WordPress 5.5.1 Maintenance Release
On September 1, 2020, WordPress 5.5.1 was released to the public that fixes issues that broke millions of websites. This maintenance release features 34 bug fixes, 5 enhancements, and 5 bug fixes for the block editor. These bugs affect WordPress version 5.5, so you’ll want to upgrade.
WordPress Core changes on Trac:
– Administration: WP 5.5: Cannot attribute content when deleting users
– Quick/Bulk Edit: Editing posts using bottom “Bulk actions” dropdown menu doesn’t work
– Comments: #reply-title.comment-reply-title not updating when replying to an individual
– Editor: Block patterns: Fix translatable strings (take 2)
– Site Health: Check PHP notices with site_status_tests filter
– Site Health: Add site environment to debug information
– Editor: Some block patterns have text contrast issues with dark themes
– Sitemaps: 5.5 Sitemap URLs are incorrectly paginated
– Site Health: flags define WP_AUTO_UPDATE_CORE value as an error
– Script Loader: Change the jquery handle back to an alias for jquery-core
– Media: Lazy loading in 5.5 causes flashing of custom logo in Firefox
– Site Health: don’t give a warning when upload_max_size is lower than max_post_size
– Upgrade/Install: Pass details about the specific plugin and theme updates attempted to filters
– Bootstrap/Load: Remove the ability to alter the list of environment types in wp_get_environment_type()
– Script Loader: Disable concatenation for scripts with translations to ensure they are printed in the right order
– Upgrade/Install: Empty string comparison on home option during DB upgrades is invalid
– Editor: PHP Notice thrown when searching for certain terms via the Gutenberg block directory
– Editor: Packages update
– REST API: Permit uniqueItems keyword in endpoint args
– REST API: Fix multi-type schemas with integer fields
– Filesystem API: Typo in variable name causes warning from fclose()
– Post: missing excerpt
– Docs: Add docblock for get_the_archive_title() filter
– Administration: Undefined index: update-supported
– Docs: Update register_rest_route docblock to reflect additions since 5.5
– Bootstrap/Load: Consider adding “local” as environment on WP_ENVIRONMENT_TYPE
– Administration: Extra padding below the admin bar
– Docs: Update docs for custom logo functions
– Docs: add a mention about the use of loading attribute in wp_get_attachment_image function
– UI/CSS: Remove non-color related styling from Modern color scheme
– Upgrade/Install: Only display the auto-update links on the Network Admin > Themes screen for themes that support the feature
– Template: wp_terms_checklist not checking selected taxonomy items with selected_cats option
– get_the_date() checks $format only for empty variable and fails on false boolean
– Theme_Installer_skin::do_overwrite does not work on a Windows server
– #reply-title.comment-reply-title not updating when replying to an individual
– commonL10n and other JS globals removed without backwards compatibility
– Clarify the usage of null for auto_update_{$type} filter
– Fatal Error – Undefined get_page_templates() in Customizer
– sitemaps should be initialized before each test is run
– Dot should be out of the quotesBlock editor changes from GitHub:
– Fix missing selected block highlighting in list view
– Fix specificity for buttons with outline style and background colors
– Fix incorrect aria description in List View
– Fix regression bug for category select in QueryControls component
– Fix tiny editor preview when using Mobile or Tablet options with metaboxes enabled
Update to WordPress to 5.5.1
This maintenance update is designed to patch a wide range of bugs that were discovered after 5.5 was released. For those that rolled back their sites to a previous version of WordPress because 5.5 was breaking their sites, this is the version that should be downloaded. Problems that were discovered have been fixed but some issues will still need to be fixed.
WordPress described the issue like this:
“In WordPress 5.5 the global JavaScript objects listed below were removed without being deprecated. WordPress 5.5.1 adds a backfill for these globals so they no longer cause JavaScript errors.”
Plugin and theme developers have until March 2021 to patch the code. Failure to patch the code will result in another round of site failures.
According to WordPress:
“The plan is to remove this fallback code in two major versions, so this will be deleted in WordPress 5.7. This gives plugin and theme developers ample time to remove the conflicting code and switch to using wp.i18n”