One of the neat things about WordPress 2.5 is that when a plugin that’s in the WordPress Plugin Directory is updated, you get a message asking if you want to download the new version or upgrade automatically. If you use the automatic option, WordPress downloads the new version, deletes the old one, unzips the downloaded file, and reactivates the plugin. It’s marvelously simple, compared to downloading, unzipping, deleting, uploading, and reactivating things manually. Until last night, it worked beautifully.
I try to check the plugins on this blog every day or three, to see if they need to be updated. I was surprised to see notices on many of them last night, so I started going through the automatic upgrade process.
One of the plugins I always use, No Duplicate Comments, is pretty old, but it does what it’s supposed to do. I didn’t think too much of it when I saw the upgrade message. But when I got back to the list of plugins, NDC was gone, and I had a completely unfamiliar plugin, Hide/Cut Post Text installed. The most recent version of that plugin is dated 8 April 2005.
Another update installed WP-Banner, a plugin I’m aware of but not one that I use. It was updated 11 April 2008. I haven’t yet figured out what it replaced, which is annoying.
I still have update messages for Democracy (just the widget, not the actual plugin, which is even odder), last updated 23 March 2007, and the Cystats uninstaller. The Cystats “upgrade” took me backwards, from the 0.9.1 version that I was using to the 0.9.0 version that was released 10 December 2007.
I suppose I’m back to manually updating plugins for a time! I’m trying to figure out just how I should let the WP folks know about this problem. Update: I posted to the support forum, then the moderator asked me to report it as a site bug.
I didn’t even know it could automatically update the plugins! I don’t think I have my permissions set in a way to allow it though. I can’t edit files through the dashboard.
That’s pretty bad that its installing things you didn’t want. I’ll just continue doing it manually too!
It isn’t fully automatic, however you do it – but the feature is great when it works properly 🙂
Did you have issues with the plugin permissions after you have updated it with the automatic upgrade? Now I can’t delete the plugin from my FTP program!
No, I didn’t have that problem. Have you tried to change the permissions via FTP?
Yep, I didn’t have permissions to even browse the folder, let alone change its permissions. 🙂 I guess i’ll have to get the webhosting company to get it deleted for me. Heh
Odd. You can’t change the directory permissions, either?
I’ve had to have our hosting people delete a bad theme in the past, but I don’t think I’ve had to ask them for help with a plugin.