Rollback and recovery

What happens after a change goes live, how a rollback works, and what to do if a site looks wrong.

Every change is built and checked on a staging copy before you see it, and checked again on the live site after it is published. The second check is what makes a change reversible.

The live check

After an approved change is published, the agent checks the live page the same way it checked the staging copy: the page loads, it looks the way the approved preview looked, and the change on live matches the change you approved. For updates and store changes, it also confirms core files and plugin state and that a form still submits.

One of three things follows:

• Published and checked live. The receipt carries the proof.
• Rolled back: the site is as it was. A check failed, so the change was reversed on its own and you are told in the receipt. Nothing is left half done.
• Went live, but a person still needs to look. The change is live and one check could not be completed. The receipt says which, and a person at SquareJuice looks the same day.

If a rollback cannot finish

A rollback that does not complete alerts our operators the moment it happens. A person at Launch Creative restores the site and tells you what happened and what was done, on the same thread as the receipt.

What is kept so a change can be reversed

• Before every publish, the agent exports the live site's database and keeps it with the working copies for the request, so a late approval can still be verified and a published change rolled back.
• The before-and-after screenshots, the change made and the checks run are kept as evidence for 400 days and cannot be altered in that time.
• The staging copy of each site lives in your own WP Engine account. It is yours to keep or delete.

A rollback reverses a SquareJuice change. It is not a backup of your site. Keep your host's own backups running.

If a live site looks wrong

Reply to the receipt for the change, or write to hello@squarejuice.com, with the site and the page, and put URGENT at the start of the subject. A live site that looks wrong after a SquareJuice change is our highest priority. See Support for hours and response times.

If you remove our access

Removing the SquareJuice user from your WP Engine account ends access immediately. The next request the agent tries to work on fails at its first call to the host and you are told it could not reach the site. Nothing is deleted; every staging environment stays in your account.