Update
In this article
Looking for updates
You can look for updates at the Dashboard from the Info Popup.
WordPress
You can update Smart Slider 3 from your WordPress Dashboard → Updates, or from the Plugins.
If it doesn't work, follow the Alternative Update method.
After you updated Smart Slider make sure you clear all cache on your website to avoid problems!
Joomla 3
You can update Smart Slider 3 from Extensions → Manage → Updates.
You might need to press the Clear Cache then the Find Updates button to make your site look for updates.
If it doesn't work, follow the Alternative Update method.
After you updated Smart Slider make sure you clear all cache on your website to avoid problems!
Joomla 4
You can update Smart Slider from System → under Updates → Extensions.
Alternative Update - WordPress
☝️ Note: Your sliders will remain after following the alternative update process!
After you updated Smart Slider make sure you clear all cache on your website to avoid problems!
Replace package
From the admin panel
If you're using WordPress 5.5 or newer, simply install Smart Slider 3 again from the admin panel.
At the installation you should just press the Replace current with uploaded button. Your sliders will stay, so you don't have to worry about them!
From FTP
Connect to your FTP and delete the folder of Smart Slider 3:
- Free version:
\wp-content\plugins\smart-slider-3\ - Pro version:
\wp-content\plugins\nextend-smart-slider3-pro\
Your sliders will stay, so you don't have to worry about them! Then install Smart Slider again via FTP.
Reinstall
Step 1
Go to your Plugins list and deactivate and delete your current Smart Slider 3 installation. Don't worry, your sliders will stay!
If you would have a problem, where you don't even see Smart Slider 3 on your Plugins list, you should delete its folder with everything in it from FTP. We suggest making a backup, to be sure you are deleting the correct folder. You can find Smart Slider 3's folders on the following locations:
- Free version:
\wp-content\plugins\smart-slider-3\ - Pro version:
\wp-content\plugins\nextend-smart-slider3-pro\
Step 2
Install Smart Slider 3 again, either from the admin panel or via FTP.
Alternative Update - Joomla
☝️ Note: Your sliders will remain after following the alternative update process!
After you updated Smart Slider make sure you clear all cache on your website to avoid problems!
Follow the installation instructions for Joomla 3 or via Joomla 4.
Common error messages
Unable to copy
⚠️ Update Failed: The update cannot be installed because we will be unable to copy some files. This is usually due to inconsistent file permissions.
The problem on your server will be, that the files and folders have different permissions. You could try to change all permissions on your FTP (for example with Filezilla), but usually the real issue is, that the services are running under different owners. For example:
Ftp server runs with owner: xy
Apache runs with owner: z
If you install new plugin with WordPress upload, the plugin's files will have the owner 'xy' as Apache creates them. In this case you can update this plugin from WordPress.
Then you choose to upload a new plugin with FTP, you place the files into the right folder, but those files will be owned by "z" and when you try to update these files from WordPress, the Apache process with owner "xy" might not have permission to write "z"s files.
Solution
Send this to your server host: ls -lia. This will list out the files and folders from the current folder. On this image ish is the owner and ish is the group too:
When you know the owner and group, you could try to run the following command. It will recursively set the owner and the group for the files and folders of the current folder:
xy is the user and www is the group in this example:
chown -R xy:www ./
Then update permission on those files. This call is also recursive:
chmod -R 755 ./
Upload max filesize
⚠️ Error There was an error loading this file to the server. The uploaded file exceeds the upload_max_filesize directive in php.ini.
If you can see an error message like this when you are trying to install Smart Slider, that means that your server has a limitation, that files that are larger than the value defined in the php.ini (or .htaccess file) is smaller than the Smart Slider's intallation package. The limitation on most cases is below 2Mb.
If you would have access to your php.ini file, you could modify this value by seaching for the upload_max_filesize or post_max_size words.
If you wouldn't have access to that file, you can still install the slider with FTP installation method.
Smart Slider is being listed as potential upgrade issue
The root cause of the problem is that Joomla caches the update details supplied in the XML file, and it only refreshes them when you update them manually. Go to Extensions → Manage → Update Sites → Rebuild to make Joomla refresh the URLs. After that at the Pre-Update Checker press the "Check for Updates" button and the problem will disappear.
Smart Slider is being listed as having a Database problem
In some cases Joomla's cache can create issues, that at System -> Database (under Maintenance) -> Smart Slider 3, you see some problem.
This isn't actually a real problem, but if you select Smart Slider 3 and press the Update Structure button on top, the warning should disappear.