Lots of your site maintenance time will involve updating WordPress’ core, themes, and plugins. This is a necessary task that protects your site and makes it more secure. However, while the process often goes without a hitch, on some occasions, you see the ‘Another Update is Currently in Progress’ error.
WordPress will typically ‘lock’ the database when it carries out core updates. This is so you don’t cause further errors through starting multiple updates. However, there are some instances where this lock stays in place. You’ll know this through the ‘Another Update is Currently in Progress’ error that shows up on the Dashboard > Updates screen. There are two ways you can fix it:
- You can use the WP-CLI.
- You can use a tool such as Adminer or phpMyAdmin to alter your database.
We’ll run through all of these in this post. Let’s begin with the command line option.
1. Use the WP-CLI
If you are familiar with the command line, and want to access WordPress using it, the WP-CLI is a fantastic way to do so. We cover this tool in a number of articles across the WPKube blog.
It could be that your host comes with WP-CLI (for example, Kinsta does), without the need for you to install it. If this is the case, we’d suggest you use this option.
Before you begin, you’ll need a few elements to hand:
- Access to your site’s Secure Shell (SSH) credentials.
- The knowledge of how to access your site through SSH.
- A suitable SSH client for your Operating System (OS), such as PuTTY for Windows. The default macOS Terminal is perfect for the task.
We’d also suggest that you look into the provision you host offers to use WP-CLI. Because there are a number of ways to solve the ‘Another Update is Currently in Progress’ error, other approaches might suit you better.
Once you have a command prompt open, log into your site using SSH, and when you see the prompt, enter the following:
wp option delete core_updater.lock
Once you run this command, you’ll see a success message, and that should fix the issue.
2. Access Your Database Using a Dedicated Tool
If you want to access your database, the standard approach is to use a tool such as Adminer or phpMyAdmin. Again, this is another aspect we cover in other articles on WPKube. As such, you’ll want to have the following in place:
- Access to your database and a suitable tool.
- The knowledge of how to navigate around your database using that tool.
Once you’re in, head to the wp_options table. This is where you’ll need to look to solve the ‘Another Update is Currently in Progress’ error:
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This article was written by Tom Rankin and originally published on WPKube.