Wordpress 2.2 Upgrade - Careful of King Plugins

Many users have made the move to Wordpress in the last year.  I’m no expert, but if you follow some basic rules, there shouldn’t be anything you cannot overcome. 

I haven’t upgraded this blog yet but I did upgrade my DH Original which has let’s say, a little more personal family oriented content! 

The blog loaded and navigated successfully, but when I tried to access the Admin Panel/Login - It gave me:  

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: wp_get_current_user() in /…Domain…Blah .Blah/wp-includes/capabilities.php on line 446.

Hope the following tips and findings can save the headaches for some of you.

Lesson #1  Make sure you always make a back up before you upgrade.  Full back up includes:   Directory structure on the server and database.

Lesson #2  Disable plugins, as instructed by Wordpress before the upgrade.

Luckily, I was able to dig up a solution…

The problem arises, if you are using certain King Plugins.  You can get more info on this at Wordpress.org.  The new WP 2.2 has built in widgets, which conflicts due to the old directory structure.

Here is the Solution if you are after the fact.  You don’t have to re-invent the wheel:

I found the problem.

If you’re using a plugin or widget that must be installed in the folder of the old widget plugin, that plugin will break everything.

Now that WP 2.2 has widgets built-in there’s no need for the old widgets plugin. However, a few plugins/widgets are built to be installed in the same directory as the "widgets.php" file. Now that that file has been moved out of the plugins folder, problems arise.

Your problem plugins may differ, but I broke my blog with the King Text and King Links plugins/widgets. They must reside in the old widgets folder in the plugins folder. Now that widgets are incorporated in WP 2.2 and no longer a plugin, those two break and will take your blog down with them.

Fix: Copy your old widgets folder to your local hard drive as backup. Delete the widgets folder from your blog’s server. (If you haven’y upgraded your database, do so.) Reload your dashboard. Now you should be fine.

Sadly, the King widgets series (which powers my entire sidebar) needs an update to work with 2.2 from what I can see. No updates exist at the time of this writing.

Edelen  has other solutions in store if you care to read up on them.

As for my pending upgrade, I guess I’ll have to tweak my other blog until I’m satisfied with the results.  Then, I’ll upgrade.

Good luck to you.