WordPress 4.4 Released
WordPress 4.4 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:
— The 2016 Theme: A modern but traditional blog design.
— Automatic Responsive Images: WordPress now has a built-in ability to make images responsive for all the different device sizes accessing WP sites.
— Embeding Features: It is now possible to embed WordPress posts on other WP sites, and several new oEmbed providers have been added as well.
— REST API: This may be the most exciting feature as it becomes more fully developed. The first portion of the new WP REST API is integrated into WordPress 4.4, which will eventually make WP a much more effective backend for various services – it will be interesting to see how this is used as it becomes widespread.
— 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 4.4
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 4.4 may not be trouble-free for everyone – in particular I’ve heard of a few issues with early versions and the responsive image feature. From what I know that was fixed for the final release so hopefully it won’t be a serious issue. This site is up and running on 4.4, and test sites at Lightning Base have been running on pre-release versions for some time – you shouldn’t have to worry about our system working with the new WP.
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 4.4.
