WordPress 4.8 Issues and How to Resolve them?

WordPress 4.8 has been released recently which is one of the major releases of 2017 by WordPress. This has given the WordPress users a ray of hope for more advanced features. But a hasty and instant upgrade may put your website in the doldrums. This new release has surely offered some awesome enhancements like new widgets, improved visual editor, and lot more. But there are some issues that must be taken care of. Although users claim to have many there are some major ones you need to fix. Let’s have an insight into the advanced features that this new update is equipped with and the issues and fixes you need to consider.

Things to Consider in the WordPress 4.8 Version

It is quite normal and obvious that with every update of any software you need to face certain issues along with the advanced features. If you have a customized WordPress website and planning to update it to the newer version, better to wait. It is found that there are issues with the Text Widgets, CSS, links, and the login screen that could actually give you a tough time to work. Issues are getting compiled as and when users are using and facing it and some of them have already been fixed and are now working. Let us understand those details of the problems and the fixes that you can use to manage your website well. 

Issues in WordPress 4.8 Visual Editor

• Display issues with Visual Editor: It has been noticed that either the visual editor is displayed as a half screen or not displayed properly. 

How to Fix: Deactivating the plugins and again activating it all simultaneously ideally might solve the issue.

• Issues with Functioning of Text Editor: You might witness the line spacing between lines is not even and might alter when you add or remove links and formats. It might affect the font size of the letters on the published page.

How to Fix: Add a fixed height of the lines in the theme’s editor-style.css to fix this issues, most of the time it works.

• Changes are not saved: When you do some adjustments or any changes in your post on the visual editor, you might receive this message – “Changes you made may not be saved.”

How to Fix: Just try removing all plugins and again enabling it or else you may also try a default theme instead of customizing it.

Text Widget Issues in WordPress 4.8

• Text Widget Removes HTML Tags: When you switch between the text editor and the visual editor the integration between the HTML with the widget gets a miss.

How to Fix: In place of the text widget try using the classic text widget.

• Disable Visual Editor: You may face a problem when you want to disable the Visual Editor in the Text Widget and use style tags and JS using the old text widget.

How to Fix: Unfortunately you cannot disable the Visual Editor. By-default a stand-alone text-only widget is an integral part of WP release.

• Script Code not Visible in the Text Widget

How to Fix: Better use a plugin instead of adding scripts to text widgets. Do not forget to use an admin account for adding code or it will not be accepted for security reasons. Add the code to the widget using its text tab. Do not leave double-line breaks as it is considered as the code breaker.

Login Issues in WordPress 4.8

• Not able to Access Dashboard: Chances are you might be facing problems in accessing the admin dashboard even after there is no issue with the page load. This issue may arise only with some specific browsers.

How to Fix: The best way is disabling and again enabling the security plugins one by one. Also, delete all cookies. You may face issues with the ‘iThemes Security’ plugin. Better revert the settings and now disable the plugin.

CSS Issues in WordPress 4.8

• Unable to Load CSS Content: This issue may arise when you load some resources using editor_styles tool through themes or plugins and it is not able to load it. It may be due to incorrect or non-existing resource paths or may be due to some other issues.

How to Fix: Although it may not impact the performance of your website, it is a warning sign. You must handle these issues properly with your developer. 

Link Problems in WordPress 4.8

• Adding plain text to Link Boundaries feature is not possible: It may happen that you may not be able to add any plain text after an existing link. On the other hand, it was possible to add 2 or 3 spaces after the link in the earlier version and you could remove extra space afterward.

How to Fix: Placing the -> arrow key to the end of the link and then typing the text which is not added to the link. It can work for you.

1. All Text Widgets having images and “Save” span code displays Disabled Links: The widgets having text links work fine but the widgets with image links and “Save span” code does not work.

How to Fix: It is best to remove all “Save” span code from the text widgets.

Plugin Issues

• Contact Form 7 Plugin does not work: This submission form keeps processing and not submitting the form.

How to Fix: Switch to earlier version i.e. 4.7 version of Contact Form 7 plugin. 

Themes Issues in WordPress 4.8

• New media widgets not working properly: When the active theme hides the widgets by default you may encounter this issue. You may find difficulty in viewing the new media widgets properly.

How to Fix: Restart the media element players and you might come out of this issue.

• Text Widget gets out of the defined area: When you use custom themes, the text from the text widget appears outside the defined area.

How to Fix: You need to update the theme to associate with the new HTML that is used by the new editor to wrap content in.

• The color of the website changes and is different from the Active Theme:  You might encounter the issue that the color of the website changes and looks different than the active theme. And in many cases, you may find that the option to change the page layout is not visible anywhere or you may also encounter some other layout related issues.

How to Fix: Please update your theme and add custom CSS to retain the color schemes. Unfortunately for other layout related issues, you have to contact your developers and other users of the theme.

Some Basic Fixes in WordPress 4.8

New version WordPress 4.8 might collapse your website if you are not doing some generic fixes. Although we have already explained above some of the major and technical issues that are most commonly viewed and reported with the latest update, there are many such issues that are not listed here and not even reported on the WordPress.org. Some of the most basic thumb rules are to update the themes and plugins, clear the browser’s cookies and cache. Even after doing all these, if you are not able to login into the WordPress dashboard, you can try out these generic fixes.

• Terminate Managed Host Caches

Flush out the special caches in case you are using managed WordPress hosting.  You can try a “Purge Varnish” or “Flush Memcache” tool to do this if it is available for your host. You may also ask your hosting provider to perform this task for you.

• Browser Troubleshooting

You can use your browser to detect the JavaScript issues or conflicts and Visual Editor issues and once you are aware of those issues, you can find solutions on the forum.

• Removing any Caching Plugins

Try to terminate any caching plugins you use, including the browser and the server caches. Better to remove all OpCache or content network cache like Cloud flare. Of course, it will help you and might fix many JavaScript issues.

• Rolling back to the Twenty Sixteen Theme

You may also roll back to the default Twenty Sixteen theme to fix any custom theme-related issues. In case you are not able to log into the dashboard, delete all the other theme folders leaving the Twenty Sixteen theme using SFTP/FTP. This will help you ensure that the Twenty Sixteen theme is loaded.

• Deactivating Plugins

Deactivating and again re-activating all the plugins one by one till you identify the problematic plugins could help you detect the right plugin that is creating issues. For this, you can use reset the plugins folder following SFTP/FTP or PhpMyAdmin if you are unable to access your dashboard.

Finally, if all these fails, download the latest.zip file of WordPress 4.8 and try your hand upgrading it on your own manually using the Manual Update directions.

The new updated release of WordPress 4.8 is coupled with many advantages but it is not devoid of issues also. Although, several plugin developers must have made changes to be compatible with the latest update, with the introduction of media widgets many third-party plugins, offering such features, will become redundant. So, be alert and keep finding out ways using above fixes to keep your website updated and running smoothly.