security and maintenance releases, never a new major version. You receive a message with the result: updated, rolled back because the site stopped working, or could not run.

Update on staging first

For a site that matters, update the staging copy first, look at it, and then use Push to Production (or update the live site). The Security tab on a staging copy shows the Updates card for exactly this.

The automatic rollback protects you from an update that breaks the site's start-up. It cannot know that a button on page 12 moved. Look at the pages that matter after a big update.