Theme updating automatically

[spektukal]

Hi,

I was looking for a way to have the theme be updated automatically. You seem to mention an “automatic update”, but as I understand it this only refers to a simple one click manual update. Not to an actual automatic update that always updates the theme to the latest version by itself. And what I’m looking for is the latter.

So I’ve chosen Siteground as a hoster and they offer automatic updates for Wordpress and plugins, but not for the theme. Their support has shown me a workaround though. It’s the following:

"There is a way for your theme to be updated as soon as new version is pushed and this is through the WordPress default update system.

You may set the below line in the wp-config.php on your website:
add_filter( ‘auto_update_theme’, ‘__return_true’ );

However, please have in mind that not all theme providers allow the public access to the newer versions of their themes and may require manual update. Thus, if the above line does not prompt the automatic updates on your paid theme, please contact the theme’s support theme, who can advise you how to set the automatic theme updates on the site."

So now I wanted to ask you about it. Is this a safe thing to do? Does it work at all with the Pro Theme? I assume that normally there shouldn’t be any changes to the site as a result of updates. Or is that something to be aware of with your theme, so it would be best to only do the updates manually?

[tristup]

Hi @spektukal,

Thanks for reaching out.
The auto_update_theme hook works with the theme hosted in the WordPress repository, and our theme is not hosted there. In this regard, I would suggest you go through the following threads.

Add_filter( 'auto_update_theme', '__return_true' ); does not work on X theme

Hi Marie, The auto_update_theme hook is working for themes that use the WordPress servers to do the update process, our theme is not hosted there and has separate API which gets the files from our server. You need to Validate the theme and then do the update via the X > Validation menu. Finally, it is not recommended that you enable the auto-updating feature for the theme, as our theme is a multipurpose one and has many features. It is always important that you test the new updates first and …

Pro Automatic Update Not Working

Hello Robert, Thanks for writing in! The “Automatic Updates” that you see in Dashboard > Updates like the screenshot below: [Screen Shot 2022-06-30 at 10.37.31 AM] It means that you can see the Automatic Updates in the dashboard, still, you need to update theme or plugins manually by selecting the theme or plugin and hit the “Update” button. This will allow you to be able to double check the changelog of the update, make a backup copy of your site and do necessary things just in case a con…

Thanks

[spektukal]

Hi tristup,

All I really got out of those threads is that it doesn’t work, which you’ve already told me. So is there no way at all to have the theme update automatically? It would be a real hassle if I had to log into to a site just to update the theme, when everything else is being updated automatically on a regular basis.

But let’s look at things the other way around: do I put the website at risk by not updating the theme at all? Or is it purely about added functionality, fixing bugs, etc.? If the site is working fine with the theme version we’ve built it on, will it stay that way or would I have to update the site eventually because it might cause problems as a result of other updates? I assume the answer to that last question is “yes, that can happen”. But would it be okay to not update it as long as there are no problems?

[tristup]

Hi @spektukal,

I explained to you why the Automatic update is not possible in our case. Updating the theme is up to you, but we suggest you update the theme as the updated version comes with the fixes of existing issues, new features which you may need in the future.

Thanks

[spektukal]

And every new update also introduces new issues that need to be fixed in later versions. So ideally I would be installing every single update you release. But it’s not really feasible. And I don’t really need new features as long as I don’t plan to make use of them, right?

Which is why I’ve asked: is it fine if I don’t ever update the theme after I’ve finished setting up the site as long as I don’t make any further changes to it? Or would I be exposing myself to any security issues in that way? I’d guess not really since most other themes don’t get updated on a regular basis, and that still doesn’t lead to the websites getting hacked. But maybe you know more about this than I do.

[marc_a]

Hey @spektukal,

If you prefer not to update the theme, then it’s your call but we highly suggest updating the theme to the latest version to avoid any security issues and vulnerability of the code because WordPress always updates the core files.

Hope that helps.