{"id":2710,"date":"2019-12-05T22:18:35","date_gmt":"2019-12-05T22:18:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dpscomputing.com\/blog\/?p=2710"},"modified":"2021-03-01T21:32:30","modified_gmt":"2021-03-01T21:32:30","slug":"danger-read-before-updating-adrotate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dpscomputing.com\/blog\/2019\/12\/05\/danger-read-before-updating-adrotate\/","title":{"rendered":"DANGER! Read Before Updating Adrotate!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Adrotate plugin is a popular staple of many blogs – including this one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the update to Adrotate Version 5.6.2 could lead to you needing a fresh pair of underwear. Particularly if you’ve done the naughty thing of not taking a backup prior to your updates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Updating blog software and CMS’s such as Joomla and WordPress has traditionally been fraught with difficulty. However, in recent years, this has got better – with the advent of auto-updates to core files as well compatibility checkers for plugin updates and a whole host of other measures to make updating less Russian Roulette and more stroll in the park. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s what makes it even more heart-wrenching these days when it goes wrong. You’re nowhere near as expecting it as much as you may have done only a few years ago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What’s The Issue<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

WordPress white screen of death. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Every sys admins nightmare. ‘Critical error on your website’ is not<\/strong> something you want to be reading – ever<\/em><\/strong>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘Learn more about debugging in WordPress’. Oh the joys. We’ve spent many an hour pouring over this ourselves previously. It’s no fun – particularly as this kind of issue usually happens right before you’re about to leave the office for the night or head to bed (or both!). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thankfully, we’ve encountered the pain with the latest Adrotate plugin upgrade to 5.6.2 so you don’t have to. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Do I Need To Do?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Firstly, breathe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Secondly, continue breathing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thirdly, you can activate debug mode<\/a> as suggested in the handy WordPress article. Of course, if you’ve just batched many updates, you may need to do this to conclusively narrow down the problem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, if you’re on the latest version of WordPress, and you’ve just updated Adrotate, then that’s almost likely to be the (or one of the) issues. Thankfully, one that’s not too difficult to fix. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Going to your blog home page shows the WordPress critical error death page, so that’s not going to help too much. Try direct navigating to your admin control panel – default address ends in wp-admin\/index.php – e.g. www.your-domain.com\/wp-admin\/index.php. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This should load, albeit in a sickly fashion. If you’ve enabled debug mode, prepare for a flurry of PHP error messages to be displayed informing you things are FUBAR!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You’ve probably got scary errors such as this one displaying:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

__construct()<\/p>

instead. in xxxx\/xxxx\/xxxx\/xxxx\/xxx\/xx\/wp-includes\/functions.php<\/strong> on line xxxx<\/strong><\/p>Scary WordPress error<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Don’t fear, simple solution on the way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Final Fix<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Head to your plugins page. The menu on the right should still be there in the dashboard – even if it is a little pushed down the page by all the errors. If not, direct navigate to \/wp-admin\/plugins.php. So if your domain is www.your-domain.com then head to www.your-domain.com\/wp-admin\/index.php – assuming that you’re using the default directory structure of course. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Deactivate the Adrotate plugin. <\/li>
  2. Activate the Adrotate plugin. <\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Give it a few minutes, refresh your admin dashboard, refresh your blog and voil\u00e1, peace – and your blog – should now be restored. You’ll see the usual ‘thanks for upgrading Adrotate’ message on your dashboard – the message cheerily displayed by the plugin that has no idea that it’s just scared you half to death! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The Adrotate plugin is a popular staple of many blogs – including this one. However, the update to Adrotate Version 5.6.2 could lead to you needing a fresh pair of underwear. Particularly if you’ve...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"You'll want to check this out to stop you ripping your hair out!\n\nDANGER! Read Before Updating Adrotate!\n\n#Wordpress #Adrotate #CriticalError","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[55],"tags":[2522,2526,2527,2528,2523,2524,2525,103,2529,2531,2530],"class_list":["post-2710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-adrotate","tag-adrotate-5-6-2","tag-adrotate-5-6-2-upgrade","tag-adrotate-5-6-2-upgrade-error","tag-adrotate-upgrade","tag-adrotate-upgrade-issue","tag-adrotate-upgrade-warning","tag-wordpress","tag-wordpress-adrotate-error","tag-wordpress-critical-error","tag-wordpress-plugin-error"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.dpscomputing.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/adrotate.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3nsfA-HI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dpscomputing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dpscomputing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dpscomputing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dpscomputing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dpscomputing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2710"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.dpscomputing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3024,"href":"https:\/\/www.dpscomputing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2710\/revisions\/3024"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dpscomputing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dpscomputing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dpscomputing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dpscomputing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}