A week after releasing the troubled version 6.6, WordPress has introduced another update that addresses seven major issues, including two that caused fatal errors (website crashes), a problem with security plugins issuing false warnings, and several unwanted UI changes.
Fatal Errors in WordPress 6.6
One of the most discussed issues on social media affected users of certain page builders and themes like Divi. This particular problem, though relatively minor, drastically altered the appearance of websites by adding underlines beneath all links. Some users joked that this was a feature, not a bug. Generally, having underlines beneath links is good practice, but it’s not essential for all links, such as those in the top-level navigation.
A post on the WordPress.org support forums was one of the first indications on social media that something was amiss with WordPress 6.6:
"Updating to 6.6 caused all links to be immediately underlined on a staging Divi themed site."
The post outlined a workaround that seemed to mitigate the issue, but the root cause was still unclear.
"But does anyone think this means I still have something wrong with this staging site, or is this a WordPress version update issue, or more likely a Divi theme issue I should speak to them about? Also, if anyone is even familiar with expected Rparen error…that I’m just riding with at the moment, that might help. Thanks."
Divi issued an emergency fix that their users could apply, even though the problem originated with WordPress, not Divi.
WordPress subsequently acknowledged the bug and announced they would issue a fix in version 6.6.1.
The Other Issues Fixed in 6.6.1
Fatal Error
- is_utf8_charset() undefined when called by code in compat.php (causes a fatal error).
A segment of code in 6.6 caused a critical issue (fatal error) that prevented the website from functioning normally. This was noticed by users of WP Super Cache, which developed a temporary workaround by completely disabling website caching.
Their note in GitHub stated:
"Disabling the cache removes the error but is far from ideal."
PHP Fatal Error
- "PHP Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Object of class WP_Comment could not be converted to string."
There was an issue with WordPress code trying to obtain the name of a commenter on a post. This part of the code was supposed to receive a number (the comment ID), but sometimes it received a more complex piece of information (a WP_Comment object), triggering a PHP “fatal error.” An analogy might be like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole; it doesn’t work.
This problem was identified by a user of the Divi website builder.
Other Bugs
The remaining bugs fixed didn’t cause websites to crash but were quite inconvenient:
- Fixed a bug that caused security plugins to issue false positives about possible hacker files.
- Fixed a bug in the display of the admin toolbar.
- Invalid CSS causing an unwanted horizontal scroll on a web page.
- Issue in Post Editor that caused the category chooser box to become excessively long instead of showing a scroll UI within a set size.
Read the full details of WordPress 6.6.1 maintenance release.
Featured Image by Shutterstock/HBRH
