I had been resisting the WordPress 2.6 upgrade for a while. Part of the reason is because I did not like the WordPress 2.5 dashboard.
I know of people who like it, but I personally do not and I found that if you have a large blog with a lot of posts or a slow internet connection, it is considerably slow in loading. So, I resisted for a long time…
Until I had to install a new funky plugin and it wouldn’t work because I wasn’t on the latest version of WordPress! Can you say discrimination?! 
So, I took the plunge on my food blog and the upgrade went well… until I saw my Categories were all gone!!! They were still there except I couldn’t see them. There are numerous tips online involving SQLs and databases that made my head spin and which I could not comprehend, so I deleted all the categories and started all over again! Lucky I’d been a little lax so I only had about 100+ posts to update. But still… so if you have a food blog and see me pinging your site, this is the reason for it!
So, when it came to my beauty blog, I was hesitant. I had just celebrated writing 500 posts on it. Imagine if all the categories disappear?! I’d go a little nuts! Well, maybe not a little, a LOT nuts! So, I taught myself how to export the SQL database and other whatchamacallits, went into Fantastico, crossed my fingers, closed my eyes and hit the upgrade button.
Thankfully, it was fine! The upgrade to 2.6 was painless! YES!
Now, I need to upgrade this site. My gut feeling tells me, its going to give me the same headache as that I experienced with the food site – dare I try it? I don’t know. Do I want to spend a few hours of my life updating all my categories?! have nearly 400 posts! *whimper*
How?! 
{ 8 comments }
I upgraded from 2.1 to 2.5 and had the exact same problem with the categories…everything vanished and now I’m recategorizing all the posts again, manually. Extremely frustrating and irritating. And ya, the tips online made my head spin too…=P
My Consumer Views blog is running on 2.6. But I have yet to upgrade my main blog as I’m too lazy to do so. Hearing your story makes me think thrice about upgrading now!
I upgraded to 2.6 using the Fantastico Upgrade button, and thankfully all the categories were still intact. But a friend of mine upgraded from 2.0 to 2.6 and had all categories gone too. Thankfully she had a backup and was able to reenter the categories back into the backend database.
Remember to disable all plugins and backup before upgrading. Fantastico is great for upgrading!
I have not upgraded my blogs yet. I really don’t like the new dashboard.
Hehe..and I thought my sites upgraded themselves :p
Thanks!
Thanks for the warning – I’m just getting used to the 2.5.1 Dashboard only to find the 2.6 button staring at me now!
Been having schizophrenic switches with my templates that I wonder if I dare take the plunge now…
Lazylah
Hope you survive the upgrade….and here’s something to do to *test* the upgrade once you’re done
Sooyin: I think upgrading from the really old versions to the new ones are the worst because we didn’t go through all the steps
Rinnah: IF you are on a newer version of WP it should be painless
GT: You see, I don’t know how to handle the backend!
Else it’ll be a cinch
Adino: I didn’t like the new dashboard too but what to do… the newer plugins dont work on the old version
PE:
Kittycat: I don’t reckon you should have problems. But i had a problem with crazy theme switches on one blog. Never know why it happens.
GT: Will get down to it soon!