Recently, we’ve been seeing error messages such as

“This plugin has not been tested with your current version of WordPress” or;

“Latest WordPress Version Required” or;

“No update available”.

These were the cracks forming after years of avoiding maintenance and updates. We were missing out on some new plugin features, and at times we had some bugs related to file uploads and compatibilities.

We had two live sites that needed core updates. Both have 20-50 orders per day

It got to the point where WordPress was 2 years old, dragging down all the dependencies that come along with it.

Right off the bat, we learned some interesting lessons.

Lesson #1: WordPress Dashboard may be incorrect! It might say you have the latest versions, but look again.

Lesson #2: Disabling Plugins fixes many things!

Lesson #3: It is possible to update WordPress by drag & dropping files manually, but I bet it’s not necessary.

Updating WordPress

This is usually a 1-click operation if your WordPress is NEW.

If you have many plugins installed, you might get a “failed to update” message. Or you might get a false, “you already have the latest version of WordPress message”. Try disabling all your plugins first! This saved me a bundle.

Otherwise, best to use a premium backup service (like Kinsta Hosting, my favorite) and put your site on maintenance mode. Disable all your plugins except the maintenance mode plugin, and update WordPress with the manual method. This method takes much longer and prone to human errors of course.

In our case, we did the entire exercise on a clone site, then redid the real work a few days later. When we’re handling a multi-million dollar site, we try to be more careful!

Checking All Your Plugin Functions

No shortcuts here. As we always expect issues, we check plugin functions again:

The above is only a small part of our full list. You can see some of our favorite and not-so-favorite plugins above.

Updating WooCommerce

This is usually a 1-click operation after the core update. You will also get asked to “Update the WooCommerce Database”.

Do this slowly, as WooCommerce will put a few items in a queue.

Don’t worry too much about issues with other plugins because if you’re like us, you should already be filtering out obscure and out-dated plugins.

Do this BEFORE your theme because your wooCommerce theme likely won’t render correctly without WooCommerce active.

Updating Your Theme

Phew! This might be the easiest part! Simply download the latest version of your theme, which is likely in a zip file.

The files may be deep nested if you are using ThemeForest. So open that zip file first and read!

Upload the correct zip file and it should be as easy as pie:

Here is an excerpt of exactly what we were able to accomplish for the major eCommerce update:

Hi Ye,

Site has been updated with these things:
– newest WordPress
– newest WooCommerce
– newest Yith POS plugin
– a few other new plugins as a resultOther New Features as result:
– Gift receipts
– Ability to limit file sizes on Pal uploads (NOT DONE, too much to do in 1 day)
– 1 or 2 Electro theme features I have not tested
– WordPress & WooComemrce does some auto updates and is compatible with newer plugins nowTesting has been done on:
– shopping, browsing, search, buying, PAL upload, order taking, POS open, email to customerIssues to lookout for:

– Google Captcha was fickle, one time it asked for my “captcha” but did not allow me anywhere to enter it. I can’t replicate the problem anymore.

– There’s 2 PDF invoice features now, one from the orders screen and the other is the old plugin. I didn’t do these so just a heads up.
– Theres 2 header footer plugins now, when I get time I’ll merge them into 1

Other things:

– cleaned up a bunch of junk issues and made some views better

– Elementor, the tech that allows better page building to replace Bakery Builder seems to break product images, that’s concerning, I had to deactivate it for now