In this blog, we will show you how to add additional retention rules when backing up your WordPress sites with UpdraftPlus. 

By adding additional retention rules, all backups that are older than a certain date will be grouped together and pruned until there is only one backup for each time period. The additional retention rules run after the normal backup pruning, and are run in the order they were created. Additional retention rules also include automatic backups when evaluating which backups to prune.

First, you will need to install and activate UpdraftPlus Premium or the ‘Backup time and scheduling‘ add-on, via the Premium/Extensions tab. Full instructions on how to do so can be found in our installation guide.

To set it up, first go to: WP Admin->Settings->UpdraftPlus Backups->Settings tab

Under the Files/Database backup schedule settings, find the ‘Add an additional retention rule’ link

Set your additional retention rule/s and press the ‘Save Changes’ button at the bottom of the page.

Set how old the backups to be considered should be and how many backups to keep. Once this is setup, all backups older than your selected time period will be grouped together and pruned, until there is only one backup for each time period.

The post How to set up additional retention rules for your UpdraftPlus backup appeared first on UpdraftPlus. UpdraftPlus – Backup, restore and migration plugin for WordPress.

When a new version of WordPress launched in August of 2020, something else came with it: a brand-spanking-new updates feature, along with the risks and pitfalls of WordPress auto-updates. This marked a step-up from previous WordPress releases, in which plugins and themes could only be manually updated. When version 5.5 was released, WordPress users were able to enable auto-updates for any plugin or theme on their site. 

Sounds great, right? In many ways it was. But here’s the catch. Auto-updates aren’t always the best thing since sliced bread and are in fact known to cause a whole load of problems ranging from mildly inconvenient formatting issues, to the downright catastrophic total site failures. If you’ve been thinking about enabling auto-updates for your website, you’ve come to the right place. In this blog, we’ll be running you through some common risks and pitfalls and how to avoid them.

What is an auto-update?

Auto-updates are updates to plugins and themes that take place automatically without the site owner having to do anything manually via WordPress. Unlike manual updates, there’s no need to initiate the process or download new versions of your existing plugins and themes. In WordPress 5.5, site owners can choose whether or not to use the auto-update feature. Each plugin and theme has its own ON/OFF option specifically for auto-updates. 

What are the risks?

Whatever kind of business you’re running – be it a small eCommerce store or a SaaS digital marketing agency, before enabling auto-updates on your WordPress site, it’s important to be aware of all the ‘side-effects’ – both good and bad. Auto-updates are convenient, but there can be some big drawbacks. 

Updates can cause technical issues

Updates have been known to sometimes cause problems on your website. This is more likely if you opt for comprehensive auto-updates across all plugins and themes. Updates will run in the background and you won’t even be aware of it most of the time. But sometimes updates cause technical issues or even ‘breaks’. Auto-updates can fail, especially when concurrent updates are happening simultaneously – with site functionality (e.g. mobile optimization) more likely to go askew. 

Updates can be hard to keep track of

If an update does mess up your site, you will need to know what caused it. Determining exactly what happened and when can be tricky. Especially if multiple updates all took place simultaneously. With selected automatic and manual updates, it can be easier to isolate the root issue and fix it. 

Some major releases may be incompatible

Sometimes auto-updates might include a major release. If a particular plugin (e.g. a plugin used to monitor cloud metrics) releases an update with a larger than normal installation base, it could cause problems. If you have auto-update enabled, you won’t have any control over whether or not you wish to deploy those changes. 

WordPress does not use a ‘Canary update’ testing process. Canary updates roll out code to test sites before official release. Without this, there’s no telling what a new update will do. Likewise with smaller plugins, top-notch quality assurance is not guaranteed. By enabling auto-updates you’re essentially handing over control to unknown quality assurance teams. 

The best way to run WordPress updates

There are safer ways to enjoy the benefits that automatic updates bring. Just proceed with caution. Now that you’re aware of some of those common issues, you can enjoy auto-updates without worrying too much about the consequences. 

With all the potential issues your site can be faced when updating your plugins and theme, it is vitally important to have a secure and recent backup of your site. Having a backup with UpdraftPlus can help save you. Even if you take all the necessary precautions, it is still possible to fall victim to a bad update and have your site die on you. Backing up your site with UpdraftPlus can be done in just a few minutes. Just download UpdraftPlus, follow these simple instructions and you won’t have to worry about an update permanently taking down your site again. 

While the latest update of WordPress can update your plugins automatically, we recommend that you turn off auto-updates for all/selected plugins and use Easy Updates Manager instead. Easy Updates Manager currently helps more than 300,000 WordPress users automatically keep their sites up to date and bug-free. It’s also highly customizable to give you real control over what updates to run.

Easy Updates Manager in action

Choose from manually update, disable update, enable auto updates, disable auto updates and choose per plugin/theme, so you always have full control over your site and what aspects are updated. This offers a greater degree of control and limits unnecessary risk or disruption – disruption that could potentially derail a business in its infancy. 

The potential business impact of an auto-update-related disruption could be catastrophic. If an automatic update interferes with your customer payment portal for example, the losses could be substantial for a well-established brand with high volume sales. 

Use UpdraftPlus and Easy Updates Manager today for the best backup and auto update options. 

Marjorie Hajim

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Content management system platforms like WordPress have successfully democratized website building in the current digital era, with what used to be a potentially expensive and tedious and difficult process, now becoming easier and more accessible for both inexperienced and experienced site owners. But how do you go about protecting your WordPress admin area?

However, the issues of security have remained challenging for many WordPress site owners. According to a report by WordPress security plugin WordFence, almost 90,000 security issues were reported every 60 seconds on WordPress websites in 2020.

This data is even more troubling when we take into account login-based WordPress sites like eCommerce platforms, where sensitive information such as banking and debit card details are shared daily.

If you’re trying to build a website, using WordPress is a great idea, but you may be worried about the security of your WordPress admin area, especially given the sheer volume of cyber threats in the previous year. 

If you wish to reinforce your log-in mechanics, consider these seven simple measures to secure your admin area.

1. Change your passwords often

Let’s start with the basics of WordPress admin and login security. It may seem like the simplest solution when it comes to your site’s security, but changing passwords is often overlooked as an effective security measure.

This cybersecurity approach is essential to any login-based online service and should be implemented across all types of sites, from streaming platforms like Netflix, to social media sites like Instagram, to online group meeting apps like RingCentral. When it comes to preventing admin-related issues, changing a password regularly is a popular cybersecurity tactic. 

2. Keep your plugins updated

Let’s go back to that WordFence data we mentioned earlier. In one study conducted by WordFence researchers, it was found that over half of WordPress cybersecurity issues (52%) were caused by plugins. 

As such, he first step toward securing your WordPress site is investing in WordPress security plugins. Many of these track and record login attempts to analyze any possible admin area threats.

Additionally, it’s important to get rid of outdated WordPress plugins. These pose a threat to your site’s security since they stop updating, meaning their security measures end up being lacking. The safest course of action is to uninstall them, as disabling doesn’t get rid of the additional (and weak) code. Use UpdraftCentral to efficiently manage, update and backup multiple website plugins, themes and backups from one place for sites on which UpdraftPlus is installed.

3. Implement SSL login pages

SSL stands for “secure sockets layer”. This security protocol is generally used on websites that store sensitive data, especially those that require authentication to log in. In essence, SSL measures activate a digital lock – technically, an HTTPS protocol – that guarantees a secure connection from the server to the browser.

Usually your run-of-the-mill hosting provider will include these measures in your subscription. If they do not, consider purchasing an SSL certificate and installing it on your WordPress server. 

This is especially useful for eCommerce WordPress sites, which ask their clients to log in with a profile to automate the checkout process when paying via credit or debit card.

4. Limit login attempts

Restricting the number of possible login attempts is one reliable cybersecurity tip to protect data, especially if you’re looking to prevent potential brute force attacks. 

These cybersecurity breaches are achieved by bombarding an admin platform with every conceivable combination of characters to form passwords, using a simple but effective cracking method of trial and error. 

By limiting login attempts, you can protect your users and your page from attacks of this nature.

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However, when it comes to WordPress admin security issues, it’s important to note that not every hazardous log-in attempt comes from criminals looking to steal data. Sometimes, admin platforms are subjected to non-malicious intrusions performed by users.  

If you’re running a WordPress site that provides user registration, there’s a chance that your users – or yourself – will get locked out of their account by accident. Forgetting your password has happened to everyone at some point after all.

The best way to separate malware attacks and non-malicious intrusions is to implement a network intrusion detection system that can track, record, and analyze potential login or admin issues, without interfering with the traffic it monitors. This way, you can ensure you’re not punishing forgetful users, but are keeping them protected nonetheless.

5. Use two-factor authentication

Two-factor authentication is a security protocol that enforces an additional check on users looking to gain access to WordPress sites. This protection method adds an extra layer of security to passwords by asking for a unique one-use-only code that’s sent to your smartphone.

These apps and plugins are installed on your smart device and will send the codes so you can access your WordPress login screen. This approach is seen as a more secure way of changing your passwords regularly and is particularly recommended for eCommerce sites.

6. Implement IAM solutions

Identity and access management (IAM) software solutions are used to limit the number of remote users accessing online platforms via admin areas and login accounts. In the digital era, the IAM market has grown rapidly and the current list of IAM solutions available can overwhelm newcomers and inexperienced WordPress site owners alike.

There’s a basic list of points to follow to make the most of your IAM service, regardless of which IAM option you choose. Here’s a shortlist of what to do before you commit to a particular provider:

• Access the IT architecture.
• Look for any possible incompatibilities between the OS, third-party application or plugins, and the IAM tool.
• Verify that your IAM system is compliant with guidelines and laws in your industry, market, and country.

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7. Have a backup

The sad truth is, some things are unavoidable. It may be difficult to read, but there’s a chance that even if you do everything right, hackers will still be able to gain access to and attack your admin area. If that happens, it’s important to have a plan of action ready.

Imagine the worst-case scenario: your site has been attacked and hacked. There are no more prevention measures to implement. 

First things first, remember not to panic. Work to identify the problem and react accordingly. The best way to know if you’ve fallen victim to a cybersecurity breach is to look for possible signs of a hacking attack: 

• You’re unable to log in.
• Your site is redirecting elsewhere.
• Your content has disappeared or there is new strange content and links.
• Your site is running slower than usual.

Once you’ve identified the problem, the fastest way to fix any possible issues is to restore your WordPress website using UpdraftPlus. This will allow you to undo any hazardous changes and get back to normal as quickly as possible. To do so, you must have an older version of your site as a backup somewhere secure – such as a cloud storage platform.

As you may be aware, having your data backed up is one of the most essential things to do in terms of cybersecurity. If you want to keep a record of past versions of your site separate from your site, cloud-storage solutions offer safe and secure backups that can help you relaunch your site in just minutes after an attack.

Summary

Now you have read seven effective security tips for your WordPress admin area, let’s reiterate what we’ve learned so far:

• Change your passwords often.
• Install login security plugins (and uninstall old or obsolete plugins).
• Implement SSL encryption-based protocols.
• Combat brute force attacks by limiting login attempts.
• Use additional one-use-only passwords and codes by adding 2FA.
• Limit your log-in possibilities with IAM software solutions.
• Have a contingency plan to fight security breaches, malware, and ransomware viruses.
• Keep a backup version of your site and use it during cybersecurity emergencies.

If you follow these measures, your WordPress site should be protected from any attacks and ready to combat and react to any issues, should the worst happen. 

What are you waiting for? Go out there and turn your WordPress page into an online fortress using UpdraftPlus and UpdraftCentral today!

John Allen has written for websites such as Hubspot and Toolbox.

The post 7 critical measures for protecting your WordPress admin area appeared first on UpdraftPlus. UpdraftPlus – Backup, restore and migration plugin for WordPress.

When upgrading from your Free version of UpdraftPlus to UpdraftPlus Premium, the process can be a little tricky if it is your first time. As UpdraftPlus Premium is not listed on WP.org, it isn’t as simple as just clicking an upgrade button. But if you follow this easy to use guide, upgrading from UpdraftPlus Free to UpdraftPlus Premium can be quick and easy. 

Step 1.

Assuming you have the free version of UpdraftPlus installed, you need to deactivate and delete the UpdraftPlus free plugin from your WordPress site.

Step 2.

You now need to install the UpdraftPlus Premium plugin. This can be downloaded by following this link. Save the file to your computer.

Step 3.

Next, go to your WordPress site and choose ‘Add New’ plugin. Select the ‘Upload Plugin’ button. Now select the UpdraftPlus Premium file you just downloaded (it can usually be found in the “Download” folder on your PC) and press ‘Open’ and activate.

Step 4.

Your UpdraftPlus Premium plugin should now be installed. Go to ‘Settings’ and you should now see ‘UpdraftPlus Backups’. 

Step 5.

You now need to connect your UpdraftPlus account to the Premium plugin. To do this, go to Premium/Extensions and log in using your UpdraftPlus.com account details and press ‘Connect’. 

Step 6.

You are now connected to UpdraftPlus Premium. To claim any add-ons you may have purchased (such as Azure remote storage backup), remember to press the ‘Activate it on this site’ button, which will allow you to use your purchased add-on feature with your WordPress site.  

Step 7.

Finally, refresh the connection by pressing the below link and you are good to go. All Premium features and add-ons should now be available.

Step 8.

Don’t forget to then go to the UpdraftPlus settings page to set your backup schedule and press the save button at the bottom of the screen!

Download UpdraftPlus Premium today. If you require further detailed instructions, more information can be found here. Be sure to comment and let us know if you have any questions.

The post How to upgrade from Free UpdraftPlus to UpdraftPlus Premium appeared first on UpdraftPlus. UpdraftPlus – Backup, restore and migration plugin for WordPress.

The latest update for WP-Optimize 3.1.9 has now been released. As well as lots of fixes and tweaks, there are several new features included. The first of these new features is the ‘Power Tweak’. This Premium feature allows you to change the meta_key field length and create a new index. This can significantly speed up database requests on websites with large post_meta tables. Power tweak works by tweaking the table’s schema to enable indexing. 

The second new feature we have included in this release is the ‘Automatic backups’ feature. When using the new automatic backup feature, users can now use UpdraftPlus during scheduled optimizations. As such, database backups with UpdraftPlus can now run before automatic scheduled database optimization. The third new feature in this update is the ‘Keep last X revision’ update. This feature allows you to delete post revisions, but now gives you the option to keep a specified number of revisions. Before this update, users could only keep revisions by time setting only. This change gives users more flexibility and increased safety when making post revisions. . 

The updates to WP-Optimize 3.1.9 are available now and also includes the following:

• FEATURE: Power Tweak – Change meta_key field length and create new index
• FEATURE: Premium – Automatic Backups using UpdraftPlus during scheduled optimizations
• FEATURE: Keep last X revisions
• FIX: Overlapping header notice in mobile view
• FIX: Cache – Wildcard not working in cache exclusions
• FIX: Prevent error in htaccess when mod_header isn’t available
• FIX: PHP Fatal error on deleting plugin
• FIX: PHP 8 Issue: loadAsync JS error
• FIX: RankMath breaks robots.txt
• TWEAK: Bypass minify when editing translations using TranslatePress
• TWEAK: Purge minify cache from front end
• TWEAK: Minify – Prevent cache directory creation while disabled
• TWEAK: Add Google Fonts API version 2 support
• TWEAK: Minify – Save all tab content settings changes with single Click
• TWEAK: Improved optimization preview
• TWEAK: Filter the list of preloaded URLs
• TWEAK: Update seasonal notices
• TWEAK: Bump WP version requirement to 4.5+

The post WP-Optimize release latest 3.1.9 update appeared first on UpdraftPlus. UpdraftPlus – Backup, restore and migration plugin for WordPress.

From the 4th to the 10th of May, it is Deaf Awareness Week in the UK. A week that aims to raise awareness and help challenge the perceptions of those suffering from loss of hearing and deafness in the UK.

When building a WordPress site, it can be all too easy to overlook the various elements of accessibility. Putting together all of your content, plugins and themes can be an overwhelming and time consuming process. As such it is all too easy to forget that there might be elements on your site that could cause an accessibility issue for people with hearing issues. If you want to build the best possible site for your users, designing it for accessibility can be both incredibly helpful and rewarding. 

As we previously covered in our blog, issues like being colour blind can have a big impact on a users ability to properly use a website. In this blog, we will go into what changes you can also make so your site is more usable for those users with hearing issues. 

How do you make a website accessible? 

Website accessibility refers to the practice of removing barriers that prevent interaction with, or access to websites by people with disabilities. When sites are correctly designed, developed and edited, all users have equal access to information and functionality. With regards to what issues designers may have to change to accommodate deaf users, lots of websites include introduction videos in their headers for example. Without subtitles, these videos can give no information and can cause frustration for the user. 

The recently Oscar winning movie “The Sound of Metal” showed how important assistive technology is for those with hearing loss.

While it may sound like a complicated and difficult task to enact these changes, removing these barriers can be a simple and straightforward process. With just a little effort and time, you can open up your site to a whole new audience.

While there are lots of secondary assistive technologies available for users with disabilities to surf the net, you should always make the effort to ensure that your site meets recommended guidelines that will enable those assistive technologies to help the user.  While there are many more obvious tools to help users with vision issues, the increase in popularity of ‘speech to search’ tools, video sharing, video conferencing and ‘online phone-calls’ shows just how important it is to accommodate users with hearing issues with subtitles/closed captions where available.

How to test your site accessibility

If you make any changes to your site, it is always a good idea to run a test.

One of the best tools to test the accessibility of your WordPress site is the Accessibility Checker plugin by Equalize Digital. The plugin is free to install and works by scanning your sites content and providing warnings notices in real time when you are editing, to ensure posts/pages are ‘Web Content Accessibility Guidelines’ compliant. The plugin will also tell you which section of your code needs to be changed in order not to trigger the accessibility issue, allowing you to make the necessary adjustments. The pro version has the added functionality of scanning custom post types, open issue list, diagnosed issue log, user accessibility roles and an ‘Accessibility Statement’ for your site.  

Conclusion

While website accessibility for users with visual impairment is a more obvious aspect of a site’s accessibility, making changes that can help those that are hard of hearing can be just as helpful for users navigating your site. Be sure to review your site today and check that there are no elements that are not accessible to the deaf community during Deaf Awareness Week.  

The post Deaf Awareness Week 2021 appeared first on UpdraftPlus. UpdraftPlus – Backup, restore and migration plugin for WordPress.

A personal reflection on remote working by our marketing manager, Wayne Mullins in the UK.

It has been well over a year now since we all first heard the term ‘Covid-19’ and the world underwent a massive fundamental change to the way we work and live that no one could have seen coming. After just over a year of lockdowns, travel restrictions, nearly 3 million deaths, lost jobs, businesses closed forever; we have also undergone a change in working practices bigger than anything since the advent of the industrial revolution. We have all been thrown into unfamiliar situations and have had to adapt to leaving the traditional office environment behind and change to a new remote working situation. What have we all learned in the last year and what will this mean for the future of office work?

Before Governments all over the world imposed nationwide lockdowns due to Covid – affecting nearly every office based business, employers were generally reluctant to allow those who could or wanted to work from home to do so. 

Thanks for the imposed lockdown, call centre employees – once crammed into cramped and outdated offices by their hundreds to use a PC and headset that could literally be setup in any location with an internet connection, now had the type of work/life balance and freedom that was thought of as impractical and impossible previously. However, there remained a lingering and prevalent sense of the office ‘old-school manager mindset’ that believes workers need constant supervision and direction in order to properly do their jobs. This belief states that employees should always be within shouting distance and there are many managers still operating under the assumption that workers would use the opportunity of home working to skip work and become less productive. 

Now that the global pandemic has forced the flexible working conversation to the forefront of employment relations, industries such as call-centres – that had stuck hard and steadfast to the traditional working pattern – have been forced to reevaluate just how effective the old way of working really was.

No one knew exactly how the great working from home experiment would workout for employees or employers, let alone the kind of impact it would have on the economy. However after much speculation, studies have shown that it has been a huge success. A recent study carried out by Cardiff University and the University of Southampton, found that 70% of respondents were able to work at a level that was just as productive, if not more so while in a working from home situation. The study also found that productivity could be improved by a permanent shift towards remote working, with 9 out of 10 employees eager to continue working from home in some capacity.

The benefits of not spending countless hours every day stuck in a petrol spewing car or a cramped and expensive train are obvious. These changes have also resulted in employees having the opportunity to become ‘accidental savers’ for the first time, while also allowing more time for people to explore personal hobbies and interests, as well as spend valuable time with family. The changes have also helped improve sleep patterns for millions, generally resulting in a happier and harder working workforce. 

A recent survey carried out by TalkTalk revealed that both employees and employers believe that remote working has had a positive impact on productivity. 58% of workers said they felt more productive when working from home, with 30% of business leaders agreeing with this assessment. In addition to this, 35% of leaders also stated that their employees were working more collaboratively from home, as opposed to in the office.

As mentioned previously, the financial savings and positive environmental impact that came from reduced travelling (both international and local) has been massive. Busy commuter work areas such as Dheli and Manhattan have presented preliminary data that air quality had improved during the pandemic. In China, lockdowns and other measures resulted in a 25 percent reduction in carbon emissions and 50 percent reduction in nitrogen oxides emissions, which one Earth systems scientist estimated may have saved at least 77,000 lives over two months. While overly optimistic stories of ‘dolphins and swans returning to Venice’ have been largely debunked as fake viral news, cities like Venice are using this opportunity to make badly needed environmental changes, such as the banning of large cruise ships from the historic center to protect against further flooding and pollution.

While there appears to be many benefits to working from home for employees/employers and the environment, there has of course been a downside to these changes. While Governments and businesses are losing billions due to the exodus from the world’s city centres, the emotional toll has also had a sizable impact on many people.

A recent poll suggested that 40% of UK employees already felt that work was seeping into their home life. But by August of 2020, this figure had shot up to 52%, showing the effect of widespread home working. Workers stated that some have found it difficult to switch off in the evenings, with a quarter of those polled stating that they are working longer hours when at home. For those people with young children, trying to balance home-schooling and childcare duties with remote working has also contributed to a decline in work-life balance.

Moving forward

As the world starts to come out of lockdown and hopefully return to a more ‘normal’ situation, what does this mean for those who have become accustomed to working from home? Many will be reluctant to return to the soul crushing daily commute and expense of travelling to an office, just to stare at the same computer monitor they have been using at home to great success for the past year.

While home working has some issues and challenges that need to be addressed, a recent study by YouGov suggested that many office employees will be reluctant to return back to the traditional 5 days a week of office work. The study stated that only 7% of office workers hope to return to the traditional full-time office working pattern, whilst 20% stated that their preferred option would be to work from home full-time, with 32% opting for a mix of office work and working from home, with the freedom and opportunity to work from home most days. This would allow for a day or two of office work per week in which to conduct face to face matters and build in personal relationships. 

Whatever changes the future brings, it is clear that the Covid-19 pandemic has altered the way we live and work to a generational defining degree. Hopefully we will emerge from the experience wise and bolder in our attitudes and behaviour towards working environments and expectations.

While continuing to work from home can still present challenges for many, we have learned some valuable lessons that can be implemented to help improve your home working experience. 

Homeworking improvements 

• Switching off when the work day is done

One of the main issues reported when home working is being able to separate your home office from your home. When they are the same place, it can be very difficult to mentally flip from work to home mode as the lines of your work/personal life can easily become blurred. This has given to the increased recommendation and use of a dedicated work area and the massive growth in popularity of garden shed offices.

• Maintaining focus

One of the issues people have struggled most with when working from home is dealing with the constant stream of potential interruptions. Family and children requiring attention and supervision, social media, noisy neighbours, pets, and the call of your smartphone are all doing their best to distract you from work. Setting up hard rules in order to maintain focus can be a difficult and bumpy ride for lots of new working from home employees. Many are still struggling to find a happy medium, even after a year. But as attitudes and work patterns change and start to become the accepted norm, people will learn to adapt fully and learn to block out all the distractions. 

• Work relationships

It is an inescapable fact that for better or worse, working from home can be a difficult and lonely experience for many people. For many, work colleagues are the only other people they interact with on a daily basis. When you have become accustomed to interacting with a large office full of people every day, suddenly finding yourself isolated – both professionally and personally – can be difficult to deal with. Keeping in touch with your work colleagues on both a professional and personal level can help you maintain a strong sense of being connected and part of a team. Slack chats, WhatsApp group chats, Zoom calls and email chains are all important ways to help you stay in touch while working from home.

• Change Up Your Working Environment 

Regardless of how well you set up your home work office and how free of distractions it is, looking at the same 4 walls everyday will have a monotonous and negative effect on anyone. Changing your work environment has proved to help improve creativity and productivity. So don’t be afraid to take your laptop into the garden to get some badly needed fresh air and sun, weather permitting of course.

The future

As the vaccine roll-out continues across the world and infection rates fall, many organisations will start to look at what the future of traditional office work will look like. Will companies continue to justify spending millions in property rentals and contribute massive amounts of Co2 emissions, when the great working from home experiment has shown that remote work is both sustainable and productive?

It is likely that now the genie is ‘out of the bottle’, business leaders have realised that long held suspicions that ‘working from home = not working’ are unfounded. Partial or full home working will likely become the latest hard won workers’ right (such as weekends off, sick pay, pensions, maternity leave, paid holidays etc.) to be an expected benefit for applicable jobs. While there will be many that will want to go back to the traditional 5 days in an office working environment, most will weigh up the financial savings and employee demands and continue to offer it as an option. In modern competitive working environments, it will also become essential to compete with other companies offering a home working option. This will likely result in the normalisation of a hybrid working pattern to accommodate employees eager to retain new working from home options afforded to them during the Covid crisis.

The post One year on: The future of remote working appeared first on UpdraftPlus. UpdraftPlus – Backup, restore and migration plugin for WordPress.

World Backup Day carries a lot of importance for UpdraftPlus. As a WordPress plugin that helps millions of users around the world backup their websites and data daily, we cannot stress the importance of backing up your website and files strongly enough.

Even though the reliability of hard drives, online servers and virus protection has improved greatly in the last few years, many people reading this blog will almost certainly have memories of losing files, Word documents, photos, websites or videos during the early digital age – before reliable, affordable cloud storage and backups were commonplace. While every day is World Backup Day for UpdraftPlus, March 31st serves as a reminder every year that we no longer have to take the very real risk of losing all these important files anymore. A simple backup with UpdraftPlus that takes just a few seconds, can keep your site and files safe for as long as you want them. 

As anyone who has ever used a computer, programme or online service for any period of time will know – crashes, failures, conflicts and viruses are a part of life. It usually isn’t a case of ‘will I encounter a problem?’, rather than ‘when will I encounter a problem?’

As you can imagine, as an organisation that devotes so much time and effort to backups, we have heard countless stories down the years from people all over the world who have lost years of hugely important data and information that they have spent a lot of time and money developing. Thankfully, with UpdraftPlus installed, they were able to restore their site to a previous version and regain access to all their lost content. UpdraftPlus – the world’s leading WordPress backup plugin – can help you make sure that you never have to join the ranks of those unfortunate people who realised all too late, the importance of backing up your website. 

World Backup Day was started in 2001 by digital consultant, Ismail Jadun. This particular day was selected as it is the day before April Fool’s day. Ismail felt that people would associate the connection with April Fools Day, as it was hoped that potentially losing all your files and work would feel like being victim of a particularly bad prank.

On March 31st, it is encouraged that people all over the world share the backup pledge: “I solemnly swear to backup my important documents and precious memories on World Backup Day, March 31st.”

UpdraftPlus has a range of backup packages to suit all of your backup needs. Installed by over 3 million users all over the world, our easy-to-use interface allows you to backup and restore your website with a single click. You can also set the schedule to backup automatically as often as you like, so you don’t have to worry about forgetting to backup your site manually and will always have a recent upload of your site ready to go – should the worst happen. 

Download UpdraftPlus today for the most secure, reliable and highly rated WordPress backup plugin.

The post Celebrate World Backup Day with UpdraftPlus appeared first on UpdraftPlus. UpdraftPlus – Backup, restore and migration plugin for WordPress.

UpdraftPlus is the world’s most popular and leading WordPress backup plugin, with over 3 million active installs. Users all over the world are using UpdraftPlus to safely and securely backup their WordPress sites, files and databases should they ever need to restore their site if the worst happens. As with any plugin, programme or piece of software, issues can arise when trying to carry out a function, such as when creating a backup. In this blog we will go through the most common reasons that you may be causing failed backups and how to fix them. 

• Update plugin / Plugin conflict 

Probably the most common issue a user of UpdraftPlus would run into is not having an up to date version of UpdraftPlus. While older versions will still work, problems and conflicts can be caused by not keeping your plugins up to date. If you are having a problem with the backup of your site not completing, always check to make sure you have the latest version of UpdraftPlus installed first.

Another issue you could potentially face is if a new plugin you recently installed is causing a conflict with UpdraftPlus. Deactivate any new plugins and try backing up again. Common causes of conflicts are plugins loading their own versions of JavaScript libraries or cloud storage APIs on the UpdraftPlus page. These can prevent UpdraftPlus from starting a backup or uploading the backup files to remote storage.

• Not connected to remote storage location / Remote storage full

An update to your remote storage location, such as a change of password or folder structure, could potentially be the cause of any issues you may be having, when trying to back up to remote storage.

To check if this could be the problem, try verifying and resaving your remote storage settings. For cloud storage services which use OAuth verification (such as Dropbox, OneDrive and Google Drive), you may need to re-authenticate with your storage account

To reconnect to your remote storage location, go through the full ‘add remote storage’ option again at UpdraftPlus > Settings. Here you can re-authenticate to your remote storage account of choice.

Remember to click the ‘Save changes’ button and then attempt another backup.

As with any remote storage location, there is a finite amount of space. The reason that your backup is failing to complete could be that there is not enough space for UpdraftPlus to save the files to. Check your remote storage space and delete files or purchase extra space if necessary.

• Backup files too big – Reduce the backup archive split size to 100Mb or lower

Aside from the above issues users of UpdraftPlus may encounter, such as not having the remote storage location properly setup, the most common technical reasons for a backup failing to complete is that you are trying to backup a file that is too large to upload or the file on the server is too large to process. 

In the situation where the file is too large to upload, this can be caused by some plugins creating databases or files that are many hundreds of MB large. These large files can cause UpdraftPlus to time out and not complete the backup. You should always aim to reduce the backup archive split size to 100MG or lower if possible. 

To reduce the archive split size, open the ‘Expert settings’ section of the UpdraftPlus Settings tab.

In the ‘Split backups every’ option, set it to 100Mb. Remember to press the “Save changes” button at the bottom of the page and then run a test backup. 

If you have a large file on your site that cannot be split up as it is a single file (such as a large video file), it is recommended increasing the PHP time limit (and possible memory limit)

To increase the PHP time limit, you need to edit the ‘wp-config.php’ file on your WordPress site. This file is located in your WordPress site’s root folder, which can be accessed via an FTP client or file manager in your web hosting control panel.

Open this file in a text editor, paste below code in the ‘wp-config.php’ file just before the line says ‘That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging.’

set_time_limit(300);

Remember to save your changes and upload the wp-config.php file back to your server. This new code will tell your server to increase the PHP time limit to 300.

Refresh your site and attempt another backup. You can increase the time limit again if needed.

Additionally, you can also try increasing the memory limit. The process is very similar to the time limit and requires you  to edit the wp-config.php file on your WordPress site. This file is located in your WordPress site’s root folder, which can be accessed via an FTP client or file manager in your web hosting control panel.

Paste the following code in the ‘wp-config.php’ file just before the line that says ‘That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging.’

define( ‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ‘256M’ );

This new code will increase the PHP memory limit to 256MB for your WordPress site. Once done, remember to save your changes. Open your WordPress site again after making the changes and hopefully, you will now be able to complete your backup.

If the file is just too large and keeps causing problems, you can also exclude this particular file from the backup process. We also recommend using a WordPress cleaning plugin to help reduce the size of any large databases or files you may be trying to backup. WP Optimize is a free and highly rated plugin from UpdraftPlus that can be used to clean up your database.

• Hosts/server issues

If the issue of large files was the cause of the backups failing, it could point towards a problem with your backup server, such as very low server resources available from your web-hosting platform. Selecting a higher level hosting platform could help your website backup easier and quicker, as it will be dedicating more resources to your website.

If there are still issues with your backup not completing, there could be other issues with your host/server. In order to ascertain what these may be, we would recommend that you ask the UpdraftPlus support team to investigate your PHP error logs. These logs will hopefully contain more information on the exact issues that are causing the non-completion of backup problems. 

To find the file, you will need FTP access to the server for a PHP log (also applied to remote storage). For WP Debug log which will contain the error information, it can be found at the following location

The following plugin: WP-File Manager will help you find the files with the extra information you require. 

• Broken scheduler 

If scheduled backups are failing to start or backups freeze partway, it could indicate there is an issue with the scheduler within your WordPress installation. “Backup Now” starts the backup without the scheduler, but uses the scheduler to schedule a resumption of the job in case it needs more than the amount of time that the webserver allows in one go. Problems with the scheduler will affect any scheduled backup plugin that you try – as well as various other tasks that WordPress and other plugins schedule internally.

For a full and extensive list of what broken scheduler issues can entail and how to fix them, please view this link. This page goes into detail on how to fix the following:

1. Maintenance mode
2. No visitors
3. Disabled schedulers
4. Loopback connections are not working
5. External cron jobs
6. Password protected websites

If you are still having issues after having tried all the above fixes, please contact us via our customer support form and we will do our best to help you resolve the problem.

The post How to fix UpdraftPlus failed backups appeared first on UpdraftPlus. UpdraftPlus – Backup, restore and migration plugin for WordPress.

How to reset an UpdraftPlus licence. When choosing which UpdraftPlus Premium package is right for you, one of the primary decisions when making your choice is the amount of licenses you will require.

We have structured the UpdraftPlus packages to best suit the needs of the various different types of users who require a Premium WordPress backup service. As such, there are 4 different packages you can purchase, depending on how many different sites you would like to install UpdraftPlus Premium onto:

• Personal – 2 sites
• Business – 10 sites
• Agency – 35 sites
• Enterprise – Unlimited

Up until recently, UpdraftPlus licences have been permanently assigned to the site that you activate them on. However we understand that there are many situations in which a licence may have only been used; temporarily on a test site or clone for example. If you purchased the Personal package, it could be possible to use both licences on testing sites for just a few hours and have no licences left when you are ready to install UpdraftPlus Premium on your main site.

We want to ensure that UpdraftPlus customers have the best experience possible when using our product. As such we now allow users to reset their license, so that they can be used on other websites and are not ‘locked’ to the first site it is used on.

How to rest your licence

There are 2 methods you can use if you wish to reset and reuse one of your UpdraftPlus licences.

Method 1 – Self reset

Self-service licence resets are now available from your account page. To reset your UpdraftPlus licence yourself, please follow these instructions.

• User deactivates UpdraftPlus plugin on the site
• Wait 30 days
• Go to My Account > Licences and find the licence
• There will be a reset link to reset the licence so you can use it on another site.

Method 2 – Support team reset

Our support team can reset the licence for you if you wish. Just contact us via the support form: https://updraftplus.com/paid-support-requests/ with all the necessary details and we’ll reset the licence for you, so it can be used again.

Both of these methods will reset a licence and help you make the most of your UpdraftPlus Premium package.

The post How to reset an UpdraftPlus licence appeared first on UpdraftPlus. UpdraftPlus – Backup, restore and migration plugin for WordPress.