WordPress 4.3 Released
WordPress 4.3 was released today. This is a major (0.1) update, adding new features to improve the experience of using WP.
What’s New
There are a few significant improvements in this update:
— Edit Menus in the Customizer: You can now edit menus while using the live-view customizer on the front-end of the site.
— Site Icons: There is now an ability to add a ‘Site icon’, which will show up as an icon on mobile devices, in bookmarks, etc. To set this up a site icon for your WordPress site, login to WP, click Appearance -> Customize, and then use the ‘Site Identity’ menu.
— Formatting Shortcuts: When editing a post, you can now use an ‘-‘ to create a list, ## to create a header, and more, such as > for a quote.
— Password Handling: The password reset process in WP has been changed to make it more secure, and WordPress will automatically generate a secure password when you create a user in the admin.
— Comments Off on Pages: WordPress will now by default have comments turned off on pages. This should help avoid receiving spam on sites that aren’t even used as discussion-type blogs.
— More: As always, there are a variety of other tweaks made to WordPress – for more details, you can check out the official announcement.
Upgrading to WordPress 4.3
This is a major update, meaning that the odds of trouble are generally higher than with minor updates, although over the years this has become better. We have seen a few problems reported by clients already, so there is at least some indication 4.3 may not be trouble-free for everyone. This site is up and running on 4.3, and test sites at Lightning Base have been running on pre-release versions for some time, however – my expectation is that this will go well for the vast majority of users, but those with more complex sites or older plugins should be prepared in case of any problems.
In particular, it has been reported that older versions of RevSlider may not run with 4.3 – this is fixed in RevSlider 5.0.4.1, but I know many users run older versions of this plugin, partially because it is bundled with some themes. You will want to make sure RevSlider is updated, and if you have a theme with a slider, look for updated versions of that as well in case it is based on RevSlider.
For critical sites, particularly if they are complex, you may want to delay the update for a couple weeks to see if any problems crop up or if a minor patch release comes out shortly. Checking this thread is a good way to see what issues others are having, and the general WP support forum can help spot almost any potential problem. Generally after a few weeks the trouble reports die down and if there are any serious problems with WP core itself they will be patched with a 0.0.1 update.
Our Upgrade Process
If you have turned on automatic core updates for both major and minor releases then your site will automatically be updated within the next 24 hours. As always, we have nightly backups from which a restore can be made if any problems become apparent post-update.
Problems?
If you run into any trouble, remember that we have automatic backups taken offsite nightly, which can be restored via the ‘Bacula4’ icon in cPanel. Don’t hesitate to open a ticket in our client area and we can help as well. It’s usually best to check the ‘error_log’ file in your site’s root directory to see if there are any problems listed there, then run a restore. The error_log file’s content describes PHP errors and may help you determine what needs to be fixed/upgraded/removed before your site can move to 4.3.
