Theme auto-update problems
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Topic
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Hi –
I inherited support for a site that uses the Alyeska theme. I set the API code / Themeforest account name info so I could do auto-updates. That all works as expected.
When I go to the Theme area and click on Alyeska, I click on “update now”, yet the update process returns:
Download failed. Forbidden
Is there a way to get this working. I expect to be updating the site regularly and would like to avoid having to do the manual process.
Thanks,
Cynthia
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Replies
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Hello,
The fact that you’re getting as far as you are suggests that the issue isn’t related to any of the Envato API credentials that you’re putting in. Everything is connecting through Envato, accessing the ZIP package, and passing it to WordPress. But then the error occurs when your site tries to process it. In other words, you’re getting past the part where the programming of our theme is doing anything.
In all honesty, I’ve never had anyone here report this issue on any theme here in our support. But when I Google the error, I can see that it’s a somewhat common thing that comes up with people, in general, in updating themes and plugins. It seems to be a server-related issue for most people.
Since you started experiencing this issue, have you tried updating other themes or plugins in your WordPress admin? Having any issues there? It may help to contact your host.
Hi Jason –
Thanks for the very clean analysis of where things are going wrong. Indeed, this client is on one of those not very widely used hosting platforms where many of the tools don’t work well or are missing. It will be hard to tell if I can have much control over the hosting account settings to resolve the issue.
If I decide I need to manually update the theme files, is the suggested method to overwrite the existing folder? In this site I don’t see a child theme, so I am not sure how Alyeska is storing the modifications that were made when the site was designed (before my involvement). I did read the Update document for Themeforest installations, but it merely says “upload to the theme folder”, not whether I select “overwrite” or “skip” on similarly named files.
Thanks,
CynthiaIf I decide I need to manually update the theme files, is the suggested method to overwrite the existing folder?
Yeah, exactly. So on your server, you’ll go to /wp-content/themes/ (where you have WP installed) and you’re going to completely override the current “alyeska” directory with the updated one. I’m not sure if you’ve worked with WordPress much previously, but take note maybe for future reference, that is just the standard process, no matter what theme you’re using.
In this site I don’t see a child theme, so I am not sure how Alyeska is storing the modifications that were made when the site was designed (before my involvement).
A child theme is only used to make code customizations to the main parent theme. Any kind of configuration that has been done from the WordPress admin panel — configuring theme options, building out a homepage layout, creating posts, pages, etc — this is all stored in your site’s database. None of this is stored within theme files.
So, the fact that you’re not using a child theme (assuming the previous person wasn’t making code customizations), your job is a little easier because you don’t have to account for your child theme mods jiving with the updated theme.
It sounds like though that you may be a little fuzzy on the functionality of the theme in the site you’re looking at vs if someone was messing around with code customizations. Before updating, it would probably be a good idea to make a backup of your current alyeska directory. If it turns out the previous person was making code customizations directly to the parent theme, that will be a big road block.
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