Yesterday, March 29th, 2023, WordPress released their newest version, 6.2. With this new version it will improve performance, tighten security, fix some bugs, and a number of new features.
With these changes, it’s also introduced many breaking changes and compatibility issues with the Themes and Plugins you may be using. Since this was released 24 hours ago, we’ve received numerous tickets and support requests where sites have gone down and are inaccessible after updating to 6.2.
Based on what we are seeing are the impacts with this newest version, we strongly are encouraging you to not update to WordPress 6.2 at this time and instead focus on preparing to update to this version. We made an announcement as well through our client portal as well relating to this update.
- Disable any auto updates for major versions of WordPress. While it’s a convenient feature to have enabled, for major version changes it’s recommended that such updates reviewed and tested first.
- Use the staging environment for testing and reviews these major version changes. Most of our products offer the WordPress Toolkit, or similar staging features, that can test changes before being put in to production.
- Update all of your Plugins and Themes. Log in to your WordPress Dashboard and navigate to the Plugins and Themes section and check for updates. By doing this, and waiting for the developers of these Themes and Plugins to ensure that they are supported with WordPress 6.2 will ensure that they are compatible first.
- Lastly, when you are ready to perform the update to 6.2, it’s always recommended that you take a back up of your site just before the changes are to be done. This allows you to quickly restore from a backup taken right before the upgrade is processed.
If you have any questions or issues, we are always here to help you. Taking these proactive measures with this update will give you peace of mind and confidence when you ready to update.
