Enabling updates for WordPress sites

Earlier this year, I migrated my WordPress websites from Bluehost to Opalstack. The Bluehost model was “managed hosting”, and I was able to create new sites through a Bluehost dashboard with “one click”. The Opalstack model had a dashboard setup for WordPress, but it was a little more complicated, and some of it was overwritten (I think) when I migrated some of my sites.

I had been seeing notices recently when I logged into my main personal site about a new version of WordPress, but the site admin panel did not offer a way to do that. I remember being able to do this easily when my sites were hosted on Bluehost. I decided to try installing a plugin to help with this. I ended up trying two plugins (WP Auto Updater and Easy Updates Manager), but I was not able to perform any setting updates for those plugins. Instead, I got the message “Sorry, you are not allowed to access this page”. Hmph!

After a Claude session, I discovered that there were some settings in wp-config.php that could prevent a WordPress site from updating. I found the following lines:

define(‘DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT’, true);

define(‘DISALLOW_FILE_MODS’, true);

Claude recommended changing the setting value from true to false. Once I did that, I was able to see an “Updates” menu item in my Dashboard menu. I then updated the WordPress install and plugins. Whew! Glad I was able to figure that out! I then reviewed my other WordPress sites, and found that most of them had been auto-updating. There was only one other site where I had to update wp-config.php. Ah, the joys of maintenance!

Fixing the web, again

Last year, I wrote about my efforts to get a link in a podcast feed fixed for an old podcast. It took some effort, but someone was able to correct the error in the feed. This year, I noticed a broken link in a site at the University of Texas at Austin about the alma mater, the Eyes of Texas. A commission met in 2020-2021 to investigate possible racism in the song, and published a report. However, the link to the report on the website was broken. I then began a long process to try to get to the correct organization within the university to correct the link. After about a month after submitting a ticket to the general UT IT help address, one of the IT groups was able to correct the link, and the report is available online again. Whew!

Reprise on WordLand

While cleaning up some email, I saw a “note to self” about Dave Winer’s demo of his WordLand application for WordPress. This demo occurred in October 2025 at WordCamp Canada. I reviewed my postings and did not see a link to this event, so wanted to make a post to capture this:

WordLand is still available online, but when the WordPress community did not show a significant uptake for WordLand, Dave Winer moved on to other projects. Still, this video give an idea of where Dave Winer was headed with the development of this product.

Pluralistic/Cory Doctorow: America cannot undo Trumpism – “If the old order is over, then we will never again be able to trust America to serve as the world’s cop, banker, ISP, IT department and consumer of first resort.” – sounds a lot like Season 4 of “The Diplomat” tv series….

More great recipes from the New York Times

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I signed up for a one year subscription to be able to get access to NYT Cooking. Here are some recent recipes I have made (all were excellent! (gift links below)):

Also, here are some recent collections I am looking through: