So, last week an update to WordPress was released. The new version, 2.0.3, includes a few minor performance enhancements and bug fixes and one big new feature: nonces. Nonces are some moderately complex technobabble that Owen at Asymptomatic does a pretty good job translating into something resembling layman's terms here. The short version is that nonces are a system for verifying that administrative commands come from the right place.

I read the release notes and was very interested in the new version. So I got all of my little ducks lined up in a row and prepared to upgrade. I downloaded the new installation, made an up-to-the minute backup of my database, and FTP'd a copy of my current install to my hard drive.

I've modified the WP core files a bit, so let's just say that I was using WordPress "2.0.2.fish." I took the new 2.0.3 files and added my mods before uploading them to save me the difficulty of doing it after the files were in place.

I activated the Maintenance Mode plugin to take my blog offline and overwrote my current installation with the new version. After the upload, I ran the one-click database upgrade. All finished, I viewed my blog… and found that for some unfathomable reason all of my content was crammed into the sidebar. The content that should have composed the main column was inexplicably displaying with a width of about half a character.

It was completely unusable.

I wondered, "Why would the theme fail in the new WP? Did the Maintenance Mode plugin mess with the install?" So I deleted my WP install and database, restored my backups, disabled Maintenance Mode and tried again.

No luck. Same problem.

I played around with the templates and found that it was only my custom theme that had a problem. The two themes included with WP worked just fine.

I wondered, "So is it a plugin problem?" I disabled all my plugins and tried the whole thing all over again, only to learn that nothing in my custom theme worked without the plugins the theme used.

Eventually, I mucked around with the blog output enough to learn that there was nothing wrong with my theme, or my plugins, or with the WP update.

The problem is that I'm a dumbass.

It was all in those mods I made to the WP core files. See, it turns out that if a file has two modifications, I better damn well make sure I update both of them, not just one. Some of the code I changed involves how the sidebar displays. I was sloppy when I inserted my changes. Garbage in, garbage out.

So in addition to being reminded yet again of how important it is to pay attention and do things right the first time, I also learned a lesson about using plugin template tags.

Trying to troubleshoot plugins without being able to disable the plugins was a colossal pain in the ass. So I took the time to sort out my template and wrap all plugin calls with function checks. I'm now at a point where I can disable all my plugins and everything will still work. Which is exactly what I need for troubleshooting in the future.

Confused about that function check business? It's simple, yet kind of important, so I'll explain.

The install instructions for a plugin with template features may tell you to insert a line of code like this:

<?php plugin_function('do_something_cool'); ?>

I would strongly recommend you wrap that in a function check, like this:

<?php if (function_exists('plugin_function')) { plugin_function('do_something_cool'); } ?>

The first line of code basically says "do this or else." The second line of code is more like "if you can do this, then do. Otherwise don't worry about it." And that's exactly what one needs to disable a plugin without also removing any matching template tags.
 

It's a good thing that I finally got around to adding those function check wrappers, but it turns out that the whole thing was kind of an exercise in foolishness. Although the new nonce system is cool, WordPress 2.0.3 is no kind of improvement at all. Those nonces don't really work right.

For some reason or another, every edit or delete operation I perform generates an extra warning prompt. And everything I edit suddenly has all single and double quotes escaped. (Like this: \"Let\'s go to John\'s house.\") What a pain in the ass.

Apparently these problems are not unique to me. There's a support thread on the WordPress site where people are talking about it. Mark Jaquith has even developed a plugin to fix it.

But that's a little messed up. Install the new update and then install a third party plugin to get the update to work? That blows. I'd recommend skipping WP 2.0.3 altogether and just waiting for the next revision.