James Huff 12:40 am on December 4, 2016  

4.7 OMGWTFBBQ Draft Post

Here’s a rough draft of the 4.7 OMGWTFBBQ thread.

Thread Title: READ THIS FIRST WordPress 4.7 Master List

Hooray! FIX TITLE AND URL is here! But OMGWTFBBQ!? WordPress 4.7 broke everything?

Don’t Panic!

Before you go any further, make sure you’ve updated your plugins and themes to the latest versions, clear your browser’s cache and cookies and re-log into your WordPress dashboard.

Still having problems? Okay, read on!

This thread contains the known issues with plugins and themes found in 4.7. Please read this WHOLE topic and come back and check again later, as it will be updated.

Remember to be calm, be patient, and be respectful. Volunteers are out here to try and help you, but we need your help too. All of the normal forum rules still apply. Remember, you are just as important as everyone else.

If your post doesn’t show up right away, please be patient. With the higher than normal post volume, more posts get flagged as spam by our auto-spam tool. We’re working hard to keep the queue clear, but making multiple posts slows us down, as we have to go back and check if you already posted. Post once.

  • Do use proper capitalization in post titles and body. Punctuate your sentence properly and humanely, it helps us read.
  • Do use descriptive subject lines. “All permalinks broken since 4.6” is much better than “Augh! Help ASAP! This version is terrible!”
  • Do describe the problem clearly. Explain what you’re seeing, include error messages and link to screenshots if needed. Linking to your site, if the problem is on the front-end, also helps.
  • Do be patient. We know it sucks to be down, but posting multiple times doesn’t get you help any faster.
  • Do make your own topic unless you are using the exact same version of WordPress on the same physical server hosted by the same hosts with the same plugins, theme and configurations as the original poster. You may find it weird, but it will be easier for us to help you specifically if you have your own topic.
  • Do mark your topic as resolved when it’s fixed so we know not to come looking there anymore.
  • Do remember you’re not alone.

Also keep in mind that not liking the direction of WordPress’s design is a not a bug. If you don’t like a feature, please don’t make a series of posts complaining about it. Look and see if someone already did, and post there, or consider joining the process earlier on. What you’re seeing today is the result of thousands of hours of work and testing, and unless something is outright broken, it’s highly unlikely to be changed.

Again, before you post:

Make sure you’ve read this entire thread and FIX URL New Features in 4.7 Codex Article.

Go to your own install’s about page – `example.com/wp-admin/about.php` – to see what’s new.

And then make sure you’ve tried…

  • Flushing any caching plugins you might be running, as well as server and/or browser caches. Not just your browser, but any op cache or content network cache as well such as Cloudflare. That will solve many weird JavaScriptJavaScript JavaScript or JS is an object-oriented computer programming language commonly used to create interactive effects within web browsers. WordPress makes extensive use of JS for a better user experience. While PHP is executed on the server, JS executes within a user’s browser. https://www.javascript.com/. issues.
  • If your host provider has a “Purge Varnish” option or if you can ask your provider to flush memcache on your server.
  • Deactivating all plugins (yes, all) to see if this resolves the problem. If this works, re-activate the plugins one by one until you find the problematic 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(s). If you can’t get into your admin dashboard, try resetting the plugins folder by SFTP/FTP or PhpMyAdmin (read “How to deactivate all plugins when you can’t log in to wp-admin” if you need help). Sometimes, an apparently inactive plugin can still cause problems. Also remember to deactivate any plugins in the mu-plugins folder. The easiest way is to rename that folder to `mu-plugins-old`
  • Switching to the Twenty Seventeen theme to rule out any theme-specific problems. If you can’t log in to change themes, you can remove the theme folders via SFTP/FTP so the only one is `twentyseventeen`. That will force your site to use it.
  • Manually upgrading. When all else fails, download a fresh copy of the latest.zip file of 4.7 (top right on this page) to your computer, and use that to copy up. You may need to delete the wp-admin and wp-includes folders on your server (NOTE: do not delete the `wp-content` directory or your `wp-config.php` file) Read the Manual Update directions first.

Next section, posted as a reply:

CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. Changes

In addition to new features highlighted in FIX URL the release post:

This Crazy Change: To be filled in later based on the release post.

This Other Crazy Change: Will there be more? Who knows?!

Next section, posted as a reply:

Not a Bug

I can’t add a video headerHeader The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes. to my theme: While WordPress 4.7 does introduce video headers, the theme you’re using must be built to support video headers. Contact your theme’s developer for details.

I can’t see the other 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. features detailed in the release post: As with the video headers, the theme you’re using must be built to support these. Contact your theme’s developer for details.

I don’t see PDF previews: Although PDF previews are now a posibility, any already uploaded PDFs will not display thumbnails, and your server will have to be configured t osupport them (This means you need Imagik, ImageMagick and Ghostscript for thumbnails to be generated for you).

Alternative texts are no longer created automatically for my images: The alternative text auto-generated by WordPress was not good for accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility), this is why we changed this to instead have a blank value (defining it as merely a visual element and not an important part) by default. This means we leave it to the poster to define the appropriate text for assisstive technologies to use.

The language of wp-admin changed: With 4.7, we’ve introduced the ability to change your personal languages preference for the admin areas. You may have saved your profile with a new language chosen, or the default language was not what you expected it to be.

Feature buttons are missing from the editor: To encourage proper use of HTMLHTML HTML is an acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language. It is a markup language that is used in the development of web pages and websites. elements, and to reduce the misuse of confusing elements (such as underlines for example), the toolbars have been rearranged (and some options removed, although their keyboard shortcuts will continue to work as expected), and may be found by extending the toolbar at the top to show both lines of options.

Next section, posted as a reply:

Known Issues

  • There are no known consistent or reproducible known issues in the final release of WordPress 4.7 at this time.

Next section, posted as a reply:

Plugin and theme issues

  • There are no known consistent or reproducible plugin or theme issues in the final release of WordPress 4.7 at this time.

The final release of WordPress 4.7 is scheduled for December 6, 2016, so the content of this post may continue to change until then. Please use the comments below to suggest any alterations.