Before You Update:
We strongly recommend that you follow these procedures before you update any WordPress plugin, theme, or even WordPress itself.
- Verify that you do not have the WordPress automatic update option on. Some hosts, including wordpress.com, may implement automatic updates by default. Please check with your host to verify, and request that this option be disabled if you want to ensure that you don’t update anything without first checking that it will be compatible with your site settings.
- Make a manual backup! You should also automatically backup your websites on a regular basis to avoid pitfalls. Updates are always tested on our end and by BETA testers but we cannot guarantee that there won’t be issues with some specific environments. Read more about backing up your site here.
- Before updating, please read the documentation on the new release, including any blog posts, changelogs, and community announcements, when possible. These may include instructions and information to help you decide if you should update now or wait. You can check the plugin changelogs here (Core) and here (Pro).
- Check if your addons for Elementor are compatible with Elementor. You may need to check with the addons’ developers for more information. The developers of the addons are contacted weeks before each update to ensure they can test the compatibility of their plugins with Elementor. Sometimes however, the plugins are still not compatible when the update is released.
- Test the update on a staging site first, before updating your live, production site. There are several options for using a staging site.
a. The best option is when a host has a staging site already available for you, as this will very closely duplicate the exact system settings of your live site. Ask your host if this is available to you. If so, you will need to temporarily deactivate your Elementor Pro license from the live site to activate it on the staging site, unless you have multiple licenses available from your Plus or Expert plan. If your host does not offer a staging site to you, there are other options, and although the system settings won’t be exactly the same as your live site, they will be very similar.
b. Another option is to create a staging site on your own computer (this is called localhost) by using a solution such as Local by Flywheel. When building a staging website using a local machine, Elementor Pro doesn’t register as an install, meaning you can run Elementor Pro on your local machine and on your online website at the same time. This works on .local, .dev, and .test domains.
c. As an alternative to localhost, you can use an external staging site service such as WP Stagecoach or WP-Staging.
You can read our blog post on staging here.
Issues After Updating Your Staging Site:
While some issues following updates may be actual code bugs, many more tend to be issues with specific, individual environments (e.g. installs with conflicting plugins and themes or with server settings which prevent Elementor from working properly). Occasionally, bugs may be related to specific settings that are not active by default, and are discovered once those settings are turned on. In all cases, there are steps you can take to quickly troubleshoot the problem.
- Activate Safe Mode. If the problem disappears, you will know that the issue is either with your theme or with one of your plugins. At that point, you can debug Safe Mode to rectify the issue. This may involve contacting the plugin or theme developers for support.
- Clear all cache, multiple times if necessary, which includes browser cache, WordPress caching plugins, and server caches. Even if you aren’t using a caching plugin, your host may be caching your site server-side. Contact your host to have them clear all cache as well. Also test your site in an incognito browser to be sure your cache isn’t taking control.
- Contact Elementor support if any bugs seem to be strictly linked to Elementor.
- Once everything is working well on your staging site, only then should you update your live, production site. Follow these same procedures if anything goes wrong there.
- Of course, if all else fails, if you created a backup before updating, you can always restore from your backup to immediately get back to the way it was working before you updated.
Common Scenarios:
I don’t see any notifications to update to the newest version
There are several ways to force the newest update to become available.
- Please go to “Dashboard > Updates” and click the Check Again button. This will usually make the latest version available to you.
- If that didn’t work, you can try to deactivate your plugins (besides Elementor and Elementor Pro) temporarily, wait a few minutes, and then check to see if latest versions become available for updating. Once you get the update, you can reactivate the plugins.
- Of course, if neither of those work, you always have the ability to download the newest version of Elementor Core via our website or from wordpress.com, and you can download the newest version of Elementor Pro via your account at my.elementor.com. Once downloaded, simply upload it to “Plugins” on your WordPress Dashboard (after deleting the previous version).
I receive an error message when I try to update Elementor Pro
Some errors with updates occur when you try to update Elementor or Elementor Pro on your localhost installation. A possible fix can be found by installing the plugin: https://wordpress.org/plugins/fix-windows-compatibility/
When you receive an error message while updating Elementor Pro, you have to upload the latest version via your account on my.elementor.com, then upload it to “Plugins” on your WordPress Dashboard. Alternatively, you can also upload it via FTP. Please note that you have to delete your current version of Elementor Pro before uploading a new one manually.
We have solutions for some of these error messages in this guide which will avoid you needing to upload Elementor Pro manually after each update.
Note: To avoid pitfalls, disable your optimization and caching plugins before updating Elementor or Elementor Pro. Please note also that some server cache can affect the update process of Elementor and Elementor Pro. This is rare but it can happen. You may need to ask your host to temporarily disable server cache so you can run the update.
My layout has been lost since the latest update
If the styling of your website is missing after updating Elementor, please try the following: https://docs.elementor.com/article/204-my-changes-do-not-appear-online
If this happens each time that you update, that means that the server cache of your website is preventing Elementor from rewriting to your CSS files. In this case, you have to flush the cache from your cPanel. You can also ask your hosting company to create a plugin for you which can flush the server cache automatically. This will avoid the hassle of going to each page and saving them again with Elementor. If you could not fix the issue, please contact your hosting company.
Sometimes, it will be enough to click on the ” Regenerate CSS” button and/or to switch the CSS Print Method > Internal Embedding in the settings and tools of Elementor on your WordPress Dashboard.
Elementor keeps loading or does not work properly since I updated the plugin
Plugin conflicts are a common thing on WordPress. We cannot guarantee that our plugin will play well with all the plugins installed on WordPress (more than 50,000) so If you cannot edit or if you experience any issue following an update, please try these troubleshooting tips.
If you could not solve the issue with the aforementioned troubleshooting procedure, you can contact us for further assistance. If your issue is due to a plugin conflict, please inform us and also report the issue to the support team of the conflicting plugin, as they will likely need to update their plugin themselves.
Also make sure that your server meets the requirements of Elementor (to avoid white screens of death, responsive issues, performance issues and PHP errors): Requirements
Elementor Pro Is deactivated when I rollback the Free Version
If you rollback the free version of Elementor for troubleshooting, the Pro version will automatically deactivate. This is intentionally done by the developers in case the two versions are incompatible. Simply reactivate the Pro version from Dashboard > Plugins and check for any errors. You may sometimes need to re-save permalinks and regenerate your CSS due to class changes.
Tip: Known bugs related to specific versions can be found here.
Note: If you do not want to troubleshoot by deactivating your plugins and switching to a default theme of WordPress or by following any of the previous troubleshooting steps, you can temporarily rollback the plugin in “Elementor > Tools > Version Control” on your WordPress Dashboard. Keep in mind that this Rollback functionality is a last resort, and while it is a useful tool for a quick fix, it is not a permanent solution. At some point, in order to upgrade, you will need to make sure all troubleshooting has been followed and fixes are in place. So it is best to rule out other issues such as caching issues (including server cache) and plugin conflicts before rolling back.