Our mission for this plugin is simple: Every WordPress should backup.
Version 1 of AWB was released in Dec 09. It was a major breakthrough at the time. It was the only WordPress plugin that allowed for automatic backup of your entire WordPress site to an external source, in our case Amazon S3 servers. We’ve been downloaded a few thousand times and have gotten great feedback from the WordPress community. We consider it a fantastic start.
For the last few months, we’ve been working on the next version of the plugin. This new version is fantastic. It brings a few key features that will make the lives of WordPress users much easier.
1. Automatic Restore
The key function of AWB is to help you have peace of mind that your WordPress website is safe and have confidence that when disaster does strike you’ll be able to get back to normal within minutes, not hours, days or weeks.
The plugin was pretty good at doing the backup part of the job but restoring a website still required you to have some technical expertise. We didn’t like that. If our site blows up. We don’t want to think through how to restore. We want to just do it. That’s why we’ve added Simple Restore.
Simple Restore allows you to go from a fresh WordPress install to your backup version in minutes. Here’s a video that shows you how it works:
As you see ion the video, it takes a few clicks and you’re done. We’re really happy with how it turned out and hope you’ll enjoy it as well.
2. Better Database Connectivity
With v1 of AWB, we had a number of people tell us that the plugin wasn’t working for them and the primary source of the problems was the database connectivity. That is no longer the case. We’ve completely revamped the code for connecting with the database, borrowing code from the WP DB Manager plugin, which was partially borrowed from the phpMyAdmin system. We haven’t had any issues with beta testers around database connectivity so we think we’ve got this one handled.
3. Plugin Requirements Panel
WordPress is such a popular content management system that it is used in all kinds of web servers. Due to the complexity of the problem we’re trying to solve and the various types of server systems on the web, we cannot make our plugin work on all servers.
To make it easier to debug what might be going wrong, we’ve added a Plugin Requirements panel. This panel lists out the requirements for getting AWB working and it will tell you which of the requirements are not being met. This will arm you with the information you need to work with your host to get AWB working on your server.
So there you have it. Simple Restore. Better Database Connectivity. A Plugin Requirements panel. That my friends is Automatic WordPress Backup v2.0. Tell us whist you think in the comments below and PLEASE either write a review of the plugin or turn on the credit line in the footer. As i mentioned earlier, our mission for this plugin is simple: Simple, automatic backup for all WordPress websites. We need your support to be able to continuously invest time and money into the development and support of this plugin. Thank you for your support and feedback.
What’s Next?
The next task on our to-do list is File-by-File uploading that only uploads files that have been changed. Stay tuned.
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Hello,
Under the “Plugin Requirements” everything is green except for ZIP. It says “Not Found”. Please help. Thanks!
I checked with my hosting provider, InMotion, and they said that the zip software is installed and enabled on their end.
It appears that the requirement for this plugin to restore is .zip installed at host. The host I use will not install zip. However, I can restore via tar.gz files. Now, I do own blog zapper, which will restore tar.gz files just fine on any host supporting tar restore. Does your plugin allow for tar version backups? I’m a bit confused as to the file output of this plugin.
I was stupid enough to fiddle around with the stylesheet (yup a newbie) and now I keep getting this message:
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_FUNCTION, expecting ‘{‘ in /home/content/25/6862825/html/wp-content/themes/stik/functions.php on line 18
I cant get back to that page or any other admin page now – is there any hope please?!
Easiest thing for you to do would be to login to your Amazon S3 account at http://aws.amazon.com/s3/ , download the backed version of that file and just replace it with the most recent one that worked.
The above advice was based on assumption that you’re using our backup plugin.
If you are not, you should download the original version of the theme, make a copy of your existing theme, replace the theme on your server with the original one and then carefully reapply the customizations you had made to that theme using the copy of your current theme you made.
Does that make sense?
Hi- Is the video for simple restore located somewhere it states above
Simple Restore allows you to go from a fresh WordPress install to your backup version in minutes. Here’s a video that shows you how it works:
As you see ion the video, it takes a few clicks and you’re done. We’re really happy with how it turned out and hope you’ll enjoy it as well.
but I don’t see a video link?
Also, do I install wordpress on domain and then do a simple restore after uploading your plugin on fresh wordpress install?
hello guys!
I think this is an amazing plugin and I would like to have it working. have anyone expereienced this:
“Automatic WordPress Backup: You need to select a valid S3 bucket. If you tried to create a new bucket, it may have been an invalid name.”
I have tried numerous bucket names with no luck. even as simple as 123456
My site nursingcrib.com is hosted on The Planet will all the metrics “green”.
I tried first creating it on the plugin page but i get that error, then I tried manually creating it in amazon s3 but the plugin is not detecting the bucket I created. I even tried to setup another access key but to no avail.
Then I tried setting it up on my other site which is hosted via dreamhost. After activating the plugin, I was able to create a bucket and see that in amazon s3 as well. Currently Im waiting for the files to appear.
If it works with dreamhost, could it be a problem on my host for nursingcrib.com?
Care to share some experiences guys?
Hi Mitch- While I certainly am no expert in AmazonS3 or extremely knowledgeable about this plugin, I can share some success with bucket naming. Try creating the bucket (folder) in AmazonS3 and then configure the plugin settings. The plugin should recognize the bucket name (by providing the name in the drop down bucket names) or provide you with the option to select the bucket. I use a firefox plugin to manage my Amazon S3 folders called S3Fox. It simply sits in my browser tray (Firefox browser) and I can recall the files and name and add directories and upload quite easily. Good Luck, Cheers, Lisa
Hi Lisa! Thank you for the reply. I actually did what you said but the plugin is not recognizing the bucket I created in S3. This is with nursingcrib.com hosted via the planet.
In dreamhost (for my other site), I was able to create the bucket but up to now, no files has been transferred to S3. I can see the files in FTP but no transfers so far. It has been 12 hours already and the bucket is still empty.
Any more ideas?
a couple of ideas:
1. do not create spaces within bucket name, add a “-” dash if needed.
2. make sure your aws key codes and passcodes are correct
3. make sure the plugin shows that you have all requirements to operate the plugin within your server set to status “green” (meaning there are no errors with zip and other server requirements.
other than that, I’m fresh out of ideas for now.
good luck Mitch.
Thanks Lisa. I made sure I followed everything correctly.
Unfortunately, I get the same error.
“Automatic WordPress Backup: You need to select a valid S3 bucket. If you tried to create a new bucket, it may have been an invalid name.”
Tried Updraft, as well as WP S3 but still no luck. I am beginning to think it’s a problem with my hosting.
Hi,
First, this is a GREAT plugin, and I’m so glad someone recommended it to me.
However, I have it set to weekly backups, but it is backing up daily. Any advice on how I can get it to backup weekly? I do not need that many backups for all my sites and really don’t want to pay for the storage of hundreds of backups each month that are not needed.
Thank you,
Rochelle
I had got a desire to start my own organization, however I didn’t earn enough of cash to do this. Thank God my friend suggested to utilize the business loans. Therefore I received the term loan and made real my desire.
Had similar problem to most people.
My fix was to add a new bucket by:
Or create a bucket: New Name
Everything worked fine after that. Great plugin, my worries are now over!
new homes are actually cheaper in the long run compared to renting an old house or renovating a used home _
Same issue as users above – everything seems to be working fine, but still no files appearing in my S3 bucket. I also cannot find the zip file on FTP – where would it be saved? I tried changing to a new S3 bucket, but still nothing happened. I’ve waited a few days – still no files.
Thanks, Carmen
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