I was trying to upgrade to WordPress 3.0.2 and initially the automatic upgrade failed. Then I upgraded again by downloading the wordpress-3.0.2.zip file, unzipping it and uploading all the files to my WordPress installation folder using FTP. Thus, I did it manually. It was successful. The dashboard said that ‘You are using WordPress 3.0.2’.
But the issue was I was still getting the message on the top of all the admin screens that
‘An automated WordPress update has failed to complete – please attempt the update again now.’
When I clicked the link to attempt the update again, it took me to Dashboard Updates SubPanel. And it was saying that
‘You have the latest version of WordPress. You do not need to update. However, if you want to re-install version 3.0.2, you can do so automatically or download the package and re-install manually:’
Have a look at the below screenshot:-
Though I tried to re-install automatically, I was getting the same error. My manual upgrade was successful, so I just wanted the warning message saying ‘An automated WordPress update has failed to complete – please attempt the update again now’ to go off.
Solution:-
I went to my WordPress installation folder thru FTP, and in the main folder there was a new file created named .maintenance
It was having some content like
<?php $upgrading = xxxxxxxxxx; ?>
I deleted the file from the folder using FTP and just clicked the admin dashboard. And the message finally disappeared.