Issue Plesk- Wake up please!

[GerdSchrewe]

Server operating system version

Ubuntu 22.04 LTS,

Plesk version and microupdate number

18.0.72 Update 3

Plesk, Wake Up!​

The more expensive Plesk gets each year, the more bugs slip in with every update.
What used to be a reliable professional tool is turning into a constant source of frustration.

These bugs aren’t just minor glitches anymore — they’re becoming critical, even threatening the stability of production systems.
Remember: Plesk was built for professional use, not for hobby websites.

Plesk was meant to make server management easy through its own interface.
Right now, that’s no longer the case.
Without solid programming knowledge, most of the errors can’t even be fixed anymore — if they can be fixed at all.

I can’t keep restoring backups for dozens of clients or rolling back entire servers after every update.
This is not sustainable for anyone running production environments.

What good is an update that fixes one bug, only to create two more in the process?
Either fix these issues properly, bring in real experts who can, or test updates far more thoroughly before releasing them.
Plesk, it’s time to wake up — before your professional users walk away.

I am deeply disappointed. Can you even begin to imagine what it feels like to tremble at every update and receive numerous calls and emails from customers who suddenly can no longer send or receive emails?

My thanks still go to the hundreds of community members who keep trying to solve the new problems that appear with every update and who continue to help others along the way.

 

[Sebahat.hadzhi]

Hello, @GerdSchrewe . Thank you for sharing your feedback and concerns. In regards to the latest release our team conducted extensive internal testing to validate compatibility. However, one of the main drivers of the issues some users are facing is the custom configuration they have. There are also a number of backward-incompatible changes in this release, which can cause unexpected behavior depending on specific setups. Additionally, Dovecot is a third-party software, and while our team did work hard to ensure smooth integration, their ability to control all aspects of its behavior is somewhat limited.

Our devs delivered two hotfixes within the last four business days to resolve the critical bugs as quickly as possible. We appreciate the community’s patience and collaboration in helping us deliver a better, more stable release.

Despite all efforts to mitigate potential quality issues, what we can recommend if there is a significant concern is to delay the upgrade until the release stabilizes further. The first week after release effectively serves as a final validation phase, where feedback from early adopters is closely monitored and reported issues are promptly addressed.

 

[GerdSchrewe]

Thank you very much for your answer!

I’ve been using Plesk since 2010 on several Ubuntu-based virtual servers and have always appreciated its comprehensive feature set and ease of management.

However, over the past few years, I’ve had to disable automatic updates due to an increasing number of issues introduced by new releases.
Examples of serious problems:
“Update to Plesk 18.0.72 – all websites down/New password hashing option for email accounts
"Update to Plesk 18.0.71 misdirect request"

It is difficult to understand why automatic updates are still recommended and enabled by default under the "update settings".

In my experience, system stability is usually only restored after the second update following an initial release, which indicates that the initial versions are not being tested thoroughly enough before being pushed to production.

I can imagine how complex it is to test an update across all possible Windows and Linux server versions. On top of that, as seen with the recent issue, there’s the added challenge of customers using different mail clients such as Outlook, Thunderbird, or Apple Mail — plus the wide variety of extensions and antivirus integrations involved.

While I recognize and appreciate how quickly your team responds to fix issues once they are reported by community, it would be far better to prevent such problems in the first place. Frequent downtime — even for a few days — is simply unacceptable for production servers that host client websites and mail services.

Would it be possible to introduce a “Stable” or “LTS” release channel, separate from the regular update stream, to ensure that administrators who prioritize uptime and reliability can safely delay feature updates until they have been fully tested in the field.

Stability and reliability must remain the highest priorities for any hosting control panel.

I would like to thank you once again for your reply and your ongoing efforts and dedication — I truly hope future updates will bring back the confidence many long-term users once had in Plesk’s update process. I have simply tried to see things from a user's perspective—someone who does not feel confident enough to fix errors in config files themselves without being able to assess the consequences.

Kind regards,
Gerd

 

[Fede Marsell]

Totally agree. Same feeling.

I’ve been using PLESK since version 2.5. Yes, that’s not a typo — version 2.5. Back then, new license orders were made by FAX!!

Nowadays, PLESK is no longer what it used to be.

It used to be a product made for system administrators. Now, they’ve completely lost their way. Updates fixing critical issues are released just a few hours after a new version comes out. Does no one test them anymore?

And let’s not even talk about the infamous extensions. They use our clients to sell hidden services through those extensions — it’s basically a marketplace.

For example, SiteJet: at first it was free, and then they started adding paid features. But who sees those paid options? Our clients, not PLESK’s own customers.

They’re making money in an unethical way

And then there are the security issues — again, those same extensions. They act like a Trojan inside the system (such as: Issue - Important: Imunify auto installation and possible data leak).

And all this comes at an outrageous price. Many of us users are hostages. If it were easy to migrate, we would have stopped using PLESK a long time ago.

 

[King555]

However, one of the main drivers of the issues some users are facing is the custom configuration they have. There are also a number of backward-incompatible changes in this release, which can cause unexpected behavior depending on specific setups.

Well, I had the problems with Dovecot without having any custom configuration or a "specific" setup. Everything was completely default configuration and installation via Plesk. So I cannot confirm your statement.