Update to 4.2.14
Hi Jomark,
Tonight I lay awake worrying about Vantage: I was wondering if the lack of updates for years would force me to switch to another directory theme or plugin, as the problems I'd addressed still haven't been fixed. However, a move would cost months of work and thousands of euros and would be a huge burden for the listing owners too.
Just for the sake of interest, I checked the version history to see how long ago the last update was. I was very surprised to discover that there has been an update since June 2024. Of course, I am delighted - I can stay with Vantage. Several problems that I complained about have been solved according to the upgrade information.
But what surprises me: How was I supposed to find out that there was an update in June?
This is not displayed in the dashboard. And I didn't receive a newsletter either. I have installed the Appthemes updater plugin all the time and the API key is entered. But it doesn't show an update.
Then I thought maybe this is because I have activated a child theme and not the parent theme. So I activated the parent theme on a staging site. But even there I could not find any indication of an update. Why not? And how is the update supposed to work?
OK, I thought, I'll install the latest version manually - at first only on the staging site as a test. I downloaded 4.2.14 from the Vantage website, added it to my themes and activated it. Oh dear, I see that all my theme settings have been lost, I would have to redo all the settings.
Can this be avoided please? On other websites of mine with other themes, the settings are retained during updates (which usually come several times a month).
Next, I deleted the old version, 4.2.13, and activated the child theme again. And then disaster struck: there was a critical WordPress error. The site can no longer be restored, we'll probably have to reinstall WordPress and restore a backup. Fortunately, I tested everything on a staging site first, this didn´t occur on the live site.
When I tried to log in again, I got an error message saying that the parent theme “appthemes-vantage” is missing and therefore the child theme can't work. This means that my child theme does not recognize 4.2.14 as a parent theme, although the child theme was created by a Codeable WordPress professional, we did not do it ourselves.
So, how can I update to 4.2.14 without changing all the settings? Why is 4.2.14 not compatible with the child theme and how can this be fixed?
I look forward to your answer:
Zsuzsa