Database Upgrades after Automatic Update

Today WordPress released 4.3.1 a security and maintenance update that should of been automatically updated on most of your Child sites.  You can check the Announcement post or release notes for more details on what is contained in this new version.

We noticed with this version about 30% of our testing sites were returning the database upgrade required message “WordPress has been updated! Before we can send you on your way, what have to update your database to the newest version”

How to verify your database is updated or update it if needed

In order for us to update those Databases quickly and easily on our end we created a simple Extension that automatically opens the update page for you (nothing pretty).

In order to use it follow these steps:

1. Download the mainwp-dbupdate-extension.zip
2. Install the Extension through your Dashboard plugin upload page (/wp-admin/plugin-install.php?tab=upload)
3. Activate the Extension
4. From your Dashboard Extension page (/wp-admin/admin.php?page=Extensions) press “Enable” on the MainWP DBUpdate Extension
5. Click the “Wrench” icon
6. Turn off any pop-up blockers for your Dashboard site
7. Click “Check for DB Upgrade” this will open the update page on all your Child sites.  Caution: if you have a lot of child sites this could slow your server /computer during the process since it is going to open each site in a new tab to the update db page.  If you have a large number of sites and slow server / computer it may be best to go one by one down the list by pressing “Click here to open.
8. If your DB has already been updated you will receive the message “No Update Required”

You can also perform these steps manually without the Extension by going to your “Manage Sites” page (/wp-admin/admin.php?page=managesites), hovering over the URL and selecting “Open WP Admin” link for each site.

I hope that helps everyone verify that their WordPress databases have been updated on every site quickly and easily.

Thanks for using MainWP!