Self-hosted Wordpress - Disable ALL updates

I have a site. Self-hosted, Wordpress.

My problem is that every time Wordpress updates, or one of the plugins update, something could and will break on my site. The developer of the theme is fairly useless and unwilling to help.

I've come to the conclusion that the only way to run this site is to hire a programmer to patch up errors as updates occur. But I can't afford that.

So the solution I'm thinking is to basically revert to a previous wordpress version, where everything was working, and then Disable ALL future updates both for Wordpress and the Plugins. This should basically make my site work, and remain working, as it will remain as it is. Nothing will break if nothing ever changes.

Does anyone do that? I'm unsure of the potential problems that could arise in time if I did this.

Any advice?

Should not cost you much to get the script fixed. You can put an offer out here in the freelance section just to get a quote. Or even check fiverr. I would not recommend going and not updating wordpress or plugins.

Should be less than an hour fix I am guessing.

This will probably work, but be careful that there are exploits that a new version of Wordpress would patch.

Never turn off updates as they are often security patches etc, very important to keep everything up to date
Why are you not using a child theme? if you do then every time there is an update all your changes will stay intact. Standard WordPress practice to always use a child theme and never have core code modified.
https://codex.wordpress.org/Child_Themes

Scorpion Ghost said:

The developer of the theme is fairly useless and unwilling to help.

Any advice?

Click to expand...

Did you buy this theme or is it free? I sure hope you didn't purchase it because that sounds like poor customer service. Actually, it's poor service even for a free theme - especially if it was in the WordPress repository.

For site security reasons it would be very stupid to get fixed on one old version of Wordpress and not update at all.

If your site is broken, that's nothing to do with Wordpress, it's your web design skills.

Install a decent, maybe paid theme, delete all useless and non-supported plugins, then see how it will all magically start to work.

Thanks for the tips everyone.

Look, I have a paid theme, but there's no support from the developer. And I have little to no web design skills (other than some CSS and HTML and Common Sense).

I have 2 sites. One is a static site, one is Wordpress. The static site has been sitting there for over a year now spinning money, never breaking, never giving me any headaches. Wordpress site breaks update after update. I prefer the static site.

Anyway...

For the sake of argument. If I were to attempt this. What security measurements would you guys recommend from then on?

The only thing that comes to mind is to perhaps try to put some measures in place to hide the fact that my site is wordpress-based.

Scorpion Ghost said:

Thanks for the tips everyone.

Look, I have a paid theme, but there's no support from the developer. And I have little to no web design skills (other than some CSS and HTML and Common Sense).

I have 2 sites. One is a static site, one is Wordpress. The static site has been sitting there for over a year now spinning money, never breaking, never giving me any headaches. Wordpress site breaks update after update. I prefer the static site.

Anyway...

For the sake of argument. If I were to attempt this. What security measurements would you guys recommend from then on?

The only thing that comes to mind is to perhaps try to put some measures in place to hide the fact that my site is wordpress-based.

Click to expand...

You'd have to factor in a lot of things. Footer note for example, or the readme.html file contains the version. There's many other footprints that give away you're using WordPress, they're the main two though. The easiest way is view-source and if you see references to wp-content or themes etc. then it's obviously a WordPress site. That's all site robots would be doing to determine if you're a WordPress site or not.

I fixed up a site last year that was being attacked actively by China, which resulted in their website being suspended by their hosting provider until it was fixed up. Part of fixing it up was installing the latest plugins. They hadn't updated them for years, which attracted the attack to occur. They aren't under attack any more.

You can install a plugin called Easy Updates Manager. Set it to update major versions (not development version) and automatically update theme/plugins as you see fit. You can then specify which themes and plugins not to update.

Of the ones you don't update, it's advisable to still make whatever fix/change is necessary and update manually later on. Not updating it at all can lead to other problems. So if it's just your theme causing you issues, you could just set the theme not to automatically update. If it's a combination of a few, you set whichever plugins/themes cause the issues to not update automatically.

It can email you when it's performed auto updates if you wish or you can turn that off. However ignoring it completely and not updating it isn't advisable and will likely lead to undesirable problems, like a suspended account if you're being heavily attacked or worse, a hacked site if they succeed in getting in.

if the theme is not good and giving problem, You should remove and add new theme.
Appearance is the main important thing for the site.If the site look good and navigation is good then the users will browse and spend more time. User friendly theme is recommended

Wordpress is the most targeted platform.. that's why they have a lot of updates.. Disabling the update it's just a quick fix, not a solution. Since your plugin is not supported anymore, it's better to go with other plugin with good support. Or hire someone to fix everytime it break. But still keeping your wordpress updated is really important.

theme?