The Perplexing World of WordPress Auto-Updates

WordPress, a wildly popular content management system, boasts an auto-update feature that keeps users feeling fresh with just one click. As you navigate the vastness of WordPress’s world, sometimes one may want to disable the feature for certain reasons. It could mean site stability, issues with outdated themes and plugins or just a case of not wanting to update a site regularly.

The Different Types of Updates in WordPress

As with everything, understanding the updating system is key to mastery. There are a few different types of updates that WordPress regularly releases:

• Major Core Updates: These updates are named for their significant changes that impact the functionality and security of the whole WordPress core. The version number matches the update’s importance (e.g., 4.0, 5.0, 6.0).
• Minor Core Updates: Designed to fix bugs and security hiccups in the WordPress core, these updates are identified by their minor version number (e.g., 4.1, 4.2, 4.3).
• Plugin Updates: Third-party plugins installed on WordPress get updated to fix bugs, enhance security and improve their features.
• Theme Updates: The WordPress themes installed on the site receive fixes for bugs, new features, and security updates.

Why Disable WordPress Auto-Updates?

While auto-updates are essential, there are a few cases where disabling WordPress auto-updates benefits the site owner. Here are some reasons:

• Site Stability: With every update, come incompatibility issues that could impact older plugins and themes. This situation could be averted by turning off WordPress auto-update feature.
• Plugin and Theme Issues: WordPress site owners who use custom themes and plugins may face issues when updating WordPress. This problem arises as a result of incompatibility with the latest WordPress version.
• Developer Testing: To ensure that software works as it should, developers may need to test their websites against specific WordPress versions. Automatic updates to newer versions may ruin this testing.

How to Disable WordPress Auto-Updates

There are different ways to stop WordPress auto-updates, depending on what type of update needs disabling. Here are ways to achieve this:

Method 1: Disable Major Core Updates

Major core updates introduce new features to the WordPress system. You can stop automatic major core updates by adding the code below in the wp-config.php file found in the site’s root directory:

define( 'WP_AUTO_UPDATE_CORE', false );

The above code disables all core updates, including security updates. It’s not advisable to turn off security updates even though this code blocks WordPress from updating unless the update happens manually.

Method 2: Disable Minor Core Updates

Minor core updates mop-up bugs and other stability issues. To automatically block minor core updates, add the code below to the wp-config.php file:

define( 'WP_AUTO_UPDATE_CORE', 'major' );

This code permits major core updates while disabling minor core updates. Thus, WordPress will upgrade only for major new versions while users can revise their sites manually for minor updates at any time.

Method 3: Disable Plugin or Theme Updates

WordPress includes a function to halt automatic updates for specific plugins and themes you don’t want to change automatically. The steps to achieve this are:

1. Go to the WordPress dashboard and click on the “Plugins” or “Appearance” option on the left side menu.
2. Select the plugin or theme that you wish to disable automatic update from.
3. On the plugin or theme details page, scroll to the bottom of the page and find the “Auto Updates” option.
4. Select the “Disabled” option and click on the “Save Changes” button.

Conclusion

Whether or not to enable WordPress auto-update is a personal choice guided by the website’s requirements. Automatic updates ensure security but may also clash with themes and plugins. Disabling the auto-update feature grants control over the website without fear of automatic updates causing problems. We hope these steps have provided enough insight into disabling WordPress auto-updates.