It’s been a little over a month since our last major update and today we are thrilled to announce that 1.9.1 beta is now available.
What’s new in version 1.9.1?
Version 1.9.1 is largely a maintenance release with just a few new feature additions. The bulk of the effort in this release was to make WP BackItUp as stable and reliable as possible for as many hosting environments as possible. This turned out to be quite a bit more challenging than we originally anticipated but we are thrilled to announce version 1.9.1 is finally complete.
What this means to you is that WP BackItUp will backup and restore your site no matter which hosting provider or plan you select, no matter how restrictive. Even though this is a minor release we strongly encourage all customers to upgrade to 1.9.1 when the final release is available next week.
We Need Your Help
We need a few volunteers to help us test the beta before we make it available to the entire WordPress community. We do this to help ensure that our general releases are as smooth and effortless as possible for you, our customers. We always perform extensive testing internally and even run all new versions of WP BackItUp on our own site www.wpbackitup.com first, but we need your help testing too. Please consider installing this version of WP BackItUp and providing feedback about your experience. Thanks in advance to all of you that volunteer, we greatly appreciate it.
Long Running Backups
WP BackItUp 1.9.1 now supports long running backups. Many shared hosts put limitations on how long processes can run and this sometimes impacts backups for sites with a large amount of content. This does not impact a large number of customers but for the ones it does, this release will now allow you to run backups of any size and duration. This change required a major rewrite to our core backup processes so your help in testing this release is greatly appreciated.
Other Improvements
We didn’t stop with long running backups. WP BackItUp version 1.9.1 also contains many additional improvements. Here are just a few of the other improvements that are included in this release.
- User Experience Improvements
- Performance & Stability Improvements
- Automated Cleanup Enhancements
- Logging enhancements
We have reduced the size of the available backups section to display better on mobile devices. We have also made some improvements to the backup notifications emails.
We have consolidated many steps in the backup process which will reduce errors and improve performance.
We have enhanced the automated cleanup process to use your file retention limits when purging log files.
WP BackItUp logging has been improved to provide more detailed logging to help with troubleshooting.
Installing & Testing the Beta
Installing the beta is pretty simple but please take note of the important details below:
- Download WP BackItUp 1.9.1 Beta here. This file is named wp-backitup1.9.0.13.zip for now but will be renamed to 1.9.1 with the final release.
- Delete and deactivate WP BackItUp on your web site. Don’t worry, all your backups and settings will not be removed.
- Install the beta on your website. This is performed via the dashboard just like any other plugin install, however, you must use the upload plugin option. Please make sure to upload the wp-backitup1.9.0.13.zip file you downloaded in step 1.
- Test each feature of the plugin as best you can. Some example tests you could run are:
- Backup your site
- Schedule backups to run at least a few times per week
- Try backups with logging off and on
- Turn email notifications on.
- Set your backup retention limits
Having issues after upgrading?
We have tested version 1.9.1 extensively and have even been running it on our own sites, but as with all beta software, there could be some unexpected issues that occur in certain environments. If you experience any issues, please let us know, and we will do our best to assist you. Feedback and support requests may be submitted via the support form on www.wpbackitup.com.
Thanks in advance for your help.
Chris Simmons
