How to Fix Error “Another update is currently in progress” with WP-CLI

While I was working on a local install, I tried to update WordPress core to the latest version, and I saw an ugly message stating I couldn’t update.

The problem is that the message is note super useful:

Another update is currently in progress.

And there was actually no indication on what to do. Well, if you know WordPress, you know that this is a temporary issue that will self fix since it’s tied to a temporary option. Once the option gets deleted via a cron task, the update will be doable.

But I was in a hurry and had to update WordPress right away. Hopefully WP-CLI came to my rescue. Here’s how I fixed the issue.

All you have to do really, is deleting the core_updater.lock option for the wp_options table, and retry to perform the core update. You can do so via the following WP-CLI command:

wp option delete core_updater.lock

and then update WordPress with:

wp core update

and you’re done!