Upgrading Thesis
Upgrading Thesis can be a daunting task, especially if you have little experience with WordPress, FTP programs, or file permissions. But updating Thesis is not hard, and this guide offers step-by-step instructions along with plenty of illustrations to help you. The tutorial follows the standard Thesis upgrade process.
If you follow the instructions in this guide, after upgrading Thesis you will have two fully functioning installations of Thesis: the old one, and the newly upgraded one. This is a good thing. If anything goes wrong with the upgrade, you will have your old installation to fall back on. After you are sure the upgrade is working properly you can delete the old installation, if you wish.
Before you start the installation
1. Download the Thesis zip file from DIYthemes and unzip it on your computer. There will be a Thesis folder after you do so.
2. Be sure you know how to change file permissions. If you’re uncertain, read the article “How to Change File and Folder Permissions.”
3. Make sure you know how to upload files. (I’m not being silly. There are a number of support questions in the Forum from upgraders who can’t upload files!) If you use an FTP program on your computer, usually you can just drag the folder from your computer onto the proper place in your FTP program and drop it. If you are using cPanel or a similar host program, refer to “File Management Using cPanel.”
If you haven’t thought about an FTP program for your computer yet, maybe it’s time to do so. Check out the articles “FTP Programs and Text Editors for Windows Users” or “FTP Programs and Text Editors for the Mac” for free FTP and editor programs. They will make file operations and customization a lot easier.
4. Read all the instructions below before you start.
Now, for the DIYthemes instructions and my comments:
1. Back up the /custom folder from your existing Thesis installation to your hard drive.
The full instruction states:
1. Back up the /custom folder from your existing Thesis installation to your hard drive. Also, if you’ve uploaded your own images to the /rotator folder, then you’ll want to back that up, too.
1. Create a folder on your computer to hold your /custom folder and /rotator folder.
2. Copy the entire /custom folder to your new computer folder. If you have your own images in the /rotator folder, copy it, too. Do not copy individual files!
2. Upload the new Thesis 1.5.1 folder to your /wp-content/themes folder.
Figure 1: The /wp-content and /themes folders
1. Locate the /wp-content folder in your root directory. Inside it will be a folder called /themes. The folder structure will look like Figure 1.
2. Upload the entire Thesis folder you unzipped on your computer to the /themes folder. Do not upload individual files! There are many problems reported on the Thesis Support Forum where people have uploaded individual files instead of the entire Thesis folder. It just doesn’t work!
Figure 2: Thesis has been uploaded to the /themes folder
3. When you are finished, you will see the /Thesis folder within the /themes folder, as in Figure 2.
3. Copy the /custom folder you backed up in Step 1, and paste it into the new Thesis 1.5.1 folder.
Figure 3: Thesis custom folder has been copied
1. There will be a /custom-sample folder in the new Thesis folder you uploaded in step 2. Delete it, as it will not be needed.
2. Copy the entire /custom folder from your computer into the /thesis folder.
3. If you copied your /rotator folder to your computer in step 1, you have a choice how to proceed: You can delete the /rotator folder in the new Thesis installation, then copy the /rotator folder from your computer to the /thesis folder; or you may overwrite the new /rotator folder with the /rotator folder from your computer and deal with the error dialog. I recommend the first way, since there is no chance of corrupted or missing files.
Figure 4: The Thesis folder and all its files and folders
When you are done, your Thesis folder should look like Figure 4. If it doesn’t, I recommend you delete it and start over.
4. Set the permissions of your new layout.css file (located in the root folder of Thesis 1.5.1) to 666.
Figure 5: The layout.css file and the file dialog
1. Find the layout.css file within your /Thesis folder and highlight it.
2. Most FTP programs allow you to right-click on the file to bring up a dialog similar to the one in Figure 5. Choose “Get Info,” “File Properties,” or similar wording. Refer to the cPanel article mentioned above if you are using that program.
Figure 6: Changing the file permissions on layout.css
3. A file properties dialog will pop up like the one in Figure 6. Choose “Permissions” or similar wording.
4. If there is a box that you can enter the file permission numbers, enter 666. If not, set file permissions to Owner: Read, Write; Group: Read, Write; and Others: Read, Write. “Owner,” “Group,” and “Others” may be worded differently, but they will be close enough to figure out.
5. Click the “Apply,” “Save,” “OK” or similar button to save your changes.
5. Change the permissions of your /custom/cache folder to 775.
The full instructions read:
5. [optional] If you’d like to give Thesis the ability to auto-crop thumbnail images for you, then you’ll want to change the permissions of your /custom/cache folder to 775.
Trust me, you will want to have Thesis to do this for you, so you need to change the permissions!
Figure 7: Location of the /cache folder within the /custom folder
1. Locate the /cache folder. Open up your /custom folder. The /cache folder is inside the /custom folder within your /Thesis folder as shown in Figure 7.
Figure 8: Changing the file permissions on the /cache folder
2. Use the same procedure you did when changing the layout.css file’s permissions: Highlight the /cache folder, right-click on it, and get to the “Permissions” panel in the file dialog.
3. If there is a box that you can enter the file permission numbers, enter 775. If not, set file permissions to Owner: Read, Write, Execute; Group: Read, Write, Execute; and Others: Read, Execute. Note that Others: Write will be the only option left unchosen. “Owner,” “Group,” and “Others” may be worded differently, but they will be close enough to figure out.
4. Click the “Apply,” “Save,” “OK” or similar button to save your changes.
6. Inside your WordPress dashboard, go to Appearance > Themes, and then activate Thesis 1.5.1.
1. To get to your Administration panel, type “your-domain-name/wp-admin” in your browser. For example, I type in the following to get to the Thesis Theme Tools Admin panel:
http://thesisthemetools.com/wp-admin
2. From your Administration panel click on “Appearance,” then on “Themes.”
Figure 9: The themes panel with the Thesis theme
3. Click on the Thesis theme image. You will be taken to a simulation of how it will look (but believe me, it never looks right!). Click on the button to make Thesis active.
4. You will be taken to the Thesis Options panel. Although it’s not strictly necessary, click on the “Big Ass Save” button at the bottom of the panel.
7. Visit the Design Options page and hit the Big Ass Save Button.
The full instruction reads:
7. Visit the Design Options page, ensure that Thesis is not giving you a warning about the file permissions on your layout.css file, and then hit the Big Ass Save Button.
1. From the Admin panel, click on Appearance > Design Options.
2. If you have not successfully changed the permissions on your layout.css file, you will get a warning about it. You must correct this to proceed.
3. Click the Big Ass Save button to complete the installation.
I hope these instructions have been clear and helpful. Feel free to make a comment, or if you want to email me, click on the “Contact” button in the nav bar.
©2009 Michael L Nichols. All rights reserved.
What next?
Your comments are always welcome, and are important to this blog’s community! Leave a comment now, or read the comments.
You can find several related articles in the “Related Articles” list below. In the footer you will find a lists of Popular Posts, Recent Posts, and you may browse by Categories, or tags. There’s also a Google Custom Search box to help you find just what you want.
Get free updates by RSS or email!
If you have enjoyed this article, please consider subscribing to article updates, using 
an RSS reader, or 
by email. It’s free and is a great way to make sure you don’t miss a single article! I also invite you to follow me on 
Twitter!
Why not share this article with others!
Share this article with your friends using your favorite social media service, such as 
StumbleUpon, or 
Digg. Check out the icons below under “Share This Article With Others” for other social media, including del.icio.us, Technorati, Sphinn, Friendfeed, FaceBook, MySpace andLinkedIn! You can also email or print the article, and even tweet it using Twitter!
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
“3. Copy the /custom folder you backed up in Step 1, and paste it into the new Thesis 1.5.1 folder.”
I only see a “custom-sample” folder, not “custom”. I backed up that one, but see in next step you say “There will be a /custom-sample folder in the new Thesis folder you uploaded in step 2. Delete it, as it will not be needed.” Do you know what I’m doing wrong?
Sharon,
If you’ve previously installed a version of Thesis correctly, one of the steps was to rename the custom-sample/ folder to custom/.
Hence, when you come to upgrade Thesis, you’d back up custom/. If you hadn’t used anything custom yet (and it was still named custom-sample), then that’s fine – you’d backed up the right folder.
@Mike:
I would strongly disagree with deleting custom-sample – it may contain (as the latest 1.6 betas do) other files that have been moved from other folders. Better instructions would be to rename custom-sample/ to custom/, then copy over custom.css, custom_functions.php, contents of custom/images/ and custom/cache/ (and also rotator folder and for 1.6+).
Thanks for the tips on updating some of the permissions. Question…I have a Thesis skin I want to use, but in order for it to work I need to change the name of the thesis folder from thesis_151 to just thesis (in my FTP program.) Well, I did this and it broke the theme. Any suggestions? Thanks!
Oh no! What if we didn’t change the permissions and then activated it already? *gulp*
I just upgraded Thesis to 1.6. Could not find the Design feature till I changed the customs-sample folder to customs…then wheeeeeeeeeeeee, what fun I discovered! Options to change link, and text colors!
I first made a folder on the same level as the customs-sample folder (inside the file management on the cPanel)…then I opened up the customs-sample folder and selected all files and “move to” the customs folder. Then I deleted customs-sample folder.
As far as the permissions, no idea if that was changed. Have to look at that again. I’m using Lunar pages and dif from Hostgator. BUT, for fun I changed colors of text and links on a new niche blog I’m playing with for college class, and IT WORKED!
I LOVE Thesis for many reasons. But still need to give credit to Mike for this awesome website for us newbies. He always knows how to tweak something before it becomes a main feature. Keep up the great work, Mike! Your time helping us is very much appreciated… (and one of the reasons I am a loyal return reader!)
ddddddddddddddd
I have put this off long enough. I LOVE Thesis as much as you do – Best Theme out there – and just saw the link to this guide from Thesis Forums. I was so afraid upgrade would go haywire when it first came out but it is seriously time for me to upgrade. Will follow your guidelines here thank you!!!
Farnoosh-welcome to Mike’s Thesis Theme Tools. No worries! You are in the right place for info, answers and good guidance. I have a lot of respect for his contribution and his vast knowledge…BTW, nice blog you have.