3.5.1 to 3.8.7?

Question

I have used JustHost as my ISP for years. Previously they would make a current version of joomla available and my control panel would alert me to a new version being available. At some point, they ceased doing that and when I would check my control panel would tell me that I was current. After one online chat and one phone call they told me they no longer do that and it is up to me to handle it on my own.

I am moderately technical but this scares the living daylights out of me and I am not certain the steps I should follow. Any advice would be appreciated.

Answer 1

You don't need your hosting provider to tell you there's a Joomla update available.

You can:

1. Login to the admin panel for your Joomla site and you'll see an alert
2. Enable the system Joomla! Update Notification plugin which will email you
3. Subscribe to any Joomla social network such as Facebook, Twitter, etc

The steps for updating Joomla are pretty straight forward:

1. Take a backup. You can use an extension such as Akeeba Backup or do it manually
2. Make sure your 3rd party extensions are compatible with the version of Joomla you're updating to
3. Click the big button to perform the update

Once successfully updated, I'd also suggest going through each page on your site just to double check there aren't any errors.

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I'm not suggesting this, but personally, I always wait on updating Joomla for about one week after it's released just in case (unless it's an important security patch). There have been a couple of patches that have introduced some issue in the past and I've been recommended to wait till the hotfix was released.