Over the next few weeks, we’ll be updating the MariaDB (MySQL) database server software on all our servers from the MariaDB 10.5 series to the MariaDB 10.11 series (equivalent to the Oracle MySQL 8.0.32 series).
The MariaDB/MySQL database stores pages for WordPress and other sites that are run by scripts. Customers should not notice any difference after this change; we’re upgrading it to a more recent version simply to make sure it’s as fast, reliable and secure as possible. We’ve been using the new version on internal and test servers for some time.
At the moment the software is updated on a server, WordPress and other database-backed sites on that server will have 30-60 seconds of unavoidable “downtime”. To minimize the impact of that, we do these upgrades only between 9 PM and midnight Pacific time (midnight-3 AM Eastern time), usually on Friday, Saturday or Sunday nights.
Beyond that one-time brief interruption in service, customers should not notice any difference to how their site works, as we said. But as always, don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any trouble or questions.
Update: This was completed on Saturday, October 12. All of our servers are now running MariaDB 10.11.
Our business offices will be closed on Monday, September 2 to observe the US Labor Day legal holiday.
As always, we’ll provide same-day support for time-sensitive issues via our ticket and e-mail systems. However, questions that aren’t time-sensitive (including most billing matters) may not be answered until Tuesday, and telephone support (via callbacks) will be available only for urgent issues.
The PHP developers recently released versions 8.2.22 and 8.3.10 that fix several bugs. We’ve upgraded the PHP 8.2 and 8.3 series on our servers as a result.
Don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any trouble.
WordPress 6.6 was recently released, and as always, we’ve updated our WordPress one-click installer to automatically install the latest version for new WordPress sites. WordPress 6.6 works fine on our servers (make sure you’re using a recent version of PHP for your site).
If you’ve previously installed an older version of WordPress, you should update it from within your WordPress Dashboard.
A nice new feature of WordPress 6.6 is that it if you’ve enabled automatic plugin updates (which you should, for security reasons), it will do extra checks after each automatic update to ensure your site still works — and if it doesn’t, it will automatically undo the update to get your site working again. This gives you even more confidence that turning on automatic updates is a good idea: it keeps your site secure, and it gives you one less thing to worry about doing yourself manually. We enable automatic updates on all our own WordPress sites, and we think that everyone else should, too.
The PHP developers recently released versions 8.1.29, 8.2.21, and 8.3.9 that fix several bugs. We’ve upgraded the PHP 8.1, 8.2 and 8.3 series on our servers as a result.
Customers should not notice any change, but as always, don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any trouble.
Our business offices will be closed on Thursday, July 4 to observe the US legal holiday.
As always, we’ll provide same-day support for time-sensitive issues via our ticket and e-mail systems. However, questions that aren’t time-sensitive (including most billing matters) may not be answered until the next day, and telephone support (via callbacks) will be available only for urgent problems.
Our business offices will be closed on Monday, May 27 to observe the US legal holiday.
As always, we’ll provide same-day support for time-sensitive issues via our ticket and e-mail systems. However, questions that aren’t time-sensitive (including most billing matters) may not be answered until Tuesday, and telephone support (via callbacks) will be available only for urgent problems.
The PHP developers recently released versions 8.2.19 and 8.3.7 that fix several bugs. We’ve upgraded the PHP 8.2 and 8.3 series on our servers as a result.
Don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any trouble.
The PHP developers recently released versions 8.1.28, 8.2.18, and 8.3.6 that fix several bugs. We’ve upgraded the PHP 8.1, 8.2 and 8.3 series on our servers as a result.
We also updated PHP 7.4.33 to include the most recent security “backported” bug fixes from the Debian PHP project.
Customers should not notice any change, but as always, don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any trouble.
The PHP developers recently released version 8.2.17 that fixes several bugs. We’ve upgraded the PHP 8.2 series on our servers as a result.
We’ve also added initial support for the PHP 8.3 series, and PHP version 8.3.4 is now available in our “My Account” control panel. However, we don’t yet recommend using it unless you need a feature that PHP 8.2 doesn’t offer.: PHP 8.2 is currently still more compatible with popular scripts like WordPress.
Don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any trouble.
