Updating
Plugins ship new updates regularly. In the plugin list in Wp admin you will receive update notices when there is a new plugin release. Some updates are more important than others. They can either be a new great feature, bug fixing, code improvements, security patches etc. Always make sure to check out the changelog before you decide to update. Some new updates can break your code if they are not backward compatible. Example of such a case from the WP Api changelog:
BREAKING CHANGE: Removes meta endpoints from primary plugin. If your project depends on post meta endpoints, please install WP REST API Meta Endpoints.
Important
Never ever update your plugins directly on the production server. Always update plugins locally in a new branch There are a few important reasons to this:
- You need to test the new plugin version before it is pushed to production.
- We want plugin updates in own branches.
- Plugins needs to be pushed Github so that other developers have the exact same version of the plugin. The plan is to start using composer for this asap.
Update procedure
- Read the changelog carefully. Are there any backward compatible issues or wp core version dependencies?
- Branch out from origin/master
- Use branch name structure origin/plugin/update/{plugin_name}/{version_name}
- Test the update locally to confirm that everything works as a charm
- Always push the new plugin update to WPEngine staging for testing before pushing to production.
- Be aware that some plugins can have dependencies to other plugins (try to avoid these types of plugins)
- Do one by one plugin update, please no batch update all
Using WP CLI
- Update all plugins:
wp plugin update --all(not recommended for production live code) - Update a specific plugin
wp plugin update pluginname
Manually
- Go to your local console, create new branch and checkout into it (Git routines)
- Go into your local installation of WordPress project and log in into wp-admin.
- Update the plugin using options available under
wp-admin/plugins.php. Then, the files on your machine will be updated as well. - Test whether everything works as it should and there are no problems/errors.
- Back in your console, commit the changes and follow the deployment routines (Git routines)
Note that after each deployment, you should check the staging and production environments for errors. Also, remember that some plugins (like WooCommerce) requires database update. They notify about that by displaying a big button 'Database update required' (or so). In such case you need to perform database update on each environment.