Problem Plugins

What a Problem Plugin Is

With Maintenance, every update is tried on a staging copy of the website first, and an update that breaks something is undone the same night, so the website keeps working. A plugin whose updates keep failing is a problem plugin: three of its updates failed within 60 days, or its last two updates failed in a row. We hold only that plugin. Every other plugin, theme, and WordPress update on the website keeps going on as scheduled.

The Problem Plugins Page

Problem Plugins is in the Managed Services menu, under Websites. It shows, across all your websites:

• The counts: problem plugins, the urgent ones (a known security hole), the ones waiting for your decision, and how many websites are affected.
• Website: choose one website to see only its problem plugins (the address becomes problem-plugins followed by the website's number, so you can keep the link). All websites shows them all again.
• Each problem plugin: its name and website, its status (Needs Your Decision, Holding Updates, Risk Accepted, Being Replaced, Urgent: Security Hole, or Resolved), how many of its updates failed and the last one's date and version, and the choice your team made, with who made it and when.
• See What Failed opens a reader with each failed update: its date, the versions, whether it failed on the staging copy (it never reached your live website) or on the live website (it was put back at once), and its error. Show Screenshots loads the screenshots taken before and after that update. History lists every step: when it was marked, each choice with who made it, and anything that raised it again.
• Resolved in the Last 90 Days opens the ones that are over.

Your Two Choices

Owners and admins choose, on the page or in the reader. Each choice is confirmed first, then kept with your name and the time:

• Keep Holding Updates: the plugin stays on its current version and you accept the risk of running an older version. Everything else keeps updating.
• We'll Replace It: your team replaces the plugin. It clears itself once the plugin is gone from the website.

It also clears itself when a later update of the plugin passes on the live website. The same task, with the same two choices, is on your tasks, and a choice made in either place shows in both.

Security Comes First

When a known security hole is found in a held plugin, it is raised again as Urgent: Security Hole, whatever was chosen before, and the choice made earlier is shown as made before the hole was found. We try the update that fixes the hole on a staging copy first, the same night, and undo it if it breaks the website. Replace or remove the plugin, or choose Keep Holding Updates if you accept the risk.

Versions Held for Everyone

When one version of a plugin fails on several websites we look after, across every company, we hold that version on every website and try the next version on a few test websites first. Once a newer version passes on them, everyone gets it. This is ours to handle: it shows as fixed for you and in your monthly report, never as a task.