A Major Problem Updating WordPress
It is always a good idea to keep WordPress up-to-date, so it is imperative that we can get into our admin area and install the necessary updates. It helps to keep our site secure and is just a good habit to make. I didn’t know about the WordPress 3.5.1 Update Issue. Recently, I tried to update the plugins and WordPress itself to 3.5.1 only to get an error like the one shown below:
At First, I had no idea what to do, so I did what most people would do. I deactivated my plugins one-by-one, thinking that one of them had a major conflict with a core WordPress file. One by one I deactivated each and every plugin, until they were all deactivated. That didn’t help at all. Then I went in via FTP and renamed the plugins folder temporarily, which didn’t produce any positive results. I copied the error and pasted it into Google to see if results would come up. I sifted through a few files, only to come up short.
So What is the Cause of the WordPress 3.5.1 Update Issue?
It turns out, that it is one of two issues. WordPress is trying to install a temporary file in a directory that WordPress can’t find, or the server is having an issue with the temporary folder being too full. My hosting actually admitted that the temporary folder contained 8000 items. This is a huge amount of files, and is an indicator that their servers were not flushing these temporary files like they should be. Contact your web hosting company so they can fix this issue. there is really nothing you can do from this end.
The Solution to the WordPress 3.5.1 Update Issue
All you have to do to fix the WordPress 3.5.1 Update Issue is connect to your files via FTP and open up your WP-Config file. at the bottom, paste the following code:
define( 'WP_TEMP_DIR', ABSPATH . 'wp-content/' );
Then, save the file and upload it to your web server. This should fix the WordPress 3.5.1 Update Issue. Test it by logging into WordPress and updating your files. This should fix the issue and you can update your core files and plugins.