WordPress 5.9 RC4

A fourth and final release candidaterelease candidate One of the final stages in the version release cycle, this version signals the potential to be a final release to the public. Also see alpha (beta). for WordPress 5.9 is packaged to mark the code freeze before release tomorrow, January 25, 2022. 

Discover more about the process for Release Day.

The following fixes are included since Release Candidate 3 (RC3) last week:

  • Classic menus are not selectable in the existing Navigation blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience.PR38168
  • Remove CustomizerCustomizer Tool built into WordPress core that hooks into most modern themes. You can use it to preview and modify many of your site’s appearance settings.’s Menus section when the block theme is active – #54888
  • Block Editor: Mark last change as persistent on save – PR36887
  • Issue in clicking “Edit styles” link in the Welcome panel#54859 / PR38123
  • Fix resizable box scrollbars in blocks – PR38123
  • Fix for the pattern preview expanding issue – PR38175
  • Allow to install/activate themes/pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party which require the next WordPress version – #54882

Testing the release

You can test the WordPress 5.9 release candidate in three ways:

Option 1: Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (select the “Bleeding edgebleeding edge The latest revision of the software, generally in development and often unstable. Also known as trunk.” channel and “BetaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process./RCrelease candidate One of the final stages in the version release cycle, this version signals the potential to be a final release to the public. Also see alpha (beta). Only” stream).

Option 2: Download the RC4 version (zip).

Option 3: When using WP-CLIWP-CLI WP-CLI is the Command Line Interface for WordPress, used to do administrative and development tasks in a programmatic way. The project page is http://wp-cli.org/ https://make.wordpress.org/cli/ to upgrade from Beta 1, 2, 3, 4, RC1, RC2, or RC3 on a case-insensitive filesystem, please use the following command sequence:

Command One:

wp core update --version=5.9-RC4

Command Two:

wp core update --version=5.9-RC4 --force

Happy testing! All welcome in the #core channel on the WordPress SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. for the 5.9 release party on January 25! You can follow along for exact timings by watching the #5.9-release-leads channel too.

Thanks @cbringmann, @audrasjb, @desrosj, @hellofromtonya, @costdev, @marybaum, @webcommsat for contributions and proofreading of this post.

#5-9