Auto update to WP 5.0

WordPress does not update to major versions by default. It only updates to minor versions by default. So your 4.9.8 would have been auto-updated to 4.9.9, but not to 5.0.

That said, some hosts will auto-update WordPress sites, as will some auto-installer software. These are not controlled by WordPress and we can’t stop them or affect them in any real way.

WordPress also does not have any user-facing setting to enable or disable auto-updates. You can add defines to your wp-config.php file to control what WordPress does with auto-updates, but really, if you got auto-updated to 5.0 and you didn’t have any lines to control this in the config, then WordPress didn’t do the update, some external system did that for you.

Okay thanks for the clarification! Two of my sites are on the same host, but only one of those was automatically upgraded to 5.0. I will check with my host on this subject.

So, will adding code to wp-config only stop WordPress from updating but not a host?

So, will adding code to wp-config only stop WordPress from updating but not a host?

Yes, such code would stop WordPress and not an external force like a host from doing updates.

However, by default WordPress only does minor updates. And you really do want minor updates. The update done last night to 4.9.9 or to 5.0.1 was a security update.

So, disabling auto-updates entirely isn’t a good idea. This is why it’s “minor” by default.

One of my sites auto-updated to 5.0. It’s running on the same server as 30 other sites, which so far fortunately have not done that.