Rails 6.1 ActiveRecord deprecates update_attributes method calls. This method was renamed to update method.

Methods update_attributes and update_attributes! are aliases to methods update_attributes and update_attributes! respectively.

The update_attributes method was renamed to use update in this pull request in 2013.

The PR mentions in Changelog that, use of the update_attributes method is renamed to avoid its use in favor of update method and it is marked for soft deprecation.

The deprecation was not handled until it was addressed in this pull request

Deprecation starting Rails 6

Use of update_attributes and update_attributes! will throw a warning as given below.

DEPRECATION WARNING: update_attributes! is deprecated and will be removed from Rails 6.1 (please, use update! instead)

As suggested, we need to,

• Replace update_attributes with update
• Replace update_attributes! with update!

The deprecation warning will be displayed from Rails 6 onwards. And these methods will be deprecated from Rails 6.1 version.

Reference

• Pull Request - Deprecate update_attributes and update_attributes!
• Pull request - Rename update_attributes method to update