ITauthor

I just completed an upgrade of WordPress using the WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin. I went from 2.2.3 to 2.6.2 without a hitch. It took me about 15 minutes.

The only thing I'd say is that I'm not sure I trust the backups the plugin makes. I had a look in the zip file and it didn't have a wp-content directory. So I'll continue to do manual backups, as follows:

1. Using FileZilla, download the whole WordPress directory (in my case this is the Web root directory, called web), with the exception of a couple of things that live within the wp-content directory:

• advanced-cache.php
  This seems to be a link that FileZilla doesn't understand and treats like a directory, but drops the connection if you try to download it.
• cache
  This directory won't reveal its contents and, again, the connection drops if you try to download it.

2. Backup your data using phpMyAdmin (see this tutorial, or this one) and save the SQL somewhere safe.

That said, I'm very impressed with this upgrade plugin. I'd been resisting upgrading because I was sure it would cause me pain. However, everything seems to be working, even PodPress.

The following video (there are 2 parts to it) is very slow-paced but it does go through the process very thoroughly. It also shows how to use the WordPress Database Backup plugin, which I'm just about to try out.