7 Points of Safe Update

Applying a new update is quite a daunting process for professional web developers and seasonal webmaster alike. Some risks that we may encounter includes but not limited to: plugin incompatibilities, losing your code customisations or simply corrupted files. All those problems will no doubt disrupt your service delivery. Last thing we want to have is to get stuck with a “blank” page, your customers won’ t be too happy.

So here’s a few things that we can take into account. Applies generally to most web applications such as Joomla, Wordpress, etc.

1. Look into the change log of the update package that you are going to apply, make sure there is no obvious incompatibilities issue.
2. Do a quick search on what problems are people encountering with that update.
3. Backup (obviously), not just your files, but also your database. Chances are the update package will make changes to the database structure or make new entries.
4. When uploading a directory, rename your old directory first into something else, then do the upload. In the event your upload fails, just rename the directory back.
5. Test the front-end of your application. Make sure its displaying the proper data, especially if you have a payment gateway installed.
6. Test the admin back-end of your newly updated application. Make sure all admin functionalities work.
7. If you the website owner, inform the owner. In some cases where there are multiple administrators in might be good to inform them if there are new functionalities.

So that’s a few things that you can keep in mind when doing updates. Hopefully those ideas can guide you to apply the changes safely.

If you need any help, don’t hesitate to contact us!