Stupid Plugin Tricks – When WordPress Updates Don’t Work

Updating plugins in WordPress is as simple as clicking a link. When WordPress updates go bad, however, things can get “interesting” in a hurry! Plugins that fail to update properly fall under the heading of “stupid plugin tricks” because typically the developer did something stupid that causes the update to fail.

Being a long-time software developer, I’ve perpetrated my share of stupid programmer tricks so I’m sensitive to the need for testing software to make sure it does what it’s supposed to do. In the context of a WordPress plugin, if the plugin is already installed and working, the update should not cause it to stop working!

Plugins and Settings

Most plugins have settings that we use to tell it how we want it to affect our site in terms of its intended function. For example, the various Google Analytics plugins all want at least the Google Analytics site ID to be entered and saved so that the plugin can communicate with Google Analytics and report site visits and other data. Very often, there are multiple settings. All these settings are typically stored in the WordPress Options table in the database, although there are exceptions.

No matter where the settings are stored, a plugin should leave them intact when it’s updated unless there is a change to the format of the settings, settings are added or removed, etc. In that case, the plugin should be able to update the settings to the new format in such a way that the plugin continues to work as it always did.

Recent Examples of Bad Updates

There must be a “stupid virus” going around because I’ve seen several plugins cause problems with updates in the past couple of weeks. In all cases, there is no reason why the update shouldn’t have been seamless, but in all three cases, the update broke something.

Fatal Errors

One plugin seemed to update fine, but after the update the first time the Spam folder was cleared, fatal errors appeared on the screen. Fortunately, clicking the Back button in the browser was sufficient to recover from the errors, but then it was necessary to go in to the plugin’s settings and refresh them to straighten things out. Several sites continued to show weird behavior so I ended up turning the plugin off on those sites

This was a major version update for this plugin so obviously the developer had rewritten and added a lot of code. Equally obviously, the plugin wasn’t sufficiently tested before releasing the shiny new version.

Broken Connections

Another plugin which had been connected to the client’s Dropbox account via the normal authorization process “forgot” it was connected after the latest major update. Again, the developer made a lot of changes, one of which was apparently to the authorization process for Dropbox

To his credit the developer did specify in the update notes that the connections to various cloud services would need to be redone. What he didn’t specify was that the plugin wouldn’t work correctly after it was updated. His spiffy new version has some rather egregious bugs in it that cause it to be worse than useless.

Settings? What Settings?

The latest offender is a very simple plugin that assigns Google Fonts to various elements of the WordPress site. As some of you know, Google has a collection of over 600 fonts (and counting) that it makes available free to web developers. This plugin makes it simple to choose one of these fonts and have it used for headings, body text, or any number of other elements.

The plugin settings specify which fonts are attached to which elements and even provide custom CSS for unusual circumstances. This could all be done by hand in the theme settings or CSS stylesheet, but the plugin makes it simple for those who aren’t code jockeys.

So, the latest update of this particular plugin wiped out all the settings leaving the previously styled elements displayed with their default styling! There is simply no excuse for this one. As a result of careless programming, a number of web developers and/or their clients will be losing considerable time and money restoring the previous settings.

Who’s Responsible For Testing?

We could make a compelling argument that the programmers are responsible for properly testing their plugins and, of course, they are, technically speaking. The rub is that relying on them is obviously a disaster waiting to happen, so it falls on us to allow for the fact that updates can and will break things.

This means backing up the site prior to any updates, checking the site thoroughly after updates, and making note of settings prior to updates so that if something like that last case happens, the settings can be relatively easily restored without having to resort to a backup.

The moral of the story is this: just because it’s push-button easy doesn’t mean it’s not potentially dangerous! Be careful with all updates of plugins, themes and WordPress itself. Having a good backup is your first line of defense. Our WordPress Backup Guide will help you get that set up.