Web Host Compatibility
The following are some of the most popular Wordpress web hosts. We’ve tested the plugin with a few of them and have listed the results below. If you you’re hosting with someone on the Untested List, you can contact me to help you get setup with Automatic Wordpress Backup and do initial testing with your website account.
Compatible Web Host (Tested)
- Blue Host – Requires 2.0 or higher version of plugin which is currently in beta.
- Dream Hosts
- Go Daddy Grid and Shared Hosting Plans
- Host Gator
- Host Monster
- Host Rocket
- ix Web Hosting
- Known Host – Takes a while to do backup. See Alan’s comment below.
- Media Temple (you have to switch from PHP4 to PHP5)
- Rackspace Cloud Sites
- Site5
- iPage
Incompatible Web Hosts
- Domain.com – 1 user has reported errors. Users of this host are recommended to not use the plugin yet.
Untested Web Hosts
- JustHost
- Laughing Squid
- SiteGround
- Exclusive Hosting
- Amazon S3
{ 1 trackback }
{ 69 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ve installed the plugin but it doesn’t work. I’m using KnownHost.
Congratulations, this plugin is awesome and I hope you can increase compatibility soon, keep the good job.
Alan & I scheduled a time where we walked through the setup process using Adobe Connect (like WebEx) and everything was setup correctly but it didn’t seem to work… except it was working but it was taking a long time. Here’s an email from Alan a few hours after we setup everything:
Thanks Alan for taking the time to help us test the plugin.
Hi there,
Have installed the Plugin but cannot get it to do a backup at all. I CAN backup all my Wordpress Files to S3 using FTP.
Followed the install instructions after watching the video but no go.
I use Media Temple as a host.
Hope you can get this working as the Plugin is just what I need.
Regards,
Ray
FYI – I’ve installed this plugin on Hostgator – just installed the plugin as normal, activated, set up the details and did Save and Backup now. Worked just fine. I think you could probably add Hostgator to your “Compatible” group.
I have several blogs on Hostgator and will be going through to implement this plugin on all of them, so let me know if there’s anything specific you want me to do to test Hostgator for you while I’m at it.
Awesome! Thanks Digigirl for testing it out and reporting back. I’ve moved HostGator to the Compatible list.
I hope that a solution is found soon for Bluehost hosting to be compatible with this plugin as I use Bluehost.
And this seems to be just what I need to back up my blog especially since it is starting to increase in size.
I think I’ll go ahead and do test it on Bluehost and see how it goes. Will update soon.
Faith
Have you tried it with bluehost?
I also have a lot of bluehost domains and would love to know if or when it starts working!
We did try it with bluehost and it didn’t work. We need a website setup with Wordpress to test it on. If you can provide that, email me at mr @ webdesigncompany.com. The process of setting up a website with bluehost was just too painful so I quit while doing it.
Hi,
I just want to announce you that this plugin works great on GoDaddy grid and shared hosting plans for all my websites.
Backup process is surprisingly fast and it only takes a few seconds to upload my backup archive (~120 Mb each) on Amazon S3!
Great plugin by the way :p
Thanks. I’ll move GoDaddy to compatible list.
I installed this plugin on a website hosted on WestHost (www.westhost.com). The installation completed without error and I was able to login to my Amazon S3 account and specify the target bucket for the backup. I turned on all of the backup options and pressed Save Changes and Backup Now…but no sign of the backup about an hour later.
Hopefully I’ll find a way to get this working. I’ve been looking for a plug-in like this for some time and will be happy to make a donation once it’s up and running.
Thanks and Happy New Year!
Has the backup started happening?
Tim, when I installed this on one of my sites, I had the exact same issue. I went into the settings and re-entered everything, just to be safe, and hit Save & Backup Now again.
The second time it worked fine and it has been working perfectly since then. Don’t know if you’re experiencing the same thing or not, but it’s worth a try!
Digigirl, thanks for your suggestion. I tried re-entering the settings and clicking Save & Backup Now, but unfortunately no dice. Looks like I’ll need to go with another backup plugin. Too bad – I really like the functionality offered by Automatic WordPress Plugin.
Cheers,
Tim
@Tim Stringer: Same for me here. I’am at my own managed server with all required settings enabled and available. I would be happy to find a bugfix for that.
wp-content is 777 but what Folder do the plugin request?
We have a bunch of sites. Hosting is spread out on GoDaddy, MacHighway, Eleven2, and now our own hosting at StudioD.tv. With the exception of trying a new client account on our own StudioD.tv, everywhere we’ve installed and tested the plugin has worked. Excellent work on this plugin. We’re definitely writing up a review and will link back to you. Thanks.
I didn’t see anyone here or on the other list that was using Host Monster. I just tested a site there running WP eCommerce plugin. I got a backup in less than 10 mins including the database file and all the /wpsc files with images and all from the shopping cart.
I will see what we can do next week to restore this to a fresh installation on a test server to see if it all goes back together right. That is the big question. Having worked with IT systems for over 15 years getting backups on servers to work was only part of the solution. The important part is does the solution work when you need it??
Often times restoring after a fatal mishap brings about the next mishap… the termination of the IT manager or the relationship with the vendor who promised the moon on how great all this backup stuff works.
I really like what you guys are doing here to build and make this tool available. It looks to work excellent for the configurations that I have and others that have tested it so far. My question is, and maybe I’ve missed someone who has attempted this, how are the restores going for folks?
I’ll let you know how ours goes next week.
Henry
Hi Henry,
The restore should be fairly straight forward and we’re actually working on the next version of the plugin that will make restoring even easier. Anyway, looking forward to your experience next week.
Also, I hope you’ll consider turning on the credit link since you like the plugin and/or write about the plugin on your blog.
~ mel
I will be doing a video of how I setup the plugin and add it to a few video sites like Youtube, Viddler and others. It will go on my blog.
What a great idea for a plugin! Has anyone restored from a backup? Anyone using it with Wordpress MU?
Cheers
I have restored from backup, quite a few times. I used it to move some of our, and our customer’s sites, to a new hosting provider. Overall, it works very well. I found that occasionally I had to go into the General>Permalink settings and re-save them, but other than that, no real issues. Actually, I do still have one site that was using the Next Gen Gallery plugin. It seems to have “lost” the images that had been uploaded to the Gallery. All the references, links, URL’s seem to be there, but I can’t find the images, yet. I haven’t spent a lot of time on it, as it’s not a “live” site. Other than that, I’d say it’s worked as advertised.
I get the following error shown in the settings page:
Warning: S3::listBuckets(): [RequestTimeTooSkewed] The difference between the request time and the current time is too large. in /home/tog/public_html/wp-content/plugins/automatic-wordpress-backup/S3.php on line 87
My server is a VPS and I have no control over the server’s clock settings. All I can do is change the timezone. I’m in PST timezone and can’t seem to figure out how to make this work.
Ideas anyone?
I have several sites on IXwebhosting.com. Setup was flawless as I followed the video instructions. When I select “Save Changes and Backup Now” nothing happens. When I check the S3 bucket nothing is there.
I’ll keep playing around with it as it looks like a great solution to automatic backup for for hose with S3 accounts.
I know I’ve seen it take a while on several of the larger installs we had. At least a couple of hours on occasion. Depending on whether you’re on shared hosting, how much bandwidth is in use at that particular moment, both by your host and at Amazon, it is not out of the question for it to take a while. I would certainly give it a go overnight, just to be sure.
I’ve been running this on my Media Temple (gs) grid service lite account the past 9 days. I have PHP 5 enabled. All seems well.
Great job — thanks Dan and Melvin!
Hey guys.
I’m having some trouble here. I installed the plugin, and was able to create a bucket, so I know there is some level of communication between my server and S3, but no backups.
Per Digigirl, I tried re-entering my settings, and was able to get a single manual backup to go, but after that, nothing.
I’ve tried contacting you guys via email several times with no luck.
I’d like to get this to work, and I’d definitely support you with a donation, but I need it to work reliably.
Thanks.
As I mentioned to Dennis, above, I have seen it take a while on several of our larger installs. I really recommend getting it configured and then running a manual backup last thing in the evening, prior to hitting the hay, and then checking on it in the morning. So far, the plugin has worked on every hosting provider we’ve tried. Good luck.
Kevin, is bluehost one of the hosts you’ve tested? I would love to see this working on bluehost…
I don’t currently have anyone on BlueHost, but I did just test JustHost, which works fine. I know it’s a slight stretch, but I would believe that most shared hosting providers that use Linux/cPanel will all work pretty much the same. The best way to find out is to try it. You’re not going to hurt anything on your site.
Hi Guys
I was wondering if you’ve tested with http://www.oneandone.co.uk ? It’s a very large European Host.
Regards,
Lee
My blog is hosted on lunarpages.com
When I activate the plugin I get the following error message
Fatal error: Undefined class name ’self’ in /home/username/public_html/wp-content/plugins/automatic-wordpress-backup/automatic-wordpress-backup.php on line 86
Any ideas?
I have successfully used the plugin on Bluehost. I can’t get it to work on GoDaddy for some reason though.
I use HostMonster which is owned by Bluehost. Can you tell me what version of Wordpress you have that was successful? I have WP v2.9.2 and it did not work.
I retested the v1.0.2 plugin with HostMonster. This time it worked! Must have been the newer version.
My site is hosted on basic GridServer at MediaTemple.
Using WP 2.9.2, did automatic install of plug-in.
Immediately got this message
“Fatal error: Undefined class name ’self’ in /nfs/c03/h04/mnt/56986/domains/speedliting.com/html/wp-content/plugins/automatic-wordpress-backup/automatic-wordpress-backup.php on line 86″
No matter where I wanted to go as Admin, this message appeared.
Removing plugin via FTP access, restored full functionaliy as Admin.
Repeated twice to verify. Same results.
Love the idea.
Hey folks, the next version (v2.0) of the Automatic Wordpress Backup plugin is ready and we need beta testers. Please visit http://www.webdesigncompany.net/automatic-wordpress-backup/automatic-wordpress-backup-v2-beta/ for more information.
Greetings from Port Vila, Vanuatu.
Great idea for a plugin Dan & Melvin, this sort of feature should be built into the core of WP I reckon.
I’m testing v1.0.3 on my VPS, can’t seem to get it to work. I’ll try out the beta of v2 later, but do you have a list of system requirements for VPSes (other than the requirements that you have documented here)? Will the plugin output any logs anywhere? If not, then maybe a debugging toggle switch might be useful.
Thanks again.
Just tested this on my site hosted on JustHost. No issue at all and was very quick to backup. Also love the option to automatically have it delete files older than a certain age, since it saves have to manually work with buckets.
@Syl Arena
I had the same problem on with media temple. The problem is that the plugin requires php 5, but media temple defaults new wordpress installs to php4.
This can be easily fixed by logging into your account with media temple, go to your admin panel. Look for php and click on it. then look for your domain and select php5 instead of php4.
that should fix it.
I can confirm that HostRocket is compatible on my end – http://hostrocket.com – at least for the Manual Backups, so far (a weekly backup hasn’t run yet – because it hasn’t been a week yet).
I just did a manual backup of a site with over 140 posts, over 30 pages, over 140 tags and over 40 active plugins, currently residing on HostRocket, using Wordpress 2.9.2 and Automatic Wordpress Backup version 1.0.2.
I also successfully restored it on a completely different HostRocket server and domain.
Thanks for a great peace-of-mind plugin!
Sweet. I’ll add it to the list up top!
Hi guys-
Would you be able to tell me which PHP and Apache modules are needed for this plugin to work properly? I’m a huge fan of it but I get inconsistent results. I build my own servers so compatibility shouldn’t be an issue once I have this information. Many thanks in advance.
The new version actually has a Plugin Requirements section that will tell ya which ones are not being met. I’ve also added the list to http://www.webdesigncompany.net/automatic-wordpress-backup/support/
Wonderful. Thanks Melvin.
Hi, i’ve installed and configured the plugin (v1.0.2). After starting the backup via “backup now” button, both files (wp backup and database backup) automatically created (filesize seems to be correct ~250 MB) in the upload folder (permisson: 777!), but this files will not uploaded to the s3 webspace. -> no errormessage, nothing happens! My web host is http://domainfactory.eu, wordpress version 2.9.2, php 5.2.9
Any ideas?
Hmm, it’s difficult to say without having access to the site. Have you tried the v2 beta? It’s pretty much and all the bugs have been fixed.
hi,
yes i’ve tried the beta now. The “Plugins requirements” are all green, backuped files in the folder awb… the s3 bucket is empty! how can i give you access (mail?)?
regards netze
Checkout http://www.webdesigncompany.net/automatic-wordpress-backup/beta-2-support-requests/
Hi
I am trying to back my site but i dont seem to be having any success. I have changed the permissions of the uploads folder to 777. The total database size of my size is around 800 mb and the number of files on the site would run into thousands as my site is a 6000 page site. I have tried backing up manually 3 times and have waited for around 4 hours till now but the local backup in the uploads folder is not getting created. Could you please advice as to what could be the reason the plugin is not working.
I am hosted on media temple.
Regards,
Shiv
Have you tried the new version? It’s in beta but all the bugs have been worked out and it’s just getting some cosmetic updates now.
http://www.webdesigncompany.net/automatic-wordpress-backup/automatic-wordpress-backup-v2-beta/
Hello there,
While trying to install de automatic wordpress backup, it returned this error message and I have no clue how to solve it… please help! I wanted to install the new Wordpress version and now have lost access to my site…
Fatal error: Undefined class name ’self’ in /home/adan/public_html/wp-content/plugins/automatic-wordpress-backup/automatic-wordpress-backup.php on line 86
Thanks in advance,
Sofia
Are you sure you’re running PHP5 and not PHP4? PHP4 is not supported or compatible.
I just manage the content of the website and thought it would be a simple operation. Can you explain in basic terms how to solve this and I ll try to check with a friend how to solve this?
Thanks again. S.
It normally is if your website host offers php5 which we list as a requirement on both the home page and the installation page.
The easiest way to get your site working again is to remove the Automatic Wordpress Backup plugin. You would need to login using an FTP client, and remove the automatic-wordpress-backup directory that is located inside the /wp-content/plugins/ directory.
You could also ask whoever is hosting your website to turn on php5.
PS: PHP is the technology that WordPress is built on top of. PHP4 is the older version of it. PHP5 is the current version.
Hey Melvin!
Version 1.02 of the plugin works flawlessly on 1and1.com, but you have to enable PHP5: Create an .htaccess file (or add to your existing .htaccess):
AddType x-mapp-php5 .php
AddHandler x-mapp-php5 .php
and drop it into your main wordpress directory.
Cheers!
-Benjamin
Hi,
I installed 2.0 successfully on my site at artmarketingsecrets.com however there are problems. When I hit “save and backup now” it comes back shortly afterward with a message that the backup has completed. But when I click “refresh now to see backup” it doesn’t show up.
When I look in S3 I can see the bucket I created from the plugin but there is nothing inside.
I am on Rackspace Cloudsites running WP 2.9.2 with Arthemia Premium theme.
Any thoughts? I thought this worked flawlessly on Cloud Sites??
Thanks!
Daniel.
That is odd. I run RC Sites and it works perfected for me. How big is the site? If it’s above 0.5GB, you might need to increase the memory limit and the timeout limit. I’ll be covering this in an upcoming video because I had to do it for one of my sites.
Hi Melvin,
Its not that big. When I FTP into the site I can see that it has created a 60MB zip file called automatic-wordpress-backup.zip and a .htaccess and placed them in the uploads folder. But it doesn’t seem to be copying them across to S3.
I guess it is thinking that it is complete when it creates the Zip file?
I have the PHP memory limit set site-wide to 128M.
Thanks for the fast response!
Daniel.
That really doesn’t make sense to me because I’m running that on a lot of sites on RC Sites. Maybe give it a bit of time to finish up. Sometimes it takes a little longer than what you might think it would need… but it really should work. If it doesn’t work after some waiting, let me know and we’ll figure out a plan of action from there.
Its a little strange too because when I look in that 60MB zip on my server I’m not seeing a database backup even though I have all the options checked for which parts of the blog to backup. The .htaccess file that sits next to the Zip in the awb folder (which I thought was a backup of my main .htaccess) just says, “deny from all”.
My wp database is about 30MB.
Question – can you tell me what files should I be seeing in the awb folder within uploads??
Thanks …. Daniel.
Question – I was just about to sign up for s3 and install this on all of my blogs when I saw a comment about file size being an issue. what would you say is the ceiling for one of these back ups with this plug-in? I’m looking for an auto backup solution for wp auto-blogs that are very large, some up to 2.3G. can I make this work?
I haven’t tested on a site that size yet but it should work as long as you up the memory limit and the timeout limit. How much to up them to is hard to say. It will require some testing.
Hey, thanks for the quick response. I’ll go ahead and test it out on a block of about 20 sites and see how it goes. Will make sure to let you know.
The key thing you want to watch for is the temporary files. What happens when the site is too big is that the plugin will timeout and not complete. This means that it won’t delete the temporary files. If you see that happening, you’ll want to increase the memory limit and the timeout limit.
I have installed the plugin on my blog which runs on a dedicated server. Amazon S3 set up and plugin configured. I click ‘backup now’ to manually run a backup but after 20 minutes there is no backup showing in the recent backups list. No errors reported in the interface. I am running Wordpress 2.8.4. What could be going wrong?
Try v2 beta: http://www.webdesigncompany.net/automatic-wordpress-backup/automatic-wordpress-backup-v2-beta/
Hi Melvin,
I’d just like to let you know that I have successfully installed Automatic WordPress Backup v2.0 – RC1 and completed my first backup without a glitch. I therefore just wanted to let you know that you may add another web hosting provider to your list, i.e. http://www.iPage.com. I think they’re great and I’ll soon be posting a new entry on my blog about your awesome WordPress plugin. Thank you so much!
Kind regards,
Olivier
Awesome. I’ve added iPage and I look forward to it!
Also worth noting, I’m using WordPress 3.0. Everything working like a charm!
I’ve also just completed the blog post: http://twilighthouse.com/?p=774
Cheers and many thanks,
Olivier