Automatic upgrade to 2.8.6 fails

Backup everything (WordPress Backups.
Deactivate all plugins.

Try the upgrade again.

I had to increase the amount of memory a PHP script may consume. Several ways to do that:

1. If you have access to your PHP.ini file, change the line in PHP.ini
If your line shows 32M try 64M:
memory_limit = 64M ; Maximum amount of memory a script may consume (64MB)

2. If you don’t have access to PHP.ini try adding this to an .htaccess file:
php_value memory_limit 64M

3. Try adding this line to your wp-config.php file:
define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '64M');

4. Talk to your host.

I had this same problem and did the changes and it was a big hassle. alot of memory issues! I logged into my control panel on my host site and they had a screen that popped up that said there was an upgrade. Worked great!

If you don’t get the upgrade announcement, check your simply script installs page, there might be an auto upgrade there!

Don’t forget to backup first before you upgrade!

Disabled all plugins and it worked! Thanks MichaelH!
Can this be avoided in future releases of WordPress?

Thanks MichaelH. Your option 2 worked perfectly for me. I’ve been fighting this issue for the last few upgrades. You just simplified my life!