its possible for themes or plugins to turn that off… is it possible one of those is doing it?

can you update wp or other plugins there?

might also be worth checking http://codex.wordpress.org/Editing_wp-config.php#WordPress_Upgrade_Constants to make sure your set up is correct…

anything in the server error log?

WordPress and all other plugin updates show up fine and update there with no problem.  It’s just Simple:Press.  Nothing relevant I can see in the server error logs.  As I said, it’s more of a nuisance than a major issue, but it’s got me thinking what could be wrong.  I’ll keep looking.

most odd… hate it when I say this, but we have no other reports of this, so most odd…

so wp 3.3.1?  standard wp (not multisite)?

can you look in your db, at the wp options table…  and see if you have entries for _transient_site_update_plugins, _transient_site_sp_update_plugins and _transient_site_sp_update_themes…

first would be for core upgrades… other two are obvious…

best time to look is when you have an update available…  so edit a plugin for sp, and just edit it and lower the version and see what happens…

Don’t feel bad! 

We have an installation that is unique in some ways. 

It is multi-site, not standard.  And it’s an extremely large multi-site install (2,411 sites and 2,570 users, as of this morning).

(in fact I have a separate question connected to multi-site and upgrades, but I’ll make a new topic for that).

Maybe this is a multi-site issue at its heart.  

I’m looking at wp_1309_options (for a site in the network which has SP activated, site 1309, and three SP plugins needing upgrades), there are no entries for _transient_site_update_plugins, _transient_site_sp_update_plugins or _transient_site_sp_update_themes.  None of those options even exist in the table.  

A clue?

It looks like in multisite, these options are held in wp_sitemeta, not in wp_XXX_options for the individual site (where XXX is the id number of the individual site).

In wp_sitemeta, I see the options for WP generally, but not for sp.

The sp updates are buried way below any other WP updates. You have to scroll way down to see them. Sometimes clicking the WP updates link again will be necessary.

Thanks, Fido, but in this case that’s not it.  I can click the WP updates link again and again, and I keep everything updated within a day or two of an update being released, so there is never any kind of long list.  There are no updates showing at all in WP updates, even though SP definitely needs updates.

I am the MS dunce but Steve has just sent me a note to ask: Every network site is unique install but run from same code base. Network updates only show in the main site. Can you verify you are looking on the main site? Blog is 0, I believe.

Yes, that’s right.  Plugin updates don’t show up on individual sites at all in multi-site, only in the Network Admin page.  That’s where I’m looking, and they don’t appear there.

I think (and I’m no expert) that what is happening is the SP updates are trying to flag in wp_options…but there is no such thing for multi-site.  For multi-site they would have to be in wp_site_meta.  Does that make sense?

It makes sense but as I say Steve is the man for this and he wont be around until later. But we do have other MS users and I have read no other reports of this happening so I would be surprised if anything so basic were the problem.

OK, I’ll wait and see what Steve has to say.  Our install is a complicated one in other ways, so I agree that it could well be something more idiosyncratic going on.  One of those problems that will take some chewing! 

ANother quick message from Steve (he can read the forum posts but not answer them):

We use the wp api for the update transient stuff. We don’t ‘look’ anywhere specific for it. We get it from wp and we ask wp to update with out stuff via the api. So no we donlt look at any table as qwe use the API

This has been working. We have multiple folks doing admin upgrades in multisite.

I am to ask if you are doing domain mapping with plugin?

No domain mapping. I will look into this more on my end and report back.

so yeah… have been doing some testing tonight… and as I feared – all works well for me…

I assume you are not seeing the sp update listed on the network admin updates page (wp-admin/network/update-core.php)?  I know you said it showed up on the wp plugins page… and of course as fate would have it, those two places list the updates differently…  both check for a update the same…

but the wp update method adds our plugin to the wp site transient (_site_transient_update_plugins) while the second just writes it to the screen…  I did not know it was multisite when I suggested checking the options table… as you correctly pointed out, multisite stores it elsewhere… but we use the wp api, so wp decides where to store it…

so if you are up to it, we can try tracking down what is happening to that site transient and why its not read on the wp network admin update panel…

Thanks–I’m definitely up to it, but I don’t know really where to go at this stage.  I will have some time tomorrow to test some things (didn’t even have a minute to try working on this today).  I had the idea of working with a new clean test install on a local server and then slowly replicating my setup to see if I can pinpoint where the breakdown happens.  But that’s a brute-force, slow process, so if you have any leads to most likely places to check, I’ll take them!