Ticking every box on the Plugins screen and clicking Update is how a working site turns into a broken one at 4pm on a Friday. Elementor updates are usually fine. The problem is that when one isn’t, you need to know which update caused it and have a way back.
This is the routine we use across the sites we look after. It takes 20 to 40 minutes for a typical small business site, most of it waiting.
Before you touch anything
Take a backup you know you can restore
Not “the host does backups”. A backup you know exists, taken today, that you know how to restore. Either:
- run a manual backup in your backup plugin and confirm it finished (check the file size looks sensible, not a few kilobytes), or
- create a manual snapshot in your hosting control panel, if your host offers one.
Ideally the backup is stored somewhere other than the same server. If the server has the problem, a backup sitting on it doesn’t help.
If backups keep failing part-way, that’s often a hosting limit. We cover the signs in will your hosting cope with Elementor.
Check what’s changing
Open the changelog for each update before you run it. For Elementor and Elementor Pro, the “View version details” link on the Plugins screen shows recent release notes. You’re looking for three things:
- Is it a major version? A jump like 3.x to 4.0 deserves more caution than 3.31.1 to 3.31.2.
- Does it mention something you use? Changes to forms, the Loop Grid, Theme Builder or a widget all over your site are worth testing specifically.
- Is it a security fix? Those you want sooner rather than later.
A useful rule: wait a few days after a major release before updating a business site, unless it’s a security fix. Early bugs get found and patched quickly, and you don’t need to be the one who finds them.
Note your current versions
Write down the version numbers of WordPress, Elementor, Elementor Pro, your theme and any Elementor add-ons. If you need to roll back, you’ll want to know exactly where you started.
Test on staging when it matters
For minor point releases on a simple site, a good backup is usually enough protection. For anything bigger, test first on a staging copy.
A staging site is a private copy of your site where you can run updates and click around without visitors seeing anything. Many hosts create one with a single click. Run the updates there, check the site, and only then repeat on the live site.
We always use staging for:
- major Elementor or Elementor Pro versions
- WooCommerce sites, where a broken checkout costs money by the hour
- sites with several Elementor add-on plugins
- any site that hasn’t been updated in months (the bigger the gap, the bigger the risk)
The order we update in
Order matters because plugins depend on each other. Elementor Pro relies on Elementor, and add-ons rely on both.
- WordPress core, if there’s an update. Check the site loads.
- Elementor (the free plugin).
- Elementor Pro, straight after. Pro is built against matching versions of the free plugin, so don’t leave them out of step for long. If Pro has no update available yet, check whether Elementor recommends holding the free update until it does.
- Elementor add-ons (Essential Addons, Happy Addons and the like), one at a time.
- Other plugins, in small groups.
- The theme, and its child theme if it has one.
Check the site after each step, not just at the end. If something breaks after step 4, you know it was the add-on, not Elementor.
What to check after updating
A quick look at the homepage isn’t enough. What we check:
- Homepage, a service page and the contact page on desktop and on a phone
- Header and footer display properly (Theme Builder problems show up here first)
- Open one page in the Elementor editor and confirm it loads and saves
- Submit a test enquiry through each form, and confirm the email arrives
- Any Loop Grids, popups or sliders behave as before
- On WooCommerce: add to cart and get as far as the payment step
If styling looks odd after an update (spacing wrong, fonts reverting), try Elementor’s Regenerate Files & Data button (Elementor > Tools; older versions call it Regenerate CSS) and clear any caching plugin and server cache before assuming something’s broken. Stale cached files cause a lot of false alarms.
If something breaks
Don’t panic and don’t start changing settings at random.
First, roll back the plugin that caused it. Elementor has a built-in version rollback in its Tools settings, under Version Control, that reinstalls an earlier release of Elementor and, if you have it, Elementor Pro. Elementor’s rollback guide explains the steps. Roll back to the version you noted down before you started.
If the site won’t load at all, restore your backup. That’s what it’s for.
If only the editor is broken (the site looks fine to visitors but Elementor won’t load), try Elementor’s Safe Mode, also in its Tools settings. It loads the editor without your theme and other plugins, which tells you whether a conflict is to blame.
Once you’re stable, work out the cause on staging rather than on the live site. Often it’s an add-on that hasn’t caught up yet, and waiting a week for its next release solves it. If you can’t find the culprit, that’s a typical WordPress fix job for us.
A note on Elementor V4
Elementor’s version 4 introduced a new “atomic” editor with its own elements, classes and variables. Per Elementor’s V4 FAQ, existing sites aren’t converted automatically: your current widgets keep working, and you choose whether to switch on the atomic features in Elementor’s editor settings. That’s sensible, and it means updating to V4 isn’t the same as rebuilding in V4. Turn the new features on in staging first, not on the live site.
Should you turn on auto-updates?
For Elementor on a business site, we don’t. Auto-updates for minor security releases of WordPress core are fine and on by default. But an automatic Elementor update overnight, with nobody checking the forms afterwards, is how sites go quietly broken for a week before someone notices the enquiries have stopped.
Backing up, updating on staging and testing the forms each month is the work our care plans cover, from $79 a month + GST, and we can take on a site someone else built. Get in touch and tell us what it runs on.