How the GPL Feast Updater works

The GPL Feast Updater is a free WordPress plugin that keeps the plugins and themes you get from GPL Feast up to date. It shows their updates in the usual WordPress update screens, installs them with one click or on a schedule you choose, and keeps the previous version so you can go back.

What you need

• WordPress 5.3 or newer, and PHP 7.4 or newer.
• A GPL Feast plan, or products you bought on their own.
• An administrator account on the site.

The Updater handles plugins and themes. Template kits are imported, not installed, so you download new versions of a kit from its page.

Install it and connect your API key

1. Log in to GPL Feast, open Updater in your account and use Get the Updater to download the plugin.
2. In WordPress, go to Plugins, Add New Plugin, Upload Plugin. Choose the zip file, install it and activate it.
3. On the same account page, press Copy to copy your API key. It starts with gpf_.
4. In WordPress, open GPL Feast Updater, Dashboard. Paste the key and click Activate with API Key.

Your GPL Feast products appear in the update lists within a few minutes. Treat the key like a password: anyone who has it can use your daily downloads. If it gets out, use Make a new key on the account page. Every site then stops getting updates until you paste the new key into it.

Domain management in your account lists the sites that use your key, with their Updater version and when each one last checked. You can remove a site or block it. There is no site limit.

Updates with one click

The Updater checks for new versions every hour, and again when you open the Plugins, Themes or Updates screen if the last check is more than 30 minutes old. The Check again button on Dashboard, Updates asks straight away. Then update as usual.

Automatic updates

Open GPL Feast Updater, Auto-Updates, and turn on Enable Auto-Updates. Then choose:

• When: daily, weekly on Mondays, or on the days you pick, at a time you set in the site’s timezone.
• Safety rules: Minor updates only skips major versions, such as 3.x to 4.x, and Skip beta versions leaves out beta, alpha and RC releases. Both start switched on. Max updates per run sets how many products one run may update; it starts at 10.
• Which products: set each one to Auto or Manual.
• Emails: a report when updates succeed, when one fails, or both, sent to the address you choose.

The Update Log lists each update, rollback and failure with its versions.

Rollback

Before it updates a GPL Feast product, by hand or on schedule, the Updater saves a copy of the installed version. To go back, click the Rollback link under the plugin on the Plugins screen, which names the version it returns to. For a theme, open its details in Appearance, Themes and click Rollback.

By default it keeps up to 2 copies of each product for 30 days. Under GPL Feast Updater, Settings, you can keep 1 to 5 copies for 1 to 90 days, see the space they use, delete them all or turn rollback off.

Turn off updates for one product

On the Disable Updates page, switch a product on to stop updates from GPL Feast for it. This is for products you bought from the developer: the developer’s own updates keep working.

White label

Whitelabel Settings shows the Updater under your own plugin name, description, author, author link and logo, for example on client sites. You can also hide the Disable Updates and Auto-Updates pages, and the Whitelabel Settings page itself, which comes back when you deactivate and reactivate the plugin. Settings exports your white label and auto-update choices to a file that you import on the next site.

Multisite networks

On a multisite network, network-activate the Updater and add the key once in Network Admin. Updates, rollback and the auto-update schedule are handled there for every site, and each site’s Dashboard shows the network’s status.

Limits

• Updates count like downloads from the website and share the same daily allowance, which starts again at 00:00 UTC. Downloading the same product again on the same day does not count, and updates of the GPL Feast Updater itself are free.
• Updates are offered only for the products your plan or purchase covers, and only for plugins and themes installed on that site.
• When your plan or purchase ends, everything you installed keeps working, but updates stop until you buy again.

When an update fails

When an update cannot be installed, the Updater says why:

• Your daily download limit is used up: try again after midnight UTC.
• Your membership or purchase no longer includes updates for this product: renew to keep getting them.
• The download link had expired: the list of updates is refreshed for you, so click Update again.
• Too many downloads are running for your account: wait a minute and try again.
• The file could not be fetched from the download server: try again later.
• Your account or this website cannot download, or the product is not available: contact support.

A connection error during activation means the site could not reach gplfeast.com; your host can check that outgoing connections are allowed. If a new version causes trouble, roll back, then tell us through the contact page with the product, both version numbers and what happened.

Older versions

For a release older than the saved copy, go to the product’s page. Members can download older versions of any product, and buyers older versions of the product they bought. Older versions do not use a daily download, and template kits have none. To stay on an older version, set the product to Manual in Auto-Updates or turn off its updates in Disable Updates. The help center has more.