Wordpress Automatic Update with 1and1
How to make the automatic update work with your Wordpress blogs that are hosted on 1and1 shared servers. These are blogs that you set up yourself, not the blog that 1and1 can install for you.
The problem I was having was the update would start, and then just stop after a few seconds.

Then in my wp-content folder I would see a bunch of failed downloads. They were the update zip files with a 0 byte size.
Add the following lines to your .htaccess file in the root directory of your blog.
AddType x-mapp-php5 .php
This will enable PHP version 5 + on your blog and then your update should take off.

The udpate to PHP 5 should also make your blog run a little faster and better.
Now that WP 2.9.1 is out, it is a good time to test out the automatic upgrade!
Looking to host with 1and1? Affiliate link
30 Responses to “Wordpress Automatic Update with 1and1”
Comments
Read below or add a comment...
Genius – thanks so much for the tip. Worked like a dream.
The php5 line does work – but wordpress seems to modify the htaccess file from time to time removing the line causing a server 500 error until I add the line back to the file.
Anyone know a fix for this?
wow, that saved me a bunch from frustration !!
thanks
You’re Awesome!!! Thanks!
Dear Lord!
I was having a problem upgrading from 2.8.3 to 2.8.4 until I found this post. I tried deactivating all the plugins – that didn’t work. I tried deleting some of the more hoggish plugins – that didn’t work. I thought about doing a manual upgrade – thought better of that
. Then I remembered that I had run into this problem before when trying to use the automatic upgrade functionality with WP 2.8. After searching for a while I found your blog and, yup, it worked again! Thanks.
Hat mir echt Zeit gespart, Danke!
peter
Saved me a bunch of time, Thanks
Thanks so much for the tip!
Excellent tip ! Thank you
God bless you good sir. 1and1 is such a blessing and a curse.
May your children be smart, average looking and not too full of themselves.
Thanks a lot for the info! It saved me countless hours contacting 1&1. I’d expect them to have PHP5 enabled by default or some info in their website regarding this issue. I can’t imagine the ammount of people using their own WP installations that have had this issue before…
Make sure you place the php 5 line outside the #word press section
AddType x-mapp-php5 .php
# BEGIN WordPress
You are right, it probably is about time they switched to php 5 as the default version, and then let users turn it down to php 4 instead of the other way around.
Superb! Thanks so much for sharing this tip. Just what I was looking for. Be even better if 1and1.com installed Fantastico, of course, but that’s just my wishing.
Thanks Andrew. 1and1 does not have Fantastico, but you can install a word press blog through their control panel, and they will take care of updates for you. However I believe the blog is limited to only certain plugins and themes, so it is probably not adequate for most users.
Thank you SO much! This has been bugging me for ages. You are a wonderful person.
Great to hear! Glad it worked for you.
I emailed 1&1 support several times and got stupid responses. One guy didn’t understand and resulted to saying our server tools were done call back (must be standard De-da-dee response for I don;t know nothing!). After several days waiting I updated manually. Today I see email responses and they said to reinstall WP. BS response I’m running latest PHP & MySQL already luckily! Anyways Googled the magic phrase tonight and found this. Thank You! I suggested to 1&1 support to read this and put it in there FAQ’s for 1&1 WordPress support. I hope (but doubt) they’ll comprehend.
Amazingly simple (yet effective) post. I can’t tell you how happy I was to run across this. Thanks!
Done that. Now memory issues when uploading 400k pictures; plus auto-update to WP 2.9 fails with memory issues. Separately, cannot run Gallery3 because 1&1 server is using outdated Apache! Probably time to leave 1&1 for …?
~Andrew~
Andrew, yes I’ve had similar issues, also random 500 errors from time to time with 1and1
I have some other sites hosted by hostgator and pair networks (where this site is as of now), both of them have been quite solid for me. Of course they might cost you a little more.
Best of luck to you.
Thank you. Very simple solution. Saved me a lot of time. Thanks again.
Awesome, so glad it helped!
Thank You, works great
THANK YOU. SO MUCH.
Not wirking for me, still having a “Fatal error: Out of memory” when trying to upgrade. Any idea?
Thanks for the tip, you are awesome, updating manually every month was more irritating than anything else
Thanks! This took care of my upgrade problems, my Server 500 errors and a few plugins that weren’t working now suddenly work.