WordPress 3.4 upgradation creates new problems, issues !!

Now that WordPress 3.4 Green is out, everybody can see a upgrade notification on the top of admin backend. Before clicking that link for auto update, let’s see some of the problems, bugs, issues those are reported by users who has already upgraded.

If you Google a bit, you can find that:

• Header problems after Upgrade to WP 3.4 and Weaver 1.1
• WordPress 3.4 – Image align problem
• Trying to troubleshot image caption issue
• Incompatibility with qTranslate plugin
• WordPress upgrade 3.4 and now no Akismet stats
• WP upgrade 3.4 broke my page templates
• WordPress 3.4 Upgrade Error with Database Reloaded Plugin
• SleekPhoto Slider Not Working After WordPress 3.4 update
• Can’t login after upgrade WP 3.4
• Mail problem After wp 3.4

And lot more like these…..

Is the new WordPress Green has Bugs,defects ??(Ans: may be , may be not) Why is it breaking my site’s design, site’s functionalities ??

So the answer to all these above problems is precautions and backups before upgrading the WordPress to latest. WordPress always warns you to “please back up your database and files” before upgrading to the latest version of WordPress. Out of 100%, let’s say.. 1% or less is the chance that the new WP version might have problems, others are due to incompatibility with plugins and themes.

Remember these points before upgrading to newer version of WordPress.

WordPress Before Upgrade Checklist:

1- Check your Theme and Plugins for compatibility with WordPress 3.4

Try to ensure that your current theme and plugins are compatible with the newer version of WordPress. Visit these links to check Theme Compatibility and Plugins Compatibility. If the theme and plugins are not compatible, then update to latest versions of Theme and Plugins.

2- Disable and/or Remove Old Plugins:

Go through your Plugins list and get rid of the Plugins you don’t use any more. Remove them from your server. If there are Plugins which are not compatible with the new version, check for updates and install them. If there are no updates, look for alternatives.

3- Validate your Theme:

If you have been tweaking with your WordPress Theme, take time to run it through a validator to ensure that it still works and there is nothing left broken. See the Validating a Website article in the WordPress Codex for help. http://www.w3.org/QA/Tools/

4- Take Backup of everything:

• Backup your database using tools like PhpMyAdmin, Adminer etc.. Several plugins can be used to backup: WP DB Manager , X-Cloner Backup
• Back up ALL of your files in your WordPress directory and your .htaccess file. Typically, this process involves using an FTP program to download ALL your WordPress files from your host to your local computer. Use  BackWPUp plugin to backup your whole site.
• Ensure that the backups are usable and kept in a safe,secure place.
• Never Delete these files:
  
  • wp-config.php file;
  • wp-content folder; Special Exception: the wp-content/cache and the wp-content/plugins/widgets folders should be deleted.
  • wp-images folder;
  • wp-includes/languages/ folder — if you are using a language file do not delete that folder;
  • .htaccess file — if you have added custom rules to your .htaccess, do not delete it;
  • robots.txt file–if your blog lives in the root of your site (ie. the blog is the site) and you have created such a file, do not delete it.

5- Now, if everything is in place, go and upgrade wordpress to version 3.4 Green.

Check the whole site if everything is working fine. 🙂 However, this does not mean everything is guaranteed to go smoothly. Even if most of the sites experience no issues with an upgrade, there is always some sites that can experience small problems.

For troubleshooting

, check your theme files, plugins files.

• Try disabling the current theme and enable TwentyEleven theme.
• Disable plugins and enable one by one to check which plugin is causing issue.
• Visit respective plugin support forums on WordPress website. WordPress Support Forum

 

Latest news !! WordPress 3.4.1 is out with lots of fixes and patches

On June 27, 2012, WordPress 3.4.1 was released to the public. This is a maintenance and security update.

This maintenance release addresses 18 bugs with version 3.4, including:

• Fixes an issue where a theme’s page templates were sometimes not detected.
• Addresses problems with some category permalink structures.
• Better handling for plugins or themes loading JavaScript incorrectly.
• Adds early support for uploading images on iOS 6 devices.
• Allows for a technique commonly used by plugins to detect a network-wide activation.
• Better compatibility with servers running certain versions of PHP (5.2.4, 5.4) or with uncommon setups (safe mode, open_basedir), which had caused warnings or in some cases prevented emails from being sent.

Additionally: Version 3.4.1 fixes a few security issues and contains some security hardening. These issues were discovered and fixed by the WordPress security team:

• Privilege Escalation/XSS. Critical. Administrators and editors in multisite were accidentally allowed to use unfiltered_html for 3.4.0.
• CSRF. Additional CSRF protection in the customizer.
• Information Disclosure: Disclosure of post contents to authors and contributors (such as private or draft posts).
• Hardening: Deprecate wp_explain_nonce(), which could reveal unnecessary information.
• Hardening: Require a child theme to be activated with its intended parent only.

Source: http://codex.wordpress.org/Version_3.4.1