Please note, this guide only applies to websites where you take care of managing your own WordPress plugin updates. For customers on our Primary Image web hosting plans, we normally handle these sorts of software updates for you.
It’s important to keep your WooCommerce e-commerce software updated, because new releases may include essential security patches that protect your website and your visitors from hackers.
In your Plugins screen, you may see a warning message like this:
This message says:
There is a new version of WooCommerce available.
Heads up! The versions of the following plugins you’re running haven’t been tested with the latest version of WooCommerce.
This doesn’t necessarily mean these plugins will stop working, but there is of course a risk this could happen.
With each plugin listed in this warning notice, here’s what we recommend you do:
- Has the creator of the plugin issued a recent update? If so, install this, and see if the warning disappears.
- Does the plugin have a support forum? You may need to use a search engine to find their support page. If so, see if anyone else has posted a question related to this plugin’s compatibility, or try asking a question yourself. You’ll want to find out whether the latest version of this plugin (the one you have installed) works ok with the latest version of WooCommerce.
- If the plugin doesn’t look like it’s being actively supported any longer, then it may be worth exploring an alternative plugin. Search for a plugin that has similar functionality, but one that has been released recently and has good reviews. Then remove the old plugin you were using previously.
- Or you could try installing the latest version of WooCommerce and just see what happens. Quite often plugins will continue to work fine. However, it’s highly recommended you do this on a staging website (i.e. a separate copy of your website, which you use for testing purposes only), so it doesn’t break your live public site. You don’t want to risk your main website going offline or displaying errors to visitors! If you don’t have a staging site, then at the very least ensure you have a full backup of your website. That means you can quickly rollback in the event anything goes wrong.
Need further support on updating your WooCommerce plugins?
Depending on your requirements, we can normally offer support on a paid-for basis (see our hourly rates).
For us to assist you and provide a quote, please tell us as much info as possible, via our contact form.