3.01 Update – Failed and stuck! PLEASE Fix your upgrade!

OK, now I successfully used auto update to update some plugins successfully … but trying to do the core update gave me this:

Unpacking the update…

Verifying the unpacked files…

Installing the latest version…

Could not copy file.: /public_html/blog/wp-admin/css/theme-editor.dev.css

Installation Failed

What is going on?

Reine, did you originally install WordPress using an automated installer? If so, you’ll have to ask your hosting provider to reset the file ownerships to your user account. Otherwise, you’ll be stuck doing a manual upgrade (which really isn’t all that complicated).

Thanks for your reply James.

I’ve been using WordPress for a couple of years now and can’t remember how it was originally installed! … that said I shall contact my host and pass on the info.

Not being a techie I am not comfortable doing a manual install but hopefully it won’t come to that ??

While you’re contacting your host, find out if they’re running PHP 5 and (if not) what it would take to get your hosting account on PHP 5.

Okay, I was able to re-create this error. AND after doing so, I can make it happen intentionally.

It’s a ‘server too busy’ issue for me.

I have three sites on one server, running WordPress.

Site #1 I upgrade Akismet. It’s done and asks me to refresh my cache (via another plugin). WHILE that is running I go to site #2 and run the Akismet upgrade. Boom. Fails.

I wait until the server’s done with the cache for Site 1 and try upgrading Site #2 again. It works. I run an intensive php process and go to Site 3. Who fails to upgrade. The process finishes, I run another one and try to upgrade. Every time PHP is really busy and I try and run an upgrade, it pukes. Once I wait till PHP is calmer, it’s fine.

I wonder if the people who can do plugins but NOT the core are just having a problem where their PHP process is sucking up too much CPU/memory. It’s something that a shared host could trip over easily.

I wonder if the people who can do plugins but NOT the core are just having a problem where their PHP process is sucking up too much CPU/memory. It’s something that a shared host could trip over easily

That’s me. If only it were so simple. Upgrading always fails even if nothing else is going on – I have complete control of the server so it’s not a sharing problem.
Also previous automatic core updates worked fine without a hitch.

If there were a way of getting the updater to log what it is doing then that might show where things are going wrong – there aren’t any errors in the server logs.

My webhosting company does not support third party installations. They instructed me to install suphp on my own.

I am getting an error Fatal error: Class ‘WP_Http’ not found in /hermes/bosweb/web217/b2174/ipg.heelsdanceacademyorg/wp-includes/http.php on line 26

and I am unable to login to my WP admin console as well…please help. my website https://www.heelsda.com has gone for a toss ??

They instructed me to install suphp on my own.

suPHP has to be installed at the server level. Unless you have a VPS or dedicated server, I recommend moving to a hosting provider that knows what they’re talking about.

I am getting an error Fatal error: Class ‘WP_Http’ not found in /hermes/bosweb/web217/b2174/ipg.heelsdanceacademyorg/wp-includes/http.php on line 26

Try downloading WordPress again and delete then replace your copies of everything except the wp-config.php file and the /wp-content/ directory with fresh copies from the download. This will effectively replace all of your core files without damaging your content and settings. Some uploaders tend to be unreliable when overwriting files, so don’t forget to delete the original files before replacing them.

If you need further assistance, please start your own topic.

Thanks alot James for the reply. I am not a very great programmer. I had tweaked few plugins before to make few changes to the functionality of those plugins and they were working as i always wanted them to. I just want to ask you if the solution you provided will keep my those plugins in the same “altered” way as i wanted.

I know i might be asking too much. but just want to save myself from weeks of efforts that i had put in. please suggest.

Yes, as long as you don’t replace the /wp-content/ directory (as mentioned above), your plugins won’t be affected.

If you need further assistance, please start your own topic.

Thanks James. I will try the suggestion given by you ?? Thanks again.

Just out of curiosity, I tried four core updates in a row, deleting the upgrade folder between each one. I also ran some plugin upgrades (no problems) but the core upgrades all failed in exactly the same way.

It hangs for about two minutes on: “Installing the latest version…”

Then it dies with:
Could not copy file.: /public_html/wp-admin/css/theme-editor.dev.css

This seems really specific. If it were randomness on the server, shouldn’t it occasionally choke at a different point? Other people’s upgrades seem to be barfing at exactly the same file, so maybe this will help track the issue down.

Off to do a whole lot of manual upgrades…

Pleeeeeease fix this, I am getting this error as well (upgrade from 3.0.1 to 3.0.2). All previous upgrades went fine.

It’s not caused by an overloaded server. Disabling themes and plugins, removing the upgrade folder does not help either. Permissions also look fine in ftp. It keeps on failing on exactly the same theme-editor.dev.css file.

I have this problem too along with many, many other people. It would help if a log were produced during the upgrade so that the problem could be found and fixed.

If anyone is still running into this issue there’s a patch (https://core.trac.www.ads-software.com/ticket/10913) for WordPress that should go into 3.2. In the meantime, there’s a plugin that should help fix updates for most of you: https://www.ads-software.com/extend/plugins/ftp-upgrade-fix/