Wordpress Update Strategy
Out of context: Reply #8
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- nocomply0
Hey mg - I've been in your situation many times.
I would opt for more of a #2 approach:
Migrate the entire site to a local development environment (I use MAMP for my local dev environment, but https://serverpress.com/ is also great)
You can do the migration manually or use one of many backup/migration plugins available (I use BackupBuddy).
One the site is on your local dev environment, you can start breaking stuff and it doesn't really matter. I'd start by ditching your existing theme and working on a new one with all of your existing data in place. See what breaks and what doesn't.
If your custom post types were programmed into your old theme (as opposed to declared within a plugin), then you're going to lose the ability to view/edit them as well as display them on your site, but don't worry, they're still in your database and it's pretty easy to get them back. I can provide links if needed.
Then I would start removing unnecessary plugins to make the site lean and mean.
When you get the site working well on your local environment, then you can migrate it to your live server.
Admittedly, this is the more "advanced" option of the two you provided. If this stuff sounds scary to you, maybe stick with option #1 as others had mentioned above. There's nothing wrong with that approach at all. But for me it's the more time-consuming of the two given the tools I use and the workflow I'm comfortable with.
- Thanks. I'll have to give this some thought. Might hit you up for some more advice.mg33
- How good are you at figuring out where issues are from running in debug mode?mg33
- Debug mode can be tricky. A lot of issues that you'll see there don't necessarily need to be fixed for your site to work.nocomply
- I'm not an expert debugger. It's usually a process of tedious trial and error. Often a plugin or theme file is the culprit.nocomply