October 23rd, 2009 
Zander 
Posted in So WordPress 2.8.5 was released a few days ago, and once again I’m faced with the headache of upgrading 40+ WordPress sites that I run. The automatic upgrade feature introduced in v2.5(?) made life so much easier, but now that feature seems to be broken again.
There’s no rhyme or reason why it’s updating on some of our sites (including this one), but on others it just hangs at the “downloading update from http://wordpress.org/wordpress-2.8.5.zip” part. A quick search of the WordPress support forums shows other people having similar issues, and getting the typical run-around from the moderators.
It’s frustrating, to say the least. This latest update is a “security hardening” release, but I have a feeling that with the number of complaints in the support forum, a version 2.8.6 can’t be too far behind. 
Hi there,
I seem to be having the same problem with one of my sites. It’s hung up as well. What did you do?
thanks!
I did a manual update on a few of the sites that I wanted updated immediately, but for the rest I’m just waiting until a real fix is announced. Some people in the support forums talked about disabling your plugins, but that fix didn’t work for me.
Ok, I found a fix for this issue.. You need to add this in your wp-config.php file:
/** Define memory settings */
define(‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ’64M’);
Apparently WP needs more memory, and this is an easy way to address it, especially if you don’t have access to php.ini.
Please comment if it works for you.
2.8.5? take another look… 2.8.6 is out now!
I upgrade using cPanel and I only have 1 site to upgrade, but 40!
Oh well, Christmas and 2.9 will soon be with us.
Ugh! For such a minor change in 2.8.6, you’d think they’d figure out a way to offer a simple patch in lieu of a complete upgrade.
/** Define memory settings */
define(’WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ‘64M’);
worked for me. Thanks.
The following…
/** Define memory settings */
define(’WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ‘64M’);
…also worked for me. Much appreciated!
/** Define memory settings */
define(’WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ‘64M’);
this did NOT work for me. i also tried making the amount larger – to 128M and that did not work either. i am trying to go from 2.8.5. to 2.8.6.
any suggestions?
Ok, got it working.
For me, I had to follow the method of disabling all my plugins first. That was not necessary for me to do when upgrading to 2.8.5 and the auto-upgrade worked fine then. This time, though, I had to disable everything first for whatever reason.
Cheers,
The Mayor
/** Define memory settings */
define(’WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ‘64M’);
worked perfectly! big thanks!