Doesn't WordPress have a built in updating system?

It has been a while since I've used WordPress but here is the official documentation:

https://codex.wordpress.org/Updating_WordPress

This tells you how to auto update and manually. If you run into any specific issues post them on this thread along with your droplet version what versions of Lemp you are running and how you were attempting to update (SSH / FTP), and what your current version of WP and the Version you are trying to update to.

Note: PLEASE backup you DB and FILES (very important)

It does have a built in updating system but it's not working. Could it be because it's trying to access my server but can't get through the firewall? Not sure why I didn't even consider that before, but that's probably it. Unless someone else has another idea.

Thanks for the heads up, I did backup my DB and all my files first.

I'll try disabling the firewall and going through the auto update process first. If that doesn't work I'll come back here and post all my system info.

This is the error I'm getting:

ERROR: There was an error connecting to the server, Please verify the settings are correct.

I entered the exact same settings I use to SFTP into my site with filezilla. I also disabled my firewall just in case that was stopping it but no luck. I'll try the manual install process but it seems a lot easier to break something in the site with that method.

Is your SFTP user the same user your website is running as?

@shaneharder, are you trying to update and the site is asking for FTP details?

If so its a bit of a misnomer. Its more likely to be that you dont have the correct file and directory permissions on your WP installation for WP to update itself.

They need to be:

files 644
directories 755

To confirm, if you try and add a plugin from the WP Dashboard does it ask you for FTP too?

@ Ben,

The plugins update without an issue. They do not ask for FTP info.

How do I add these permissions? I've never had to do that before.

@ Jon,

I'm trying to update it as a root user. So shouldn't the root user have all permissions? I didn't know it installed WP on the database under a specific user. I thought WP was installed on the server, then you create different users and set their permissions on the server to access those files.

Thanks for your help!