Why won't my site automatically apply updates after upgrade to 3.7?

Question

I've just upgraded to 3.7 and one of the features in this release is the automatic application of security releases. However once I upgraded it said

"This site is not able to apply these updates automatically. But we’ll email (my email address) when there is a new security release."

What is it about my site that stops these updates being applied automatically?

Answer 1

I found the answer here:

• If the install uses FTP for updates (and prompts for credentials), automatic updates are disabled. (I found this answer which will tell you how to avoid using FTP.)
• If the install is running as a SVN or GIT checkout, automatic updates are disabled
• If the constants DISALLOW_FILE_MODS or AUTOMATIC_UPDATER_DISABLED are defined, automatic updates are disabled
• If the constant WP_AUTO_UPDATE_CORE is defined as false, automatic updates are disabled
• Your WordPress install also needs to be able to contact WordPress.org over HTTPS connections, so your PHP install also needs OpenSSL installed and working
• Wp-Cron needs to be operational, if for some reason cron fails to work for your install, Automatic Updates will also be unavailable

This plugin will test these things for you.