Update Watch: week 41

Every week we look at what happened to the WordPress updates Verploy handled. This first edition is small, and we say so: most of these sites are maintained by our own agency, plus a few early agencies. Treat it as a sample, not a census.

This week in three numbers

• 314 update runs in seven days
• 56% went fully live by themselves after testing (77% for updates that ran on a schedule overnight, 49% for updates started by hand)
• 6 rolled back after going live

Held back ≠ broken

137 runs needed a person. That does not mean 137 broken updates. A held-back update means Verploy could not confirm it as safe, so it left the live site alone. Most of the reasons this week had nothing to do with the update itself.

Who had to act

Cause	Runs
The site or hosting (slow, unreachable, licence, PHP version, firewall)	90
The update itself (visual change, broken page or login, failed update, missing content, script errors)	30
Verploy (our own errors)	17

Why updates did not go live

Reasons seen on 3 or more sites.

Reason	Runs	Sites
Site too slow to answer in time	26	18
No licence, so no update package	19	14
Update needs a newer PHP or WordPress version	16	11
Visual difference on a tested page	14	7
Partly live: one part of the update failed	12	7
Unknown (we’re investigating)	13	5
Page or login stopped working on the test copy	4	4
Other (each on 1–2 sites)	33	—

Three lessons for agencies

1. Most stuck updates are about the site, not the plugin. Two thirds of the runs that needed a person were caused by hosting, licences or PHP versions. Fixing those once unblocks every update after it.
2. Check your PHP version before the next big plugin release. A popular form plugin’s latest version needs a newer PHP than many sites still run. On 11 sites the update simply could not install. That is a hosting setting, not a reason to skip security updates.
3. Premium page builders without an active licence fall behind silently. WordPress shows the update, but there is no package to install. If a client’s licence lapsed, the site keeps an old version until someone notices.

Our own part

17 runs went wrong because of Verploy itself, and 2 rollbacks did not finish on their own and needed manual work. We fix those first; you’ll see the number here every week.

Corrections

If you think a number here is wrong, or you make a plugin or theme in these categories and want details, contact us and we’ll correct it in the next edition.

Want this for your own sites?

With Verploy, every update is checked, and the risky ones are tested on a copy first. If something breaks after going live, Verploy rolls it back. Start free on up to 3 sites, no credit card.