Title: Does plugin notification still work?
Last modified: August 19, 2016

---

# Does plugin notification still work?

 *  [Michael Torbert](https://wordpress.org/support/users/hallsofmontezuma/)
 * (@hallsofmontezuma)
 * WordPress Virtuoso
 * [18 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/does-plugin-notification-still-work/)
 * I’ve checked several blogs (2.3 and 2.5) and it doesn’t seem that I’m getting
   notifications of new plugin versions. Is it just me or did something change?

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

 *  [Darren Ethier (nerrad)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/nerrad/)
 * (@nerrad)
 * [18 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/does-plugin-notification-still-work/#post-728314)
 * I’m noticing the same thing on my 2.3 and 2.5 blogs and I’ve seen other threads
   on this. Yet to see any responses though…
 *  [Greg Bellucci](https://wordpress.org/support/users/gbellucci/)
 * (@gbellucci)
 * [18 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/does-plugin-notification-still-work/#post-728317)
 * Plugin update notification is not broken – it’s just not working the way is was
   working prior to 2.5 (or 2.3.?).
 * The Word Press code (that you have installed on your server) gathers the list
   of active plugins and sends a request to api.wordpress.org to compare your active
   plugin list with the plugins hosted on wordpress.org. The list that originates
   from your server contains the plugin name (from the plugin’s header) and the 
   plugin version installed on your system. The wordpress.org server located the
   SVN directory (I don’t know how) and made the comparisons to determine if the
   plugin version had changed.
 * The method used for locating the correct SVN directory has been changed for some
   reason – now it appears that the api.wordpress.org attempts to locate the plugin’s
   SVN directory by looking for an SVN directory on the plugin host that is the 
   hyphenated version of the plugin’s name.
 * > Plugin Name: My Cool Plugin = SVN directory: my-cool-plugin
 * If the SVN directory can’t be located then it doesn’t recognize that the plugin
   may have been updated. Unfortunately, the previous criteria for plugin developers
   to take advantage of the feature was the plugin name in the readme.txt file had
   to match the plugin name in the plugin’s header – the SVN directory was not part
   of the equation from the developer’s viewpoint. SVN directories are assigned 
   when you sign up and there is no mention of the directory name in any of the 
   current documentation; WordPress.org took care of it.
 * Because some plugins _happen _to have a plugin name that matches their assigned
   SVN directory – you will get notifications if the plugin has been updated. For
   plugins whose names do not match their SVN directory you will not be notified
   if they have been updated. This is because the SVN directory can’t be located
   for the plugin.
 * > Plugin Name: My Cool Plugin = SVN directory: cool-plugin-for-wp
 * This is a nasty problem because
 * 1. It works for some plugins and not others
    2. Most plugin developer’s probably
   don’t realize there is a problem 3. The request API was changed and plugin naming
   conventions to support the new change has not been documented for developers 
   4. Changes to the API were made that basically broke a previously working feature

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

The topic ‘Does plugin notification still work?’ is closed to new replies.

 * 2 replies
 * 3 participants
 * Last reply from: [Greg Bellucci](https://wordpress.org/support/users/gbellucci/)
 * Last activity: [18 years, 2 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/does-plugin-notification-still-work/#post-728317)
 * Status: not resolved

## Topics

### Topics with no replies

### Non-support topics

### Resolved topics

### Unresolved topics

### All topics