During my last upgrade, I crashed my WordPress websites and after I made the web site to work, it broke the Fantastico DeLuxe automatic upgrade feature. Manual upgrading was a little tedious and I had to go through several steps to make any update to the WordPress installation. I did find another way to make use of automatic update and it worked by using the Simple Script feature provided by Blue Host web hosting company.

My WordPress crashed previously because I installed it in a different directory from that of the public folder version. As explained in my previous post here:

Fixed my crashed WordPress Installation

It broke the Fantastico DeLuxe auto installation feature which meant I have to upgrade manually. I found manually upgrading a rather tedious affair and decided to find a way to fix back the auto installation. In my BlueHost web hosting account, they provide two ways of automatic software script installation – Fantastico DeLuxe or Simple Script.

The former is a complete no brainer one stop installation. Just key in the folder you want your installation to reside, key in your preferred login id and password and it installs for you including automatic creation of SQL database and SQL user. It has a safety feature in that it will not allow you to install over an existing folder. This safety feature plus the automatic creation of SQL database and SQL user is also what is holding back the ability to rebuild the link to my existing installation. I could work around by backing up the SQL database and SQL user, delete everything, reinstall WordPress and restore back the SQL database. It felt very tricky and I didn’t relish destroying the SQL database.

So I decided to try the Simple Script installation version instead. The Simple Script method has advance features and it could install and overwrite an existing installation. Very dangerous, but very useful for me. It could automatically create an SQL database or you could manually create one and provide the details for the installation to link to it. Opting for the latter I could link back to the existing SQL database, plus I didn’t have to remove my existing WordPress websites installation. I could just leave my theme and plugins intact by just installing over the existing installation.

So this was what I did:

• Enter the file manager, look up the config.php file in the WordPress installation directory to get the SQL user id and password and other installation info which you will need for the installation later. You may want to copy and save the complete file in your hard disk for later reference.
• Backup the WordPress websites folder and all its contents. BlueHost file manager has a compress function which I use to make a zip back up of the WordPress folder.
• Login to WordPress admin dashboard, go to the plugin section and disable any WordPress plugins
• Enter the Simple Script control panel and select the WordPress installation and proceed from there
• Select the folder where you would install over the existing WordPress websites. Look through and understand the warning provided and check make sure all is in order.
• Uncheck the admin id/password and key in the same one you use for login in your usual WordPress login panel
• Uncheck the automatic database creation and provide the SQL database and SQL user and password and other details which you collected earlier.
• Cross your fingers as you press the installation button, and confirm that you will proceed with the installation, overwriting any previous installation.
• After the installation is complete, go to the login panel, you may see a message like upgrading the web site before presented with the login panel. Login and check that your installation was installed properly and re-enable the plugins.

Give yourself a pat on the back after a successful installation!

So in future if there is any update to the WordPress websites, you could just do it quickly from the Simple Script control panel.

Cheers! Enjoy!