Does not seem to be working

jdstallings,

Thanks for the feedback. Am I correct when reading that your WordPress install updated automatically, but not your plugins?

From what I have seen so far, there are 3 cron processes, one for WordPress updates, one for plugin updates, and one for theme updates. If I’m not mistaken, these are run every 12 hours.

I’ll do some testing on my end to make sure the automatic plugin updates are still working, but it might be a few days before I can get back to you as the best way to test it is to let it happen naturally.

Thank you for your patience.

Thanks for the quick response. I have this on about 8 sites and the only one that has updated to anything was one of them when I logged in and it only updated from 4.1.1 to 4.1.2.

I know the cron is not what you would think as a normal cron since it does not execute until someone has actually touched the site (visitor). I will let these sit and see if anything happens over the next 24 hours.

Jim

Thanks.

I also on my personal site turned on automatic updates for major releases, plugins, and themes.

I’ll get back to you tomorrow how it all went.

Okay, I set automatic updates for major releases, plugins, and themes.

I just got home and my install has been updated to 4.2, and all plugins/themes have been automatically updated.

Not sure where to go from here other than to be patient.

Well… it is doing zip on the site I just looked at. Maybe I will try issuing the wordpress cron manually so see what happens.

Let me know if you have any issues. I have a weird work-around for forcing the auto-updates to trigger. I can write up a brief tutorial if that’ll help.

I would be interested in seeing your work-around. That makes sure I stay inline with your idea and can test it for you.

Let me know

Hi Ronald,
Great Plugin and thank you. I am having the same issue with 4.2.1. I installed yesterday and assumed the plugins would update during cron, but no luck since 4pm CST yesterday. A workaround tutorial posted wherever you think it would help most folks would be great.
Thanks, Klaus

Hopefully we can start working on the workaround in the next weeks so that this problem can get resolved. Sorry for the delay.

Sorry all, I haven’t had a chance to work on a video.

I initially tried this technique, but it would only occasionally work: https://birdhouse.org/blog/2013/11/02/force-wordpress-auto-update/

When I was testing this out, I found a way to trigger the auto-updates that worked 100% of the time.

I do not advocate hacking core, and playing with versions may trick WordPress into doing something it shouldn’t, but here is what I found.

There’s a file called version.php in the wp-includes folder. If you open this up, you’ll see a string with the WordPress version.

When I was testing major version auto-updates, I would change the version from 4.2 to 4.1. Minor versions, 4.2.2 to 4.2.1.

I then use a plugin that can trigger the WordPress cron. The best one I’ve found is the one by Sucuri (https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/sucuri-scanner/).

There is a Site Info tab when you to the Sucuri settings. Under this tab is Scheduled Tasks.

You can trigger the following crons to trigger the auto-updates:

1. wp_maybe_auto_update
2. wp_version_check
3. wp_update_plugins
4. wp_update_themes

You shouldn’t have to modify the WordPress core version.php to test auto-updates on plugins/themes, but to test WordPress auto-updates, you almost have to.

If any of you find a better way to do this, please let me know!