WordPress 3.5 came with a number of visual and functional upgrades, but as with any major update, it came with a series of frustrations as well. Many of the issues that came with the update are minor, but some of the issues being reported are essentially breaking people’s blogs.
The three most commonly reported major problems include issues with plugins no longer working, scheduled posts not allowing embedded videos, and most importantly, the media manager just flat out not working for some people.
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Plugin Issues
Plugins that have worked correctly in the past may be seeing problems since the update to WordPress 3.5. Some very popular social media sharing plugins are causing an error message to show up on each blog post, even though they’re still technically working.
The WordPress development team is responding to issues with plugins with the same thing they always do: the plugin developer is incorrectly using their own jQuery without compensating for WordPress’s. There is other potential causes for your problems, but the important thing is to figure out what to do about the fact that these issues are occurring right now.
This isn’t exactly great news, because it leaves you with two solutions.
- Get in touch with the plugin developer and ask them to fix it.
- Disable the plugin.
While it’s nice to think that you might be able to get the plugin fixed by sending an e-mail or two, it may be a safer plan just to go ahead and disable the plugin.
If you’re having issues and you’re not sure which plugin could be causing it, start out by disabling every single one of your plugins. Every single one. And start re-enabling them one at a time, checking your blog after each re-enable to see which plugin breaks stuff.
Once you re-break your blog, you know which plugin to disable.
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Scheduled Posts Not Allowing Embedded Video
Scheduling posts to publish at a specific time is one of the main reasons many of us use WordPress. It’s such a powerful tool for managing your content. Managing an editorial calendar is much easier when the tool you use handles the timing.
Many users are reporting issues with scheduled posts not publishing, or publishing without the embedded video they definitely remember placing on the post.
The current best explanation is that WordPress is automatically filtering out the iframe that the YouTube video uses. There is currently no short term fix for this issue other than publishing any posts that include an embedded video manually.
On the bright side, the WordPress developers currently have a fix slated for this issue to be included with WordPress 3.5.1.
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Broken Media Manager
This issue is by far the most serious. For many users, the Add Media button (the big fancy new one that WordPress is so proud of) just doesn’t even work. At all.
Since upgrading to 3.5, many users have been completely unable to add images to their posts. The fancy new media manager that looks so great and works so well just isn’t appearing when you click the button.
This is being blamed on plugin and theme developers using jQuery incorrectly. It’s the same reason that many plugins aren’t working.
There are three steps you can take if you are having this issue to clear it up:
- Check your WordPress user profile to ensure that you haven’t disabled the visual editor. Just go into your settings and double check. You’d be surprised what you can do without really paying attention.
- Disable all of your plugins. If disabling all of your plugins gets the Add Media button working, then one of your plugins is to blame. Start enabling them one by one to find the culprit. Once you have discovered the problem plugin you can re-enable the rest.
- Change your theme to the new Twenty Twelve theme. It is confirmed to be compatible for almost all users. If this solves the problem, then your theme is to blame. And barring a complete redesign of your site, your solution really is, at this point, to contact your theme developer. Most paid theme developers will be happy to help resolve such a major issue and in some cases they may even be happy that you have brought it to their attention.
Still More Good Than Bad
Since the majority of users that are facing issues are able to solve their problems by disabling a plugin or two, this update is still definitely good news overall. The changes to the media manager really are worth the small bit of short term trouble this update has brought along.
Given enough time, the plugin and theme developers who are currently facing problems should be able to resolve them. Most popular plugins that were facing issues have already resolved the issues they have had, whenever possible. And alternatives to some of the problem causers either already exist or will soon exist as plugin developers discover that there is a need to be filled.
While it is a little bit frustrating that the WordPress team pushed the update to 3.5 as being an improvement to media management and many of the major issues involve media management, it is good to see that most of the serious issues can be fixed so easily.
It is important to note that WordPress 3.5 is not an update that improves upon the overall security of your site. If you often use videos on your blog or if you use a lot of plugins, it may be worth considering holding off the upgrade for a few weeks. Over time the plugin, theme, and WordPress developers will have all of these issues resolved and you will be able to upgrade without facing these problems.
On that note, here is a link to the Troubleshooting WordPress 3.5 Master List. The WordPress support forums are great too, so don’t forget to use them!
3 Most Common WordPress 3.5 Issues originally appeared on For Bloggers By Bloggers - Blogging Tips | Blog Design | Blog Themes | Grow Your Blog under a Creative Commons license.