thank you wordpress… not. Your auto upgrade broke my site

1. That’s exactly what I would expect to happen if a) you weren’t using a child theme and b) WordPress was updated. Ouch.

2. WordPress auto-updates. Millions of sites. And when it does, default themes such as TwentySixteen also get automatically updated. Which is why the recommendation is to create a child theme.

3. WordPress updates when new versions come out, regardless of how long ago you installed it.

5. Custom page templates are normally created as php files within the theme; so if you added new php files within it, you modified the theme.

4. No-one else had access to your files.

5. Your anger is misplaced. Learn from this: set up a child theme and a regular backup routine.

6. As George and I guessed (because we’ve seen this before) this happened because you made direct edits to the Twenty Sixteen theme instead of putting those edits in a child theme. Sorry, this was an accident waiting to happen.

There is a wider problem, and that is people not being aware of the importance of child themes. Not everyone reads the documentation thoroughly – there is a lot of it!!

Side note:

3. WordPress updates when new versions come out, regardless of how long ago you installed it.

Not for major version releases it doesn’t.

If you have 4.4.1 then you get updated to 4.4.2 automatically. The last digit is the minor release number. The second 4 in 4.4.1 is the major release number. So 4.4.1 will automatically update to 4.4.2 but 4.4.x will not update to 4.5. It doesn’t do major release numbers that way.

It could but that is turned off intentionally at this time. Someone had to have done it for you.

Here are the plugins that are installed:
akismet – supposed to help prevent spam
foo gallery – a photo gallery – installed but not active
formidable – forms plugin – active but not in use
huge it gallery – photo gallery
jet pack – i should deactivate this one
mojo market
w3 total cache
wp booklet

@jan Dembowski – good point, I overlooked that the big version jump needs to be manually confirmed. Only the minor upgrades are automatic.

Sorry, I’m muddying the waters!

The stuff about child themes still stands, but you should check with the host whether they triggered the update.

None of those plugins should trigger an update.

I believe that JetPack has a feature to auto-update plugins but presumably not WP itself?

Who’s the hosting company?

@jasoncharlesstuartking Just a note: Auto updates don’t normally occur for major versions without intervention, and they also don’t update themes.

I may have found the culprit- The mojo market. There is a page in their settings for auto update manager.. I turned everything off.

Still frustrated though… since the method of customization I had created (and it worked fine) by attaching pages to custom templates is no longer supported in the new 2016… or at least it can no longer be accomplished from a drop-down selection box. This drop-down was in the “add new page” area on the right panel heading “Page Attributes”. That option is gone now so I’ll have to go back to square one if I continue to use this product.

I may abandon WP altogether as it is not nearly as easy to customize (for an amateur )as claimed and I have had more responses hosting the forum/bbs functions on facebook. I can keep the rest of my site simple html where I am in complete control and it loads faster, too.

It’s domain.com

One point though about wordpress.
Whether I initiated an update, wordpress initiated an update, or a plug-in caused the update….

regardless. The update process should not delete files that are not part of the software distribution. Period. no matter what directory they are in. imo

If I install a patch to Word on my pc, it doesn’t go in and delete all my document files……….

my files were: display_gallery.php blank_page1.php blank_page2.php
slideshow.php and test.php they were located under themes/twentysixteen, which is precisely where the documentation I found said to put them.

@cnwilsonbellsouthnet: What happened wasn’t because WordPress updated, it was because the theme updated.

The way that WordPress updates themes is that the old folder is removed, and the new one is installed in its place. Otherwise if a new version of a theme intentionally deletes an old file, it wouldn’t get deleted if the new version simply overwrote the old one, and then things break unexpectedly in other ways.

It’s unfortunate that your changes to twentysixteen were lost — again, have you contacted your host to see if they have a backup? The longer you delay to ask, the less likelihood they’ll be able to recover it. In the future, you may want to look into a plugin like VaultPress or BackupBuddy or Backup To Dropbox or something, so that you can recover files should something bad happen again. An offsite backup is really critical if you’re running a website — I’m just sorry you had to get stung by it.

@cnwilsonbellsouthnet I disagree. Many software packages auto update unless configured to do otherwise. Auto updates are usually security related. Theme and plugin devs are made aware of changes in advance. Please trust the process…

However if you prefer, you can learn how to turn off auto updates here https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Configuring_Automatic_Background_Updates

Hi George,
I know you’re trying to help so I don’t mean to sound like a smart butt, but wordpress update, wordpress theme update- same thing to me ’cause it destroyed 20 or 30 hrs of work (and naggin’ from the wife about gettin’ off that computer!)

My provider charges a monthly fee for backup/restore. I have the files on my pc here at home but I’m leaning toward moving off wp because of this.

I’m not a programmer or developer, but I have been in IT for over 25 years. I am director of network ops at a very large company. I am Cisco ccie. Many years ago, I was a system admin on Novell and Windows NT systems. Never have I heard of an update method which destroys a subdirectory that contains custom files and re-installs. Amateurish method, at best. Trust me, where I work someone would be fired. Probably two people- the guy that did it and his boss. I’ve seen it happen more than once.

Keith I don’t know what you mean by “theme and plugin devs are made aware of this.” Do you mean developers or devices? It doesn’t matter either way because all I can tell you is that I did a lot of research on a package to use. I have never used it but WordPress claimed to be the best and most flexible for customization. I installed it and registered it about 45 days ago -even paid for a couple of plugins for it. I created some customization as described in the manuals and hints from forums….Spent a couple of hundred hours setting everything up and then “poof”. Nowhere did I see a warning that this could happen. So obviously I wasn’t made aware of it. I got no notice, no email, that my site would be upgraded (and trashed.) Had I received such notice, I would have probably opted out at this point because it is still a new install to me. If I did want the upgrade, I would make sure that there was a back-out plan in place. Truthfully, the way it is done in the real world, I would have installed it in a test region first to make sure it worked properly. Thankfully they didn’t touch my html or I would be completely down.

My provider charges a monthly fee for backup/restore. I have the files on my pc here at home but I’m leaning toward moving off wp because of this.

Honestly? Pay the fee.

I do. I pay for daily backups. https://vaultpress.com/ is $9 a month. That’s two Starbucks coffees and your wife won’t be mad at you ??

Nowhere did I see a warning that this could happen. So obviously I wasn’t made aware of it. I got no notice, no email, that my site would be upgraded (and trashed.)

The upgrade is not automatic by WordPress. Ask your webhost if they did it, becuase I promise, it’s not automated. And if they did the upgrade, they should be able to roll you back. If not, you need a new host.

I am sorry you are having such a hard time. Have you contacted your hosting company as @catacaustic first suggested? Most reputable hosts keep a backup and will work with you. However, as time goes by the chances of this become slimmer.

If you have the files on your PC why don’t you just re-upload the theme if that seems to be the issue? Or at least your custom template files.

I understand your frustration but this thread seems like it is becoming a rant on what is wrong with WordPress. If it is any consolation to you, you have a few people here that have responded to you in this thread that are considered “legends” in the WordPress community and are VERY knowledgeable. So if you want help getting your site back to where you want let us know. If you feel you need to implement a different solution then that’s ok too.

Same (was) here. I had disabled autoupdate in my host provider’s control panel, but it still got upgraded from 4.4.3 to 4.5.3, which *is* a major upgrade and shold *not* be pushed by any means, and the upgrade completely broke my Avada theme. Luckily I had a backup from day before so could revert. The upgrade process of a live site has *always* to be done manually, and I do it with prior testing on a clone of the live site. Only when there goes everything fine, then I make another backup and go with the live upgrade. The WordPress developers should be aware that pushing autoupgrade is completely out of the question. At very least this should be configurable and set to off by default. Reminds me somewhat on Windows autoupdates, which had the same nasty habit to leave system in broken state. Imagine if in some major company their Oracle or DB2 databases or SCADA monitoring systems got an autoupgrade overnight, only next day to find out that they’ve completely broken production? It’s exactly the same here but as WordPress is free software, there is nooone to take liability. Not for broken sites, I agree here that there are gazillions of plugins & themes out there, but exactly for that reason, that is impossible to each end every plugin or theme with new release, developers should set autoupgrade to off by default and make it configurable. Now after my dev site got also an autoupgrade to 4.5.3 (reverting back to 4.4.3), I’ll add this line to wp-config.php:

define( ‘AUTOMATIC_UPDATER_DISABLED’, true );

and my question now to developers is: can I be sure that this line will *definitively* prevent autoupgrades? Even if a major security hole is discovered and you decide that “oh, this is such an important fix that we just have to override the option”? You don’t do that in production. Admins are responsible for doing that and it must follow due process whatever it is. I am aware of the risks and I take full resonsibility for it, not you, so disable autoupgrade by default and make it configurable via settings.