Updates
Both plugins update through WordPress itself. Which order to update them in, and what to check before and after.
- Beginner
- 5 min read
- Applies to 2.0
How updates arrive
Both plugins appear in Dashboard → Updates and on the Plugins screen, the same as anything else. There is no separate updater to run and nothing to download by hand.
The free plugin updates through WordPress. The Pro plugin checks with the licence vendor, so an update offer for Pro depends on the licence being active — see Managing your licence.
If Pro is not offering an update you know exists, check the licence before anything else. An expired key is the usual reason.
Which order
Update the free plugin first, then Pro. Pro builds on the free plugin and expects it to be at least as new. Updating Pro alone against an older free version is the combination most likely to produce something odd.
If WordPress offers both at once, that is fine — it applies them in sequence.
Before you update
- Take a backup, database included. Settings, audit entries and form schemas all live in the database.
- Update on staging first if you have one, especially across a major version.
- Read the release notes. A major version can change behaviour that was previously wrong, which is a fix but is still a change on your site.
After you update
Open the plugin's screens once and check the version shown matches what you expected. Then look at anything the release notes flagged.
Updating from 1.x to 2.0? A number of settings that were saved but never applied now take effect. That is the point of the release, and it means screens you set up long ago may start behaving differently — correctly, but differently. The ones worth opening once:
- Security → the mode card, which now presets four switches
- Security → login attempts and lockout duration, which are now read
- Passwords, whose rules are now enforced
- The audit log's retention period, which is now a single setting
- Emails → Admin Notifications, three of which now actually send
- Form Builder → any field's validation rules, now enforced
Each of those is covered in its own article, with a note explaining what changed.
Version numbers
Both plugins report 2.0. The number shown on the plugin screen, the one WordPress compares when deciding whether an update exists, and the one the plugin's own screens display are all the same value, read from one place.
Coming from version 1.x? They were not the same value. The plugin header said one thing and the internal constant another, and the updater compared the header while the screens showed the constant — so an update could be offered for a version you were already running, or the difference shown could be wrong. Both are derived from a single source now.
Something missing or out of date? Tell support.