Why I Downgraded WordPress

why I downgraded wordpress, blogsitestudio.comThis week I downgraded WordPress in one of my installations.

My Facebook page is always telling me to do something every day that scares me, so I did.

I downgraded WordPress 3.5 to 3.4.2 despite the scary warning on the WordPress Release Archive page, which says,

“None of these are safe to use, except the latest in the 3.5 series.”

And you know what? It worked. Fear be gone!

While it may seem antithetical, in a medium that is constantly advancing to the next level, to actually go backward in order to move forward, the situation does arise on occasion. Sometimes the latest version creates more problems than it solves and a web designer just has to capitulate to regression.

Why I Downgraded

Normally, when a new WordPress version is released, I take a wait and see approach and wait for an ancillary version to be released with bugs fixes. But this time, I was so excited about the new Media Manager in 3.5. I had to have it.

Upgrading two of my sites went well. With Zenon Pro at BCATW.org the site adjusted to the new version without a hitch.

With LondonLive at TastingRoomConfidential.com I needed to download and reinstall a new version, which worked fine. I thought, this is a breeze. Photo galleries, here I come. That is, until I upgraded BCHeritageFairs.ca.

First, the Add Media button on the Edit Post page was non-responsive. It just didn’t click. This made it impossible for my client to upload pictures to posts.

What I quickly discovered was the problem was with the theme: Next 1.0.6 by Adaptive Themes, distributed by ThemeForest. I had to change it to the new Twenty-Twelve theme as a temporary work-around so my client could get something done.

The Next theme was last updated in August of 2012, but has not been updated after the release of 3.5. A visit to the Next support forum showed the level of discontent by users who were getting no response by the developers.

why I downgraded wordpress, blogsitestudio.com

Finally, in late December, a patch was posted on the forum which involved adding code to four different pages. Trouble was, one patch was incorrect. Discovering this mistake prompted me to post,

“You say: ‘Insert the following at ‘next/prime/js/shortcode-generator/preview-shortcode-external.php (line 238)’ There is no line 238. Only 107 lines.”

After that, Adaptive Themes went silent on the forum, leaving users to fend for themselves. I never bothered to muck with the patch they posted as it seemed a waste of time.

Then, I discovered 404 error messages appearing on Read More post links, and I guess that drove me off the digital cliff. Problems in Next were mounting. I was getting no satisfaction from the developers and I wasn’t about to pay someone to figure out fixes. It was either dump the theme or dump 3.5.

Since so much time and money had gone into adapting BuddyPress into Next, I opted to downgrade WordPress to 3.4.2.

How I Downgraded WordPress

photo by eTuts, why I downgraded wordpress, blogsitestudio.comThis helpful article on eTuts, posted on the WordPress support forum, explained the downgrade process clearly.

I made a backup of the 3.5 version (for the hell of it), deactivated all the plugins, logged out of WP, downloaded version 3.4.2, opened my FTP client and proceeded to delete the wp-admin folder.

When I attempted to delete the wp-includes folder the server stalled, complaining about permissions. To get around that I simply copied the 3.4.2 wp-includes folder (as I did with wp-admin) without deleting it first and clicked Overwrite on a pop-up window. Success.

There were fewer extra files in 3.4.3 than with 3.5, but copying them over didn’t pose a problem. After logging in and updating the database as prompted, the site was back to its old self, without the new problems. Next still has bugs that are annoying, but at least I know it’s not related to 3.5.

Lessons Learned

From this experience, I learned that WordPress can be downgraded successfully to the previous version if that is what it takes to make a site work.

I also learned that I will never buy, use or recommend the Next theme, nor Nexus or Jigsaw or any theme developed by Adaptive Themes. Those folks just don’t care about their users or they don’t stand behind their products enough to troubleshoot them. Thumbs down.

If you spend $25, or $45 or $65 on a theme you deserve help in making it work according to your needs. Theme support is part of what you’re purchasing and you should not have to beg the developers for help.

I complained to ThemeForest and I rated Adaptive Themes with one star on their home page, but I’m not sure it will help. The only thing they need to do is release a fresh version adapted to WP 3.5 and all will be well.

At that point I will upgrade the BCHeritageFairs site to 3.5.

Not exactly a happy new year for me, having downgraded WordPress.

What kind of experience have you had with WP 3.5? Do tell, as misery loves company.

 

3 thoughts on “Why I Downgraded WordPress”

  1. I had to downgrade to 3.4.2 on a couple of sites. The admin menus ceased to function properly and the widget panel drop-downs broke as well. Reverting to 3.4.2 fixed it. Not sure what the issue was. It happened on two sites with completely different themes and plugin groups. Four other sites I upgraded worked fine.

  2. To be fair to Adaptive Themes, the day I posted this blog, I got the following email. Coincidence or response?

    “Hi @marikane,

    Thanks so much for your purchase! We’ve just released Version 1.0.7 of Next, which adds compatibility with WordPress 3.5. It’s available for download via your ThemeForest downloads account.

    Sincerely, Adaptive Themes”

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