Tag Archives: deleted

WordPress Automatic Theme Upgrade Deletes Custom Files

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When I made Dojo, one of the main features of the theme is the ability to add a custom.css file in the same directory, and the theme will load it – that way you can use the theme as a starting point, and just change the colors and stuff to match what you want. That’s how Sean’s blog works. It’s a stock installation of Dojo with a single custom.css file.

A few days ago, I released an upgrade to the theme to add support for some new features in WordPress 2.7, so I logged into Sean’s blog to upgrade the theme. Newer versions of wordpress added the ability to automatically notify users when a new version of a theme is available, and let them click on a link to automatically upgrade. Since I wasn’t sure how it would work, I backed up Sean’s files first, and then used the Upgrade Automatically feature.

It worked perfectly, except it deleted all his custom files! His custom.css file and some other images in the theme directory were just gone. No notification, nothing. Thankfully, I had the backup, so I could restore those files quickly, but I hate to think that someone out there is going to upgrade their installation of my theme this way, and lose all their work.

So please, if you use the Upgrade Automatically feature, make sure you have a backup of your files first, otherwise your custom files will be deleted!

FUUUUUCK

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My apologies to any family members or readers of a more linguistically-sensitive nature, but it was needed. For you see, I have acquired somewhat of a cursed touch with computers recently.

PART THE FIRST: In which I purchase the upgrade to The Sims (which works fine on both Annie’s Win98 box and my Win2K box), only to discover that the upgrade doesn’t work in Windows 2000.

PART THE SECOND: In which I attempt to upgrade Annie’s video card drivers and BIOS, and end up frying the card in the process. Diagnosis still uncertain. Tech support’s only suggestion doesn’t look promising. How much am I willing to put into a new video card for an old machine?

PART THE THIRD: In which I manage to delete an entire hard drive from my machine while attempting to create a dual-boot with Windows 98. Final Diagnosis: Dual-booting achieved successfully, at the cost of the entire contents of a 14GB hard drive, containing a year’s worth of MP3 harvesting (8GB) and ALL of my graphics files (a HUGE deal to a graphic designer). Some of these graphics can be restored from a backup. Some, such as the Myst3 Photoshop files from the job I just did, are unrecoverable.

Sometimes it’s better to just leave things as they are, rather than obsessively attempt to update and upgrade them, but hindsight is 20/20.