I’ve brought this issue up several times over the last 2 years and others have as well. Here is the last post I wrote about the issue:
I use MainWP mainly to update plugins across all my sites. Unfortunately the WPVivid MainWP Extension has yet to support auto backup before updates. This is a critical feature and protects sites against bad updates.
II realize MainWP doesn’t develop WPVivid but I have brought this issue repeatedly to WPVivid attention and they always say they are working on it but have unanswered questions which MainWP has not dealt with. Here is my last communication with them from 3 weeks ago.
This doesn’t look good for either for MainWP or WPVivid that this critical feature is missing and all the finger pointing going on on whose fault it is.
Can someone please from MainWP reach out and open up communication again with WPVivid and get the issues solved so this feature can get implemented?
Thanks for bringing this to our attention. We appreciate it and understand the importance of having an auto-backup feature before plugin updates.
As you mentioned, the WPVivid team is responsible for developing this feature, and unfortunately, it’s not something we can influence from our end.
We are communicating with the WPVivid team regarding this matter, and we’re committed to supporting them in any way we can. However, we don’t have their ETA on when this feature will be implemented, and we don’t have the ability to expedite the process.
Thanks for the response. It’s hard to know what is going on behind the scenes.
In one of my previous support requests with WPVivid it sounded like they were waiting for an update from the MainWP team. I don’t know if that is additional documentation, updated/new API calls built into MainWP they need for integrating the feature, or what…
They say they are waiting for you, you say they just need to implement it.
In the end I just want everyone to work together and get the feature request out the door.
So that is why I posted the request again here and sent WPvivid another customer support request.
If you or your team haven’t communicated with them recently on the issue can you reach out and see what is going on and hopefully get things moving forward again?
I have been in touch with the WPvivid team about this feature addition, and along with our dev team, we provided updates that were required to move forward.
However, please note that this feature is very complex, even though it looks like it’s not.
Let me try to explain.
First, the Dashboard site sends requests to execute Updates on child sites. At this point, the WPvivi plugin needs to hook in before updates are executed and run the Backup process. So far, this is good. However, there has to be set a “lock” on the Update process so updates are on Hold while the backup is running and send feedback to Dashboard so users know that the backup is running. Also, now it’s not possible to anticipate how long the backup will take time, so the update process needs to wait until WPvivid plugin does not complete the Backup process and “unlock” the Updates process. After the backup is done, if the case of success, WPvivid needs to unlock the Update process so it continues; in case of failure, it needs to send feedback back to MainWP Dashboard so the user knows that the backup failed and it needs to abort the Update process.
All this requires a lot of work and changes in both systems, so we are both working on making this happen while trying not to jeopardize the functionality of both plugins.
Both teams is working on this and moving as fast as we can.
Thanks for the more detailed explanation. I code in PHP so I understand the complexities and had wondered how some of these situations are handled. For example if 1 backup fails but the rest are successful, do all the sites get updated except for just that one or does the whole update process get shut down.
I assumed other backup plugins like UpDraft already have auto backup in place on MainWP and had thought the framework would already be in place for WPVivid to use. I guess their process of backing up is different enough that changes to both MainWP and WPVivid is needed.
I have been using Updraft for about 2 years, and I am pretty sure it doesn’t auto backup before updating, if I do it from MainWP. Someone please correct me if I am wrong.
By the way, I have switched from Updraft to WPvivid a couple of months ago, so I am not able to test it.
This is correct and has been covered in this thread. The WPVivid extension is developed and maintained by the WPVivid team, and they are currently working on the feature.
Just to be clear, I am referring to the Updraft MainWP extension. I am pretty sure the Updraft Extension doesn’t make auto backup before updating. So it is not solely a WPvivid problem.
Updraft doesn’t support the feature either, correct.
The auto-backup feature is not currently planned in the UpdraftPlus extension, although this can change in the future when we re-visit this topic.
You can find the previous discussion for auto-backup in UpdraftPlus extension here:
Now I am wondering if any of the backup plugins support this feature?
For key features like this the MainWP Extension page really should list any limitations of the extension. That is being fair to the end user as otherwise most people would assume it is something that would work.
The main reason I bought WPVivid was for automated backups and backups before updating plugins, plus it had a MainWP Extension. One of the main reasons I bought MainWP was that it supported automated backups before updates with backup plugins that had a mainwp extension. I assumed all the backup plugins supported this key feature.
I am overall happy with both products but I do feel somewhat deceived that a key feature wasn’t listed as being supported or not. Plus if it is listed as not supported then it might give the extension developers that extra incentive to add the feature sooner than later.
Unfortunately, none of our backup extensions support that feature. The reason for it is the same across all of them, and has been explained in this thread and the ones referenced in it.
We will add these notices to the product pages of extensions whose related plugins (e.g. UpdrafPlus, WPVivid), do have the feature but the extension does not.
