what do you mean auto update does not work?  why not?  it does for other users and for me in a quick test…  did you try a network upgrade or each network site by itself?

you can of course ftp the new version over the old version.  you still will need to go to each site running the forum and do the db upgrade in the sp admin..

The software is installed on two subsites.

In the Network Admin, it is downloaded, but not network activated as each subsite decides whether to use it.

It is not installed in Network Admin, as it is not possible to use it outside of a subsite. Should I have done an “Install” there? If I do that, will it mess up any of the subsite settings?

When I go to the subsite dashboard, to Installed Plugins and click on “update automatically” under the simple press listing where it notified me of the update, it just takes me to the WP generic update screen in network Admin, where Simple Press is not listed as an option to update.

If I do this via ftp, or from shell, do I need to avoid overwriting existing config files?

not possible to use outside of subsite??  not sure what that means… you can certainly use it on the main site…

when you use the  upgrade, the entire plugins/simple-press folder gets removed (its how the wp upgrader works) so no different if you use ftp…  we dont store any information in the plugin files themselves… of course, if you made any changes to the core files, you would lose those but that is highly not recommended anyways…

data is stored in the db, and ancillary files, by default, located in wp-content/sp-resources…

I mean that it cannot be used in “Network Admin”, which is where I keep getting redirected to when I try the auto-update. I am not sure what it would meant to “install” the software there, as it is not a site…

Each sub-site (I don’t see a relevant distinction between “main” and “sub” sites as they are all treated the same by the Network Admin panel) has to install the software individually in order to use it.

Am I missing something really basic here???

dont think so…  in wp multsite, you can have multiple networks… each network has a main site and potentially multiple network sites under that main site…  but yes, for any site that is using SP you have to install it on that site individually…  you can network activate simple press, but not network install…  but we have been doing network upgrades…

but the ‘files’ for simple press ‘belong’ to the main site.. perhaps if you do not have simple press activated on the main site and only on network sites, that is part of the difficulty your are encountering.  To be honest, I dont think I have ever tested that configuration.  I always have it installed on the main site and numerous network sites…