This is a problem I have run into recently with a couple of my other blogs, trying to update to the excellent Acabado theme latest 1.1.9 version in summer 2020. All previous versions of Acabado had updated fine just by pressing the update button, but for the 1.1.9 update it didn’t work.

It just spent a while trying to update, and then refreshed the page saying the zip file for 1.1.9 had been extracted, and then deleted. It then displays your current version of Acabado as what you were on before (in my case 1.1.8), and then just displays the “Update Now” button again, but the same thing keeps happening.

The Acabado Theme Manager gives you an option to update…..

…But when you do, it downloads, extracts and then deletes the new zip file, leaving you back where you were before

I reached out to someone who knows the Acabado theme well, and he said this is a common problem. For me, it’s only started happening with the 1.1.9 version, but in any event there are a couple of ways around this problem.

Here are the two main solutions to update Acabado in brief:

1. Switch your WordPress theme over to something else like Twentytwenty, then delete and manually reinstall Acabado from your Themes page.
2. Use the Easy Theme & Plugin Upgrade plugin, which allows Acabado to update properly.

Let’s cover these two solutions in more detail.

Two Methods to Fix Acabado Upgrade Error

Solution #1 – Switch Your Theme To Something Else, Then Delete & Re-Install Acabado

This is the first solution mentioned in the video above, and involves simply switching your site temporarily over to another WordPress theme, deleting Acabado from your Themes page, and then reinstalling the latest version manually in WordPress.

For those not comfortable with doing this (which included me), there is another option which doesn’t involve doing this, which we’ll cover below.

Here are the general steps for this method:

• Visit Income School’s Acabado Download page
•  Log in using your username and password.
• Download the latest version of Acabado (in zip file format).
• Move over to Appearance….Themes on your WordPress Dashboard.
• Switch your theme over to Twentytwenty by installing and activating it.
• With your Acabado theme, click on “Theme Details” and delete it off your Dashboard.
• Then click “Add New” at the top, and then “Upload Theme“.
• Manually upload the zip file of the latest version of Acabado that you just downloaded.
• Install and activate this new version of Acabado.
• Your site should look exactly as it did before, though it is a good idea to check that the layout has come back the same.

Quickly swapping your theme over to Twenty twenty and then deleting and manually re-installing the latest version of Acabado can fix the auto-update issue.

Solution #2 – Use Easy Theme & Plugin Upgrades To Update Acabado

For users not comfortable with switching themes for fear of messing up their entire site layout, then there is another option available, using a free WordPress plugin called Easy Theme & Plugin Upgrades.

This plugin allows you to update themes in WordPress without deleting them first, for those worried about design and layout issues.

Here are the steps to update Acabado this way:

• Go to Plugins….Add New on your WordPress Dashboard.
• Search for, install and activate Easy Theme & Plugin Upgrades by Chris Jean, or manually download and install the zip file using the link above.
• Go to Appearance…..Themes…..Add New as before.
• Upload the zip file of the latest version of Acabado as before (get it here). You might need to be logged into your Income School account to get access to the zip file. You don’t need to delete the existing version using this method.
• Install and activate the theme.
• The latest version of Acabado should now be live on your site. Check to make sure the appearance is the same as before (it should be).
• Using this method, all the settings you had for Acabado should also remain as they were before (they did for me).

This second method should provide a way to update the theme seamlessly, without your site visitors noticing, which I prefer. Using the first method, whilst switching over, your users may briefly use the site running a different theme, and the layout may be significantly different, which I’d rather not do, even temporarily.

Deleting & Changing Themes Does Not Delete Site Data

For those wanting to update Acabado using the first method, we should point out that switching and deleting themes does not delete any of your site data.

All your Posts, pages, images etc are all stored on your host/server, which is separate to the theme. Therefore switching or deleting the theme does not get rid of any of your site; it may just change how it is displayed, or not all of it may be displayed.

In other words, everything is still there (posts and pages); with some theme changes you may just need to re-organize it all as different themes will handle and display all your site data differently.

Obviously, using the first method, the switch should only be very temporary, in the region of 2 minutes or less, and in theory shouldn’t be that big of a deal. Also, when you switch back to the new version of Acabado, it should display exactly as it did before with the previous version.

Updates of themes are usually just minor corrections and alterations, and rarely change anything fundamental in the theme to the point where it displays differently to the previous version.

However, even if we rationally understand this, it can be hard to risk doing this, for fear our whole site layout will be messed up and we’ll have to go and re-do all our menus, sidebars, widgets etc.

I even get a little worried updating WordPress itself for the same reason – I fear my site will just appear as a jumbled mess after the update, and I’ll have to re-do the site layout all over again.

That’s why I just chose the second method, even though it took a little longer, because I’d rather not have any theme changes, even very brief ones, even though the likelihood of something going wrong is really minimal.

Also, one of the sites I switched over was getting a lot of traffic, so I didn’t want even a short disruption to the layout. Using Solution #2, Acabado will always be the theme that displays to visitors.