I have hosting accounts with a few different companies. Upgrading WordPress is a piece of cake except with one hosting company where I must do this manually which lasts forever and there is always risk of deleting or overwriting the wrong files. Technical support doesn't have a solution for this. What do you think is causing this?

A bad hosting company? Seriously if you can do it easier elsewhere, why not switch? Do you have a contract with this one company and if so how long do you have left?

What error messages do you get? It's always nice to get a web hosting provider that provides an one-click installation application to allow easy installation and upgrading of scripts like Wordpress.

Wordpress upgrades are fairly easy just from the dashboard of wordpress. What issues are you having in your upgrade process? Often times the upgrade process in any of the installation scripts (Softaculous, Fantastico etc) are actually more damaging than using the upgrade method from the dashboard of wordpress itself.

Really need more info on the process that's giving you problems. Like Conor said, upgrades are easy from the dashboard of wordpress, but since you said they're normally a piece of cake, you were probably doing that anyway.

This could be due to several issues, such as permissions, server PHP settings, etc.

Check your upgrade folder and see what the permissions are set at. Sometimes the upgrade will fail if it can't write to the folder.

Providing us with the error output you receive in the WordPress dashboard when trying to do the upgrade automatically would help a lot.

HostMantis and Conor hit the nail right on the head. There are a few things that could be causing this issue so please provide us with any output errors you may be receiving.

As a personal rule, I don't upgrade Wordpress manually myself. First because I don't have the enthusiasm for that chore. Secondly, I fear for the files. So, if I were you, dump that host and switch to another one that upgrades Wordpress automatically.

OK, here are the details. When I use the automatic button download of the new version starts and then nothing happens. I check the zipped upgrade itself to see if it is download and I only see 0 KB file there. My host says that because of security issues they are not allowing the script to upgrade itself. The host is really great besides that.

Then you are faced with living with the hassle of a manual upgrade or switching hosts. If WordPress isn't kept up to date, it will be hacked.

I can't believe that a host would deny you from making the upgrades like that. If anything, having vulnerable software versions on your site does more damaging than the uploading of the upgrade script.

Has your host provided you a solution on how to upgrade? If not, when your site gets hacked (and it will), it'll be on your hosts head to find the hole and fix the problem.

Running PHP as suEXEC will allow your files to be modified/updated by your scripts which would allow the automatic update feature on WordPress to work properly.

Tell your host and maybe they will understand... If anything, suEXEC will result in better security instead of a security issue. However, every host is going to have their own methods for security.

If they aren't willing to work with you, then I suggest you do as others have already said and jump ship to a provider that can suit your needs.

Hello Zagor, I completely agree with steve, in order to prevent your files from hackers, you must keep your wordpress up-to-date. Secondly, if you are doing manually, you need to take a backup of your wordpress files and then start the manual upgrades. Though if you have a control panel upgrading to new version gets much more easy as it will automatically take backup of your database and then install the upgrades. If you are not even able to access the control panel then you must switch your web host before you face severe damage to your wordpress site.

I know and I will upgrade as I've done in the past regularly and as soon as upgrade is available. But I guess I will have to do it manually, for now at least. This sucks big time!

Is is possible sometimes that some poorly written WP plugins have caused this issue?

If you have lots of plugins OR unusual type WP plugins., try deactivating them in dashboard before auto upgrade.

Also backup first!

As for hosts automatically updating CMS installations of their clients, I have reservations..

My DC automatically updates my one button scripts for new installtions in clients CP, but I have yet to enter my WHM and upgrade a clients install myself. SOme clients are weary of the absolute latest update in WP or any other CMS script install.