An update for WordPress, themes and plugins should fix things. Right. And it does. Sometimes, however, some new bugs crawl in despite the best efforts and thorough testing. The multitude of installations and different plugin setups makes it impossible to test any plugin in every situation that exists in the world. And sometimes an update produces an error unfortunately, and in some cases even a totally broken site. This is when angry users attack support forums demanding an immediate fix, asking for their money back, giving 1-star ratings, and sending the developers to hell and back. Rightfully so? I don’t think so. Maybe partially. But you can do a lot to prevent an update breaking your live site and putting you out of business.
So here are my tips for never ever having a broken live website for more than 10 minutes, when doing an update on core WordPress, your theme or your plugins.