I’ve been struggling with getting the new version of WordPress to auto-install.  I have been getting a stalled upgrade with no error or feedback.  The process would just fail at ‘Unpacking Files’ and nothing else would happen.

After a bit of searching I found a tip that finally worked.  It seems to be due to php4 and php5 being enabled at the same time like my hosting company 1and1.com has.  After updating the .htaccess file at the root of my WordPress installation with the following code the upgrade worked seamlessly!

Add

# Ensure PHP5 being used
# For WordPress auto upgrade
AddType x-mapp-php5 .php
AddHandler x-mapp-php5 .php

To your .htaccess file and you’ll be in business!

UPDATE: 8-3-2010 1:40pm

Either the upgrade to v3, or my hosting company (I suspect the hosting company)_ wiped out my .htaccess file.  This prevented me from upgrading to v3.0.1.  Once the settings were *back* in place I was able to upgrade as expected.