When an update breaks a site: the check afterwards, the rollback and the pause

Most WordPress sites do not break on their own — they break right after something changed. WP Safer records the changes it makes, checks the site once an update is finished, and gives you a way back. None of the destructive steps run without you asking.

The check after an update (paid plans)

A few minutes after WP Safer installs a plugin, theme or core update, the site is read again: the home page, plus one inner page taken from the home page's own HTML. A fixed path would not exist on every site, and a missing page looks like a break, so the address is discovered per site and reused on later readings.

The check only reads. It skips wp-admin, wp-login, the REST API, feeds, asset files, log-out links and cart, checkout or account pages, so nothing on your site is triggered by us looking at it.

There are three outcomes, not two

• Passed — the site answered, the body is not a critical-error screen, and your keyword (if you set one) is still there. Nothing happens.
• Broken — a WordPress critical-error screen, an empty body, a server error, or your keyword has disappeared. The decision needs two readings in a row that say the same thing.
• Could not measure — DNS failure, connection error, TLS problem, timeout, a 401/403/429, a firewall signature, or a site that was already answering badly before the update.

“Could not measure” never counts as broken. It sends no alert and never rolls anything back. Checks run from a single location, so failing to reach a site tells you we could not see it, not that it is down — and rolling back a working site because of a network hiccup costs you more than a missed alert.

Putting a broken update back

When a check says broken and there is a version to go back to, WP Safer reinstalls the previous version from the official wordpress.org package. The rollback is at file level: the database is not touched, so anything the newer version wrote there stays. The notification says this plainly.

WordPress core is only rolled back inside the same release series — 6.8.2 back to 6.8.1, never 6.9 back to 6.8.2. WordPress moves its database schema forward on feature releases and does not support moving it back, so rolling those files back would leave the site worse off than the broken update did.

If there is no package to go back to, we do not improvise. The notification says the update could not be put back and that the site needs you; the panel points at the site's last backup, and restoring it is a button you press, never something that happens on its own.

Automatic updates pause

As soon as a check says broken, that site is marked as paused and automatic updates skip it. The package that broke the site is still published, so without the pause the next automatic round would install it again, the check would break again, and the loop would repeat.

The pause never lifts by itself. Updating by hand still works — that is a decision you are making — and the site's Uptime tab has a “Resume automatic updates” button behind a confirmation. The pause is shown even if your plan no longer includes update checks; a state you cannot see is a state you cannot clear. Sites that are paused are also listed on the Monitoring page.

What changed just before an incident

Every incident on the site's Uptime tab is shown next to the changes WP Safer recorded on that site in the minutes before it started, with how long before the incident each one happened. The panel calls this what it is: things that happened close in time, not a cause.

From the same list you can roll a plugin back to the version it had before its update, or restore the site's last backup. Both ask for confirmation first. A rollback replaces files; a restore replaces the database as well, which is why it goes through the same restore dialog as everywhere else in the panel, with its chain summary and warnings. If there is no earlier version to go back to, the button is disabled and says why.

Which plans

Update checks, automatic rollback and the incident-linked change list run on every paid plan. They are off on Free, where WP Safer does not run automatic updates in the first place.