Help & Support
This plugin is provided WITHOUT warranty. We’ve taken measures to test it on a number of web hosts but it is your responsibility to test it out as well as make a full backup before you install or use this plugin. In addition, plugin is provided for free and we cannot promise support as that would be too time consuming and costly.
With all that said, this page will be a frequently asked questions page that will be written as questions come in. If you have questions about AWB, please ask below and we’ll attempt to answer it in a way that will be useful for everyone else.
Questions & Answers
Q. The plugin is causing an error. What do I do? I can’t even reach my admin panel. Help!
A. Login to your web host via FTP and remove the ‘automatic-wordpress-backup’ folder from the /wp-content/plugins/ folder. Next, check the Web Host Compatibility page to see if your host is listed as compatible. If they are listed under untested, leave a comment below with your web host and we’ll email you to schedule a time to walk through the setup and in the process test that web host.
Q. Where is the database backup file?
A. Inside your zip, under wp-content > uploads > wp-s3-database-backup.sql
Q. Is this plugin compatible with Wordpress Mu?
A. We haven’t tested it yet but the answer is probably “No” because of how MU stores files. Since Mu will be getting merged into regular Wordpress in the near future, we probably won’t be spending time on adding compatibility for mu. Sorry.
{ 209 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ve tried to use this plugin, but while it seems to properly backup the site (I have a sql file and zip file in the wp-content/uploads directory), I get nothing in my S3 repositories. The plugin seems to be able to see the different s3 buckets I have configured, but after the plugin “seems” to complete its work, I get nothing in my selected bucket.
Any ideas about how I can make this work or how I can debug?
Thanks!
Dana, did you click on the “Save Changes and Backup Now”?
I did save, and eventually it started working, but it seemed to take a long time to push to S3, and didn’t work all the time when done manually.
The automatic backups do seem to be working, though.
I installed and tried to activate the plugin and now my entire wordpress admin site is reporting this error:
Fatal error: Undefined class name ’self’ in /usr/local/pem/vhosts/198947/webspace/httpdocs/httpdocs/wpblog/wp-content/plugins/automatic-wordpress-backup/automatic-wordpress-backup.php on line 86
I can’t even edit permissions using an FTP program. Whats gone wrong? Urgent help needed.
Here’s the conversation I had with Remington via email for those who are interested:
Me: Do you have FTP access to the website? If so, login to the FTP, and remove the ‘automatic-wordpress-backup’ folder from the /wp-content/plugins/ folder. If you need help with this, let me know.
Remi: I have tried that but I am getting the following error:
automatic-wordpress-backup: Directory not empty Error -126: remote rmdir failed.
The directory is however empty. I have renamed the folder and this seems to have resolved the problem. Thanks for your prompt help!
Me: Sorry about the funk. Are you able to setup a second Wordpress website (just a generic one) and give me access to it so we can go in and test out what was going wrong?
Remi: Sure, I can look into that after
Hey Remington, do you happen to be using PHP4 on your host? If so, that is the problem. The plugin requires PHP5. We’ll add a note to that effect.
Hi-
Great plugin! I just came across this plugin and viewed your online video setup. I wanted to recommend a new video on how to restore or setup a new install using the backup.
Alex
Thanks Alex! Great idea. We’ve got that on the To Do list and it’s definitely a high priority for me personally. We’ve got a lot of client websites using Wordpress and if I had to restore each one manually, it would be torture.
Hi Melvin-
Two other suggestions (now that I have the plugin installed) I would like better control over the backup schedule. For example, backups on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I don’t really need daily backups but weekly may be to long. Also, I think this may be a bug where the plugin itself is not reading the proper time zone. I just initiated a manual backup and the plugin is showing it as a recent backup with the wrong time on it. The plugin reports 8:57 AM and the current time is 1:57 PM.
Thanks again, this looks like a great plugin.
Alex
Hey Alex, thanks for the feedback.
More control over schedule – Interesting. I think having daily may be more than you want today but life might change and it’s better to have more backups than less backups. However, making good use of space is important to keep costs low so we’ll look at that a little closer in the future.
Time zones – Hmmm, that’s odd. We’ll look at that soon.
Alex,
Are you still seeing this issue since you upgraded to WordPress 2.9? In my testing, 2.8 shows the times wrong but 2.9 is correct (based on your WordPress timezone setting).
Hi Dan-
Yes the time is still off. If I recall correctly I have been on 2.9 since I first installed the plugin.
Alex
You guys should add an option in the settings of the plugin that allows for downloading all the backed up data onto a local machine – instead of only to an S3 server.
@matt – Noted.
Just noticed a new version is out. PLEASE keeps a change log, it is frustrating upgrading a plugin without knowing what’s new/changed, etc.
Good idea Alex. I’ve posted what’s new at http://www.wordpressbackup.org/v1-0-2/ and we’ll add the changelog starting with the next update which will likely be in a few weeks or less.
This is a great plug-in, and it has worked well for me on my personal site. For this commercial site in development (dev.itevcorp.com), however, I can’t seem to generate any manual backups. I click the “Save Changes and Backup Now,” but no backup file appears to be generated either locally in the wp-content/uploads folder or in my S3 bucket. No error messages appear on the settings page or anywhere else. The server is a Rackspace Cloud server I built myself. It uses PHP5, and the wp-content/uploads folder has 755 permissions. (I tried it with 777 permissions with same result, and set it back to 755 out of caution.)
I’m sure I’m missing something. Got any suggestions?
Thanks for the great work!
Chris
I would recommend waiting. One thing I’ve noticed is that sometimes it takes longer than you might expect and appears to not work but it’s in the process. Also, the more times you set it to do a manual backup, the more memory it uses which probably slows down the process of backing up even more. Let it sit and come back to it later and see if it worked. If it doesn’t, comment again and we’ll take things from there.
Chris,
There is a bug in WordPress 2.9 that prevents the plugin from working on some hosting configurations. For me, this was resolved in the 2.9.1 beta.
Thanks, Melvin and Dan. I’m grateful for your speedy response.
It still hasn’t backed up after my initial manual requests from about five hours ago, so I’m leaning toward the WP 2.9 bug explanation. I’ll do a proof of concept using a site copy with WP 2.9.1 beta on another server and see what happens.
Thanks!
Chris
Not sure if this is possible, but I have another suggestion. I would like to be able to set the approximate time that the backup is done. Mine seems to run at 8:57 or 8:58 AM every day. I would prefer this to be at a different time.
We’ll keep that in mind as we plan out the future development of AWB and see if it’s possible.
What determines the time when a backup happens? For example, if I set it for daily backups and then do a manual backup will the next automatic backup be 24 hours from that or something else?
Thanks for all your work on this great plugin!
I’m not 100% sure but it’s probably based on when the settings data is saved initially.
Yes, it is approximately 24 hours from when you save the setting. Depending on how much traffic you get, that may vary slightly from day to day as the backup is triggered by visits to your blog.
I don’t recommend this but one way to control the timing of your backup would be using the WP-Crontrol plugin. We’ll probably add a feature to easily change the time but since you and another fellow have asked, I thought I’d mention it the hackish way of doing it. Now I don’t have much experience with this and highly recommend AGAINST messing with this. We can’t provide any support if something goes haywire.
i have a problem with it backing up the database, yes it did sent a backup zip to amazon s3 on a bucket called automaticwordpressbackups but when i downloaded and unzipped to checkit it doesn’t contain the database in it, i’m very sure i ticked the box called database dump on the plugin options page. Can you help me with this?
Thanks.
- j
isn’t it suppose to backup also the database? But when i checked the backups on s3 there where no database included? I tested this in 6 sites, it is working great but the database does not get backed up, it is not included. I have ticked the box that says database dump that suppose to do the backup of the DB but no backups still showing on s3 with the database. Do you have a solution for this?
oh By the way thanks for this wonderful plugin.
Inside your zip, under wp-content > uploads > wp-s3-database-backup.sql
I installed the plugin and got it running with a manual backup. It appears to have backed up the theme, php, etc. files but not the database. I’m basing that on the links to Amazon S3 in the plugin area…when I downloaded the updates it didn’t include the SQL. Any thoughts?
Inside your zip, under wp-content > uploads > wp-s3-database-backup.sql
Thanks, I’ll write up a review on this. Please send me an email (address in your wordpress) as I have a couple follow up questions for the story.
We just installed your plugin to a couple sites of mine on Hostgator.com and tested the backups. I see the wp-s3-database-backup.sql file in the uploads folder. Is this correct?
At first I didn’t think that this was backed up until I looked around in the un-zipped file I downloaded.
This looks to be a great tool that I will use for my sites and clients also. If all goes well with it I’ll be happy to donate for each client installation we do. Great work!
Henry
Thanks Henry!
Wooh ok sorry. I must have been too dizzy working that i did not looked in the uploads folder hehe. Thanks for this. The database is in uploads folder.
- j
No problem. Glad you’re going to be using the plugin.
Hi!
I installed the plugin succesfully. But I can seem to create a bucket via the plugin admin panel. I keep getting the error: “No bucket was created. You may have entered a bucket name that already exists on another account.”
The folders are all chmod’ed 777 and I’ve tried difernet names.
What could be causing this?
Dipfico – Have you tried using ‘yourdomainname.com-backup’ as a name (obviously replacing yourdomainname.com for your real domain name) for a bucket name?
Yes, I did!
dipfico.be-backup
And no luck?
sorry, forgot to mention that.
Nope, no luck
I know this might sound dumb, but can you try ‘dipfico.be-backup2′ as a bucket name and report back if that works.
Unfortunately, that didn’t work either
Which host are you using? We might end up doing testing on that host to figure whats up.
For the time being though, I recommend using a S3 client to make a bucket. On OSX, http://s3hub.com is fairly well used. On PCs, http://s3browser.com seems to be the popular one. Once you’ve created your bucket in one of those clients, you should be able to backup to it.
Let me try that!
Keep you posted
THNX in advance for the quick help
Hi
This plugin looks like it could be exactly what I need – I will be more than happy to make a donation for each customer I use this for.
Bu first, a problem: I have installed the plugin & entered my details, and it has successfully created my bucket on S3, I’ve clicked ’save and backup now’, but after over 25 minutes the backup is still not created (the message “your manual backup has started…” is still there after many page refreshes). I am only backing up my plugins folder (as a test) so it shouldn’t take that long. I’m running my site on a VPS (PHP 5.1.6) so I wonder if it’s something to do with the server config?
Second, a suggestion: I use the NextGen Gallery plugin and have it configured to store images in a different folder to my uploads (e.g. wp-content/galleries). Is it therefore possible to add an option to backup the entire wp-content folder, as well as the individual options for plugins, themes & uploads folders?
Thanks very much
Simon
Hi
After various attempts at tweaking the plugin it still wouldn’t work on my VPS (probably because my server is set up much more securely than your average shared hosting).
So in the end I have installed s3sync and adapted the script from this post: http://paulstamatiou.com/how-to-bulletproof-server-backups-with-amazon-s3 and set up a cron job so it runs automatically each week.
Cheers
Simon
I’m glad you found a solution. In case anyone else is wondering if you can add non-standard folders to a backup, the answer is “yes, but it takes a little PHP code.” If anyone specifically wants help with this, let us know and we can put together a quick example.
I would definitely be interested in seeing this example. I plan to use this with clients and I’m certain that issue will crop up eventually. Would love to be prepared. Thanks!
I was able to get this plugin to work on a cheapy shared hosting service. No luck with Media Temple’s VPS (PHP 5.2). Same issues as Simon mentions above. The buckets are created but they are empty using either manual or scheduled backups.
Hope you can fix these issues in the next revision. Brilliant plugin!
Robert, can you check with WordPress 2.9.1? Backups were not working on my hosting (not through MT, though), until I set up 2.9.1.
Hi Dan…
No luck even with WP 2.91. The buckets are empty. I have tried both scheduled and manual.
A cheapy shared hosting works OK. But not Media Temple’s VPS.
This is brilliant stuff! Great work!
Sorry if this has been asked already, but… wpmu???
I’d love to see this incorporated. We’d really just need the additional options of adding the “blogs.dir” and “mu-plugins” directories under wp-content.
Also, if you need some help testing it out, I have a test wpmu install (2.9-rc-1) for just such purposes. Feel free to let me know!
Hey James, Most likely it isn’t because of how MU stores files. Since Mu will be getting merged into regular Wordpress in the near future, we probably won’t be spending time on adding compatibility for mu. Sorry.
This looks like a great plugin! Does anyone know if it’s Wordpress MU/BuddyPress compatible?
Most likely it isn’t because of how MU stores files. Since Mu will be getting merged into regular Wordpress in the near future, we probably won’t be spending time on adding compatibility for mu. Sorry.
What about BuddyPress?
Not sure how & where BuddyPress saves files so can’t say for sure. We’ll need some pioneers to test it out and report back.
As far as I understand, BuddyPress is built on WPMU, so it’s unlikely that this plugin would work there, either.
Yep.. if WPMU is compatible BP is compatible as well.. so you have support for both when WPMU works
I just wanted to report that the plugin appears to work with MediaTemple, where my blog is hosted. It backed the site up without a hitch! Thanks for a great—and simple—plugin.
Awesome!
Is “Automatic WordPress Backup” compatible with WordPress MU?
Most likely it isn’t because of how MU stores files. Since Mu will be getting merged into regular Wordpress in the near future, we probably won’t be spending time on adding compatibility for mu. Sorry.
That’s a shame
Because it could take several months before it actually happens (the merge).. This would become a very popular plugin is WPMU and BuddyPress users could use it.. Please consider adding support for this because I believe it would not take that much of work.. please correct me if I’m wrong 
Thanks Bowe for the suggestion. We’ll keep it in mind as we move forward but I can’t make any promises yet.
Hi Michael:
Are you using the Grid Service (shared hosting) on Media Temple or the dedicated virtual (VPS)?
Is it possible to have the plugin backup my wp-config.php file?
Alex
If you have “config and .htaccess” selected, it should be backing up the wp-config file.
I do have it checked but I am not finding it in my backup archive.
That is strange. Does it grab your .htaccess?
It’s working in my development environment. I’m working on version 1.1.0, so if that doesn’t work, we can try to get it working from there.
No, that is what is strange. I am also using 1.0.2 on Rackspace Cloud Site. When was 1.1 released?
I mean that I’m developing 1.1.0. It hasn’t been released yet.
ah, ok.
The only thing I can think of is my wp-config.php is one level up from my root directory. Possibly the problem?
Yes, that is most likely the problem. I know that’s a fairly common setup, so I’ll look into having it find the right .htaccess and wp-config.php files.
Hi,
I’m using Antagonist, a populair webhoster in The Netherlands. After activating the plugin I see this error a lot:
Warning: curl_setopt() [function.curl-setopt]: CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION cannot be activated when in safe_mode or an open_basedir is set in \[path-to-S3.php]
Any idea?
Regards,
Patrick Mackaaij
http://www.eenmanierom.nl/
http://twitter.com/mackaaij/
Hmm can you make sure the web host supports PHP5+ and not just PHP4.
Melvin,
I’ve asked them explicitly and am waiting for an answer which I’ll probably get tomorrow.
Their reply on the error (I left the “CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION” error message at their forum as well) was that “open_basedir” is set and will probably be set by a lot of ISPs.
The (Dutch) topic is here:
http://forum.antagonist.nl/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=7565&p=45908
Regards,
Patrick Mackaaij
http://www.eenmanierom.nl/
http://twitter.com/mackaaij/
Melvin,
A reply came in already, PHP 5.2.8 is in use. See all PHP settings from Antagonist at http://phpinfo.antagonist.nl/
Regards,
Patrick Mackaaij
http://www.eenmanierom.nl/
http://twitter.com/mackaaij/
I will see if I can work around the open_basedir/safe mode restriction without too much trouble.
Dan, Thanks! I’ll follow updates on this topic.
just to chime in.. I’m receiving the same CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION error.. I’d love to know the fix as well..thanks!
Hi there! I am also experiencing the same error:
“Warning: curl_setopt() [function.curl-setopt]: CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION cannot be activated when in safe_mode or an open_basedir is set in /web/[...]/wp-content/plugins/automatic-wordpress-backup/S3.php on line 896″
Is there a solution for this. Any help will be highly appreciated. Thank you in advance.
Hi again,
Since there’s a lot of action on this topic I thought I’d try to make sure the CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION error is still being investigated. Is it? I can’t wait to get this plugin up-and-running!
Don’t know if it helps but Amazon did charge me for usage of the service so there has been some kind of interaction with their servers. Costs: $0.01
I also am receiving the “Warning: curl_setopt() [function.curl-setopt]: CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION cannot be activated when in safe_mode or an open_basedir is set” error. I look forward to an update to hopefully fix this so I can use the plugin too. Thanks!
Hi -
I waited for Wordpress 2.9.1 to reactivate the Automatic WordPress Backup plugin (v1.0.2), hoping that the new WP version would overcome my inability to execute a successful S3 backup using the plugin. Unfortunately, I get the same result: My configuration settings are saved OK, no errors, but when I click the “Save Changes and Backup Now” button, no backup ever appears, either in my “Uploads” section or in my S3 bucket. The text appears that says, “Your manual backup has started. If it hasn’t yet, it will show up below once it’s completed the next time you view this page,” but no backup ever appears. I’ve waited several hours (days, in fact, before the WP 2.9.1. upgrade) for the backup to execute, but no go.
I’m running WordPress 2.9.1 on a virtual Ubuntu Server (host = Rackspace) running PHP Version 5.2.6-3ubuntu4.4. Cron appears to be running fine. Do you have any recommendations for how I can get the plugin to work for me? I’d really like to use it – the concept is exactly what I want.
Thanks!!
Chris
I don’t have a clear recommendation at the moment. As soon as I get a block of time open, I’ll setup an Ubuntu Cloud Server as see if I can get it working from there. Sorry bud for not having a more concrete answer for you at the moment.
Chris,
I’m going to contact you by email to see if I can work anything out.
I have the same issue.
Installed 2.9.1
CHModed the Uploads folder
But nothing appears there
Hope you can help us!
hi,
first of all, thanks for this great plugin. uploading to S3 works great, but the SQL file is always empty with 0 bytes. any idea?
another question:
how is it possible to backup more than one wordpress installation, without having access to the backup files of each others? as soon as i use the drop down box with buckets, i can download the backup files of the other installations.
thx
oliver
forget to say that i am using PHP 5.2.8, MySQL 5.0.32 with apache 2.
There isn’t a way to do that today. When I have projects that I don’t want to let see other files, I just create a new S3 account.
this would mean to get a lot of different invoices?
Yes it would, but the billing happens automatically so you’re not charged any more or have any additional work to do.
Dan, any idea on why the SQL file would be empty?
after some research, i found the problem:
my MySQL server is running on another port, which is usual if you are running MySQL 4 and 5 on one server.
wp-config.php: define(‘DB_HOST’, ‘127.0.0.1:3307′);
your backupscript creates the following mysqldump command:
…-h 127.0.0.1:3307…
which should be
…-h 127.0.0. –port=3307…
would be great if you could fix this.
thanks a lot
oliver
Thanks for pointing this out. I’ll be able to code that in easily for 1.1.0
great, i am looking forward to the new version.
thx
oliver
Oliver,
Are you seeing the actual backup files of other installs in the WordPress interface? In theory, it should be filtering the backup files based on the siteurl of the specific WordPress install. Do you mean that with that access key and secret key that they could go use a client to see the backups?
My websites are all WordPress 2.9 and Thesis 1.6, hosted by HostGator on a reseller account. I have tried to use this plugin on two of them but nothing happens, rodgabfan.com and blueyonder ranch.com
I then tried it at a similar “sandbox” installation and it worked, sort of!. It ran the backup but the downloaded file contained only the WordPress files that I selected but not the database. ibmh.org/demo16/
Note: I then tried the “WordPress Database Backup” plugin and it worked OK so the problem here isn’t with access to the database. http://www.ilfilosofo.com/blog/wp-db-backup
This plugin is exactly what I need but, since there is no debug information, I have no way of knowing what is wrong or not wrong.
Can you look inside your zip, under wp-content > uploads > wp-s3-database-backup.sql?
Yes. I can look inside the zip. It contains a wp-content folder, wp-config.php and .htaccess files but that all.
And how do you mean “sandbox”?
My “sandbox” is a test installation of WordPress and Thesis with virtually no content and few plugins. It allows me to test things when they don’t work right on one of my active websites that has lots of content and plugins. One of the obvious tests that I run is to see if their is a plugin conflict.
Question: What database user permissions are required?
I normally have the following: SELECT, CREATE, INSERT, ALTER, UPDATE, DROP, DELETE, INDEX.
Is this sufficient?
Yes, that should be all that you need for the purposes of this plugin.
Hello Rick.
I have a reseller account with Hostgator also and have no problem using this great tool. Look inside your wp-content >> Uploads folder and you should see the database file. Mine are fine.
Henry
Wish I could say the same thing. I have no files in my uploads folder. I have a list of recent manual backups that I can download from AWS but that’s it.
I too am running into the problem with the database not getting backed up. Here are the exact steps I can do to reproduce the problem:
1. In the “Parts of your blog to back up” section, I check only the boxes for “Config file and htaccess” and “Database dump”.
2. Click “Save Changes and Backup Now”
3. The page refreshes and I see the backup listed.
4. I download and unzip the backup file. It contains only two files: wp-config.php and .htaccess. There is no database file or any folders it could be hiding in.
If I try the same steps and check the box for nothing other than “Database dump”, the screen refreshes but there is no new backup listed under recent backups. I made sure to wait a sufficient amount of time for processing and also doubled-checked using an S3 browser and there was no file created.
I’d bee happy to do some additional checking or provide any details I can. Thanks.
I’ve completely rewritten the database backup. I hope to get the next version out later this week (unless a winter storm knocks out our power), so I’d just wait till version 1.1.0 and try that out.
Dan,
After activating the plugin, and entering the bucket keys, I get “no bucket was specified” and nothing else. The page is blank, except the two first fields. Not even a submit button. Do you know why that is?
Running PHP 5.2.6 on Linux.
If it doesn’t show you the other fields, it sounds like it’s an issue with the keys. This might sound silly but could you re-enter the access key info.
I can’t. That’s the point. All I get are the two fields… no button, nothing else, shows up. I tried entering the information and hit “enter.” I tried installing/re-installing the plugin.
Nothing.
Hello Michel,
What hosting platform/service are you on? I had this same thing happen with one of the hosting accounts we use but it is working fine on Hostgator and Hostmoster for us.
Henry
That is weird. I’ll get in touch with you via email to schedule a time to see exactly what is happening on your server.
I installed the plugin and entered the login info for Amazon, but I keep getting the message: “You need to select a valid S3 bucket. If you tried to create a new bucket, it may have been an invalid name” and “No bucket was created. You may have entered a bucket name that already exists on another account.”
Using S3 Browser I created a bucket, but the drop down list remains empty on the plugin settings page.
I’m running PHP 5.2.6 on a dedicated server, but don’t know what else I should try (I deleted and re-installed and entered the login info for S3 more than once.)
I’ll send you an email and try to schedule a time to connect so we can walk through the process together.
Any news on the next revision?
I am working on the new version. I’ve gotten a couple of bugs worked out and a new restore feature that needs some testing before I release it.
Great Backup Solutions! It work on my dedicated server but when i download and extract the Backup files the wp-s3-database-backup.sql show “0″ size and has no data entries.
Any clue?
A few people have reported this issue and so the database backup component has been rewritten in the next version to address this very issue. It should be released in the next week or so.
Thank You Melvin, great Support! I would be happy to donate/buy the plugin when you offer this!
Hi there – great looking plugin!
I saw mentioned above maybe the possibility of having it save to the local file system (the sites server) instead of having to use Amazon. Is this something that might be implemented in the next version? I don’t want to use Amazon so have yet to try the plugin.
Thanks
/Doug
You really don’t want to keep the backup on the same system/server as your website. We have considered this and it’s not a top priority. FTP uploading is something we’ve talked about and will get implemented in a few versions. Right now the priority is to get it to be a mature plugin that does everything that is needed using Amazon S3 as the storage mechanism because it’s so cheap and reliable.
We completed a restore to a clean test site from the backup off of a Host Monster server and all is well. This was using WP eCommerce plugin and all the files, a couple hundred product images and all the data are there.
This week I will be doing a video and blog posting on your great addition to the WordPress family.
I have a client with nearly 100 sites on Media Temple Grid Server that we will test next. Has anyone found that to work yet?
Henry
This plugin seems to be almost working for me, but not quite. First off, it said my “uploads” directory wasn’t writeable, even though it was. I noticed that it had created an “awb” directory in the “uploads” directory, but the awb directory had no permissions at all.
I made the awb directory writeable and executable, which at least made the error message about “uploads” not being writeable go away. But it still won’t back up. It seems to have created a .htaccess file in “awb”, but that has no permissions either (no read, write, or execute for anybody.)
Is it possible that my hosting server defaults to granting no permissions on new files, and the plugin isn’t setting them either, and therefore can’t use the files it’s creating? Or am I missing something else?
All help gratefully received!
Thanks,
Matt
I’ll get in touch with you via email to walk through the setup process together to make sure we haven’t missed anything.
Thanks for the help, Melvin; I’ve sent you a mail.
In the meantime, for anyone else that’s got the same problem — I found that using my web host’s file manager and manually making the “uploads/awb” directory readable, writeable and executable by the server/WordPress user (basically the equivalent of a “chmod 700 awb” in my case) solved the problem, and Automatic Wordpress Backup is now working fine for me.
I just installed this plugin on about 7 sites. The backup worked completely fine on 4 of them, but seems stalled on the other three. They are all on the same server.
Any suggestions on how i can debug why those three won’t do a backup (they say a manual backup has been started, but it’s not completing).
Thanks.
One possibility is that the 3 sites are larger in size. I would give it some time and see if it has worked. It would be quiet strange for them all to be on the same server and some to work and others to not work.
It’s actually the opposite – the ones that aren’t working are really small and low traffic sites. But they haven’t done anything in two hours. I ran a manual backup on one of the other sites and it completed in about 30 seconds.
Just to make sure we’re on the same, by “really small”, you mean that it doesn’t have that much files that have been uploaded into the media library (such as images, audio, pdfs or videos), right?
Right, hardly any files, hardly any traffic, hardly any content — just a basic WP site.
Weird. I’ll get in touch via email to see if we can get this sorted out for you.
So I did a bit of debugging. One bug is that the plugin assumes the uploads directory exists, but it’s only created when someone uploads content. On one of my sites that had never happened, since it was basically a static site. Not sure about the other sites, but I’m still debugging.
Oh yea, I mentioned that in the installation video but I should mention that in the FAQs at the top of this page.
Strangely enough, one those other sites if I hit /wp-cron.php directly it’ll do the backup. But it doesn’t seem to fire before.
I started working the plugin to work with MU. Basically, instead of going in the /plugins folder, you need to upload the individual files and folders to /mu-plugins. Once you do this it automatically installs the plugin for site wide use. You’ll see the WDC Options at the very bottom of the admin sidebar.
Unfortunately (for me) I use nginx, which does not support ftp, so I couldn’t test it. One way to get it to work could be to rename options.php, upload a non mu options.php, save your backup options, then replace options.php with your original options.php.
Another way might be to use the following link as a guide to adding the WDC init actions: http://planetozh.com/blog/2009/05/handling-plugins-options-in-wordpress-28-with-register_setting/
Hi;
Just installed the plugin and I get the following error;
Fatal error: Undefined class name ’self’ in /mnt/w0201/d06/s17/b029a8c0/www/over50tech.com/wp-content/plugins/automatic-wordpress-backup/automatic-wordpress-backup.php on line 86
My webhost is Netfirms.com.
Thanks for any help you can offer.
oops, switched php5 and now that issue is resolved.
I need support please.
The plugin is not backing up my website when I select backup now.
The wordpress page shows no backup files after letting it run for an hour.
My S3 bucket has no files in it.
I am using Netfirms.com as a webhost.
It might have to do with your cron not running. Try going to yourdomain.com/wp-cron.php and see if that works.
Any idea why the General options pane wouldn’t show up? On one site it doesn’t exist.
Hmm, that’s strange. Anything different about that site?
Help,
I have several sites on IXWebhosting and cannot get Automatic Wordpress Backup to work.
Installation went fine but it does not run.
Any help would be appreciated, I think this is a great plug-in — once it works.
Dennis
Try going to yourdomain.com/wp-cron.php and see if that works.
Hi,
I tried wp-crontab.php for my site and still no go!
any other ideas would be appreciated.
I removed and reinstalled the plugin and it works fine now.
thanks
Hmm, that’s strange. I wonder what it was. In any case, glad it’s working now. And thank you for keeping the credit link in place. It means a lot.
Hi,
I installed the Automatic Wordpress Backup plugin, but after I entered my AWS access key and secret access key and clicked “save”, I received the error:
Fatal error: Call to undefined function curl_init() in /home/living/public_html/wp/wp-content/plugins/automatic-wordpress-backup/S3.php on line 860
What might this mean and how can I correct it?
I’m using a Linux server running php 5.2.5
Thanks!
Michael
Michael, are you on a dedicated server? If so, your issue might be fixed by the next update we’ll be pushing out. I’ll get in touch with you once we’ve got that ready to go.
Hi Melvin,
I’m not sure but I’m pretty sure we have shared hosting. Is it possible that the plugin has to have CURL instaleed? I’m not sure our host has installed it, but if it’s possible that that’s the problem, I can get with him.
Thanks!
Michael
It’s possible. I’ll check in with my programmer and report back soon.
Hello,
Thanks for a great plugin — it works nicely. However I have to tell you that I have a real problem with the “powered by Web Design Company” link that your plugin automatically puts in the footer of my websites unless it’s deselected in the preferences.
I understand the need for credit where it’s due and am all for supporting quality plugins, but this link appears out of nowhere and makes it look like WDC is taking credit for building the entire site. Please consider revising your credit link text to indicate it’s the Auto Backup plugin that’s powered by WDC, not the entire site itself. Even something like “This site uses Automatic Wordpress Backup, a plugin by Web Design Company” would be a lot better.
Dawn, I’ve responded to you directly via email.
No offense but this seems a bit of an over reaction, you get what you pay for. Its not that difficult to uncheck this option, not a big deal for a great plugin!
I responded privately to Mel via email, but wanted to say publicly that my comment wasn’t intended to be rude so I apologize if it seemed that way. I wasn’t accusing WDC of any dishonesty. My point was simply that even if there was no bad intent, the end result is–in my opinion–unnecessarily misleading and unfair to those of us who actually did build the entire site.
All I was asking is that WDC consider using more specific wording in the credit line to make it more clear that WDC created the plugin and not the entire site. Also, I think it would help to perhaps flag it a little more in the plugin setup page so people aren’t surprised when it shows up on their site.
Apologies, again, if what I meant to be constructive criticism came out more like a flaming. I agree it’s a great plugin worthy of support. Thanks for all your hard work.
Hi – any news on that 1.1.0 version? I’ve got this plugin working fine on several sites hosted on Hostgator, but another site on Hostgator refuses to work. I’ve done everything I can think of, and get no errors – but just get no backup either. The database backup appears in the Uploads folder, but no zipped file and nothing on S3. I’m hoping that v. 1.1.0 will fix it.
Please let us know! Thanks!
I did some testing on it this weekend and there are a few bugs we need to get sorted away before it gets released. It’s close.
Hi,
I installed the Automatic Wordpress Backup plugin. How do I know if it is actually making backups?
On the Automatic Wordpress Backup screen on my Wordpress installation, I have entered the AWS Access Key and the AWS Secret Key. I created and assigned a bucket for S3, set the backup frequency to “daily” and checked all of the options. When I clicked “Save Changes and Backup Now”, I received a message that indicated the changes were saved successfully, but I have received no indication that it actually backed up anything.
Under the heading “Download recent backups”, there is no list of recent backups. I set everything up about a week ago. the next day, I clicked “Save Changes and Backup Now”, but now, 5 or 6 days later, there is nothing indicating that it is actually backing up the site.
My AWS account shows a 2 cent balance, apparently for 0.000012 GB of bandwidth.
I’m using a Linux server running php 5.2.5 (I previously reported a different issue, but that issue seemed to be resolved when our ISP installed CURL on the server.)
What can I do to verify whether or not it is backing up and if it’s not, what do I need to do?
Thanks!
Michael
hi – amazing plugin! am slightly confused by the options:
- Delete backups older than one month
–Keep a monthly backup for one year
–Keep manual backups forever
in the video you tick ALL of these…don’t the first two cancel each other out? or am i being obtuse?!!
thanks!
debs
If you tell it to delete backups older than a month, but keep the monthly backups, it’ll keep the first backup for each month going back a year, but clear out anything else over a month old. That way, you keep a history going back a year without having to keep each and every backup.
cheers! all clear now!
hi…i have another question! are there any security issues around storing wp-config.php and .htaccess files at S3? …or am i just being paranoid? is there some way we could encrypt these files with sensitive data? thanks!
No you are not being paranoid. It’s a good question to ask.
With S3, if they don’t have your access keys, they can’t reach your data. That is Amazon’s promise. So as long as you don’t share your access keys in a vulnerable place, you’ll be fine. Now this does mean that your web server itself needs to be secure… but if someone is able to get into your server, s3 will likely be the least of your worries. In any case, I recommend setting up a different S3 account to do your backups.
thanks melvin! a separate S3 account is a good idea…
I keep getting the message “It appears that your uploads folder isn’t writeable by the web server. Be sure that you set your permissions so that it can write to it.”
However the permissions on the uploads folder are set and a folder called awb has been created in there. Any ideas?
It sounds like you’re using the development version of the plugin, not the stable version.
If you go to your uploads folder, there is probably a folder called awb. You need to set permissions for that directory to 755. That is one of the bugs of the current beta version. It doesn’t automatically set the right permissions for that folder.
HI,
I’d already set the permissions to 755 and also 777 but to no avail still got the same problem… i wonder if it’s server related (also set the site to run php5)
Hi,
I installed the Automatic Wordpress Backup plugin. How do I know if it is actually making backups?
On the Automatic Wordpress Backup screen on my Wordpress installation, I have entered the AWS Access Key and the AWS Secret Key. I created and assigned a bucket for S3, set the backup frequency to “daily” and checked all of the options. When I clicked “Save Changes and Backup Now”, I received a message that indicated the changes were saved successfully, but I have received no indication that it actually backed up anything.
Under the heading “Download recent backups”, there is no list of recent backups. I set everything up a few weeks ago. The day after I initially set it up, I clicked “Save Changes and Backup Now”, but there is still nothing indicating that it is actually backing up the site.
My AWS account shows a 2 cent balance, apparently for 0.000012 GB of bandwidth.
I’m using a Linux server running php 5.2.5.
What can I do to verify whether or not it is backing up and if it’s not, what do I need to do?
Thanks!
Michael
Hi, I’ve got the same problem as Michael above. Everything is apparently working, no errors on the plugin. Amazon S3 has a balance for $0.01 based on 19 requests. The useage report from Amazon is pretty terrible, although it looks like my only useage to date have been the ListBucket, ListAllMyBuckets, and CreateBucket functions.
No backup files are added to my uploads folder.
I’m not sure how recent the change is to the uploads folder to organise uploads by year and then month, perhaps that is a problem?
Currently running Wordpress 2.9.2, PHP 5.2.11 on Linux
I just got everything working and I downloaded the zip to check out the contents. I found the backup database file:
Inside your zip, under wp-content > uploads > wp-s3-database-backup.sql
but it does not contain any posts. It is not like my manual backup of the database that produces a .sql file which contains all my posts. What am I missing?
That is ultra strange since both methods use the same DB dump approach. Our DB dump method is changing a lot with the next version so it might fix your problem. Hang tight for another week bud.
Hello,
I am getting the following error whenever I try to activate the plugin. I have php5, linux hosting on Godaddy and a writable “uploads” in my wp-content. Any ideas?
Fatal error: Undefined class name ’self’ in
/home/content/y/o/g/yogababy/html/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/automatic-wordpress-backup/automatic-wordpress-backup.php on line 86
Thanks
Matthew Forrest
I can’t get the plugin to work properly. Here are my issues:
If I have all boxes checked the backup won’t complete (not even a manual backup). Is my site too large? My database files are about 6mb. My content is probably around 50mb. AWS shows about a penny in charges, so there is some activity going on.
If I only check “Config file and htaccess” and leave database, themes, plugins, and uploaded content unchecked, the backup appears to be successful after several hours (overnight) of waiting. However, when I try to click the link to download the backup I get a “This Connection is Untrusted” error concerning the security certificate of AWS. It won’t allow me to open, download, or save the file. I’ve tried in Firefox and Safari.
Hi Melvin, did you miss my comment? I don’t see a reply from you. Do you need more information? I’m using Godaddy hosting.
Oops, I did. That sounds like the DB dump is having issues. Is that a shared hosting account, a VPS or a dedicated server?
It’s their deluxe shared hosting account (linux).
Hi,
I’m not sure why the backup is not working… I’m getting this warning message (using wordpress 2.9.2 and PHP 5.2.8). Any idea, where it comes from ?
Warning: curl_setopt() [function.curl-setopt]: CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION cannot be activated when in safe_mode or an open_basedir is set in …/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/automatic-wordpress-backup/S3.php on line 896
Thanks for the awesome extension
I have set it to weekly backups and noticed that it still is backing up on a daily basis and taking up way too much server space? Is there a solution for this? Website Host is Hostgator.
Hmm, that sounds odd. Once we’ve released the next version of the plugin, we’ll dig deeper into this issue. It would help if you setup a temporary website account on hostgator and email us FTP info so we can test it out and see what’s wrong.
why is my comment deleted? I was having problems on setting the backup to weekly because even if you set it it will still be in daily so space on s3 is wasted and bandwidth. Will you delete this comment again the second time?
Your comment wasn’t deleted. Comments go into moderation to filter for spam. Take a chill pill man.
I got this working on Lunarpages today.
Described here: http://wombatdiet.net/2010/03/03/wordpress-to-amazon-s3-backup/
with a suggestion: permit keeping last N backups
and a bug: the plugin didn’t like a pre-existing bucket (of mine)
Thanks
Nice write-up dude/dudette! And thanks for leaving the credit link in the footer. I’ll definitely keep your idea in mind as we move forward. It’s something I’ve been thinking about as well.
Hey there,
When we download the backups (checking that they are saving ok) we’ve noticed our sql file is empty? Any ideas on how to fix that? We are hosting on Mediatemple (which I see is on your untested host list – don’t know if that’s the issue…)
Many thanks,
Daniel
Daniel,
The way version 1.x backs up the database has been totally replaced in the upcoming version 2.x.
Alright, 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.
I’m confused. What is the difference between this plugin:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/automatic-wordpress-backup/
and this one?
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-s3-backups/
Both of them have Dan Coulter as the author.
That is the old version of the plugin. It was renamed to give it more flexibility and it has been dramatically been extended.
The one you want to use is:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/automatic-wordpress-backup/
I’m curious, so what does Dan Coulter have to do with either of these?
Also, with regards to the conversations on the Wordpress support forums discussing how someone claims this plugin inserts a link for credit, how does it work? Is it mandatory or optional? I ask because I prefer to use a “Credits” page for all the plugins I use instead of random links automatically placed in my blog (as some would claim)
Nop, it’s not mandatory. It’s pretty easy to turn it off actually. We’d love it if you didn’t remove it but we don’t make it hard to remove. And a credits page would be awesome.
I’ve made the switch. Thanks for the awesome plugin! Here’s the link to my credits page. It uses a plugin to generate it:
http://thundercatownersgroup.com/about/credits/
Chalk up another Hostgator implementation over here. Plugin works great!
Thanks again!
I am using Cartika Hosting and the plugin page failed to load after installing. Any help would be appreciated.
Hi Tom, you’ll probably want to sign up for the beta of the new version that will be released on Friday.
You can see more info here: http://www.webdesigncompany.net/automatic-wordpress-backup/automatic-wordpress-backup-v2-beta/
Th new version fixes the most common problem people were having and adds a restore feature into the plugin.
Melvin,
At the risk of sounding like a totaly idiot, I have a simple question. I was able to use S3, GoDaddy hosting and your plugin like a breeze. Really nice work. The backup worked great. Here’s my question: Does this backup include all of my posts and pages? I saw it had my uploads, but I wasn’t sure about the other stuff. That’s my only concern.
Thanks for everything.
In your archive, it should contain a .sql file. Open this .sql file inside notepad or textedit. If it contains lots of stuff, than yes and everything is working for you. If you don’t have a .sql file or it is empty, the backup isn’t working correctly.
PS: The .sql file is basically a export of your database, which is where your posts, pages and other data is stored.
Donation will be forthcoming. Awesome stuff.
Thanks for the generous offer Jeff, though we don’t accept donations. We’d be really grateful if you wrote a review of the plugin and/or left the credit link on in the footer.
Hi, I was trying to backup my site to s3 but all I get is this text:
“It appears that your uploads folder isn’t writeable by the web server. Be sure that you set your permissions so that it can write to it.”
I have changed permission in uploads folder on 776.
And same. What am I doing wrong?
FYI, I got an email today from a theme company I’ve used before. They claim to have a new Wordpress backup product now called “BackupBuddy”. It looks interesting BUT…it doesn’t backup to Amazon S3 which is critical for me. It also comes with a price tag.
Thanks for the heads up.
I’m glad they are trying to get into the market with a new product. The more people that are backing up the better.
PS: When you see how Automatic Wordpress Backup v2.0 works, I think you’ll see how much more work they still have to do to catch up.
Got room for another beta tester? I can set up a blog under a sub-domain and backup/restore until the cows come home.
For sure. Just leave a comment on the beta page.
First of all thanks so much for this plugin. I installed it and signed up w/ Amazon and everything was very straightforward.
Now for some questions… I tried my first backup and am having 2 issues. 1st is that all it created in my uploads/awb folder was an .htaccess file, but nothing else. 2nd is that nothing is showing in my amazon account.
Would you have some suggestions for me? It’s been several minutes now so I would think that is long enough to expect the backup to be created (it’s a small site.)
Thanks.