New Release: Jetpack 7.3

Jetpack 7.3 has been deployed to all VIP Go sites. The new release offers overall performance improvements for Jetpack sites and additional integrations with Site Health Check, a feature included in the recent WordPress 5.2 release. While Site Health Check isn’t available on VIP Go just yet, we’re planning to make it available in the near future.

Alongside these changes, users can expect general enhancements for gallery blocks in the block editor and additional CLI commands for Jetpack Sync (settings, enable, disable, reset). These commands are supported on VIP Go via WP-CLI, which is currently in beta. Jetpack 7.3 also deprecates the Proofread feature across VIP Go.

You can find a full list of changes in the announcement post and changelog.

Have questions?

If you have any questions related to this release, please open a support ticket with details and we will be happy to assist.

Call for Testing: Jetpack 7.3 (Beta)

Edit (2019-05-04): the original version of this post noted that the release will be deployed on Tuesday, May 7. It will actually be deployed on Thursday, May 9.

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Jetpack 7.3 will be deployed to VIP Go on Tuesday, May 7, 2019 Thursday, May 9, 2019. The upgrade is expected to be performed at 20:00 UTC (15:00 EST). This deployment date and time is subject to change if issues are discovered during testing of the Jetpack release.

The beta is available now, and the download link is at the top of the beta release notice.

What is being added or changed?

Jetpack 7.3 includes many improvements for the Gutenberg editor including responsive image support for tiled galleries and new controls for Likes and Sharing buttons. The release also adds new integrations with Site Health, which will be rolled out in WordPress 5.2.

What do I need to do?

We recommend:

1. Installing the beta release on your non-production sites using these instructions.
2. Running through the testing flows outlined in the Jetpack Testing Guide.

If you have testing feedback or questions related to this release (or Jetpack in general), please open a support ticket with details and we will be happy to assist.

New Release: Jetpack 7.2

Update: As of 1:00 UTC on April 5, 2019, we’ve also deployed Jetpack 7.2.1, a follow-up maintenance release, to all VIP Go sites.

Jetpack 7.2 has been deployed to all VIP Go sites.

This update adds the new Repeat Visitor block to the block editor. It also improves the WordAds experience on mobile devices and includes some security fixes related to the Slideshow block and Likes feature.

The Repeat Visitor block lets display targeted content to visitors depending on how many times they’ve visited your site. For example, you could display a custom welcome block to new visitors or add a special nudge for frequent visitors.

If you’re utilizing the WordAds block to display advertisements within your content, you will now notice a toggle that will allow you to hide the advertisements on mobile pages on a per-block basis.

Not using the Gutenberg / Block Editor yet? Learn more about the new streamlined editorial experience and how you can start leveraging it on your VIP site!

You can find a full list of changes in the announcement post and changelog.

If you have any questions related to this release, please open a support ticket with details. and we will be happy to assist.

Call for Testing: Jetpack 7.2 (Beta)

Jetpack 7.2 will be deployed to VIP Go on Wednesday, April 3, 2019. The upgrade is expected to be performed at 20:00 UTC (16:00 EDT). This deployment date and time is subject to change if issues are discovered during testing of the Jetpack release.

The beta is available now, and the download link is available via the beta release notice.

What is being added or changed?

This release includes some enhancements to existing blocks and a new addition for the block editor.

The Return Visitor block, introduced by Jetpack 7.2, stores a user’s visit count in a specific cookie,jp-visit-counter. Using this new block, you can tailor content in new ways. For example, you can offer a call-to-action only on a user’s first three trips to your site or offer a subscription option after their fifth visit.

Alongside the new block, the Ads block received an update. It now has a mobile toggle that will allow you to hide the block on mobile devices.

Jetpack 7.2 also improves video sitemaps. Thumbnails will now be displayed once VideoPress has processed the video.

What should I do?

We recommend:

1. Installing the beta release on your non-production sites using these instructions.
2. Running through the testing flows outlined in the Jetpack Testing Guide.

If you’re not using the Gutenberg/Block Editor yet, you can learn more about the new streamlined editorial experience here and how you can start leveraging it on your VIP site (including the new Return Visitor block)!

If you have testing feedback or questions related to this release (or Jetpack in general), please open a support ticket with details and we will be happy to assist.

New Release: Jetpack 7.1 and 7.1.1

Both Jetpack 7.1 and the following maintenance release, Jetpack 7.1.1, have been deployed to VIP Go.

Jetpack 7.1 introduces improvements to existing blocks and brings six new additions to the block editor including an Ads block that allows you to insert ads from our WordAds program.

A preview of the Ads block added in Jetpack 7.1

The other five new blocks include:

• Business Hours, a simple way to specify your business’ opening and closing times.
• Contact Info, a handy addition for businesses with a physical address. Search engines can use this block to connect your physical address to your website.
• Mailchimp, an easy way to allow readers to subscribe to your Mailchimp newsletter.
• Slideshow, a great way to insert beautiful slideshows within your posts and pages.
• Video, a simple way to embed videos within a post or page using Jetpack’s video hosting service.

Not using the Gutenberg / Block Editor yet? Learn more about the new streamlined editorial experience and how you can start leveraging it on your VIP site!

A GIF overview of the new Contact Info block in Jetpack 7.1.

Jetpack 7.1.1, a maintenance release, addresses some compatability issues with Internet Explorer 11 and adds some other minor fixes following the release of 7.1.

You can find a full list of changes in the announcement post and changelog.

If you have any questions related to this release, please open a support ticket with details. and we will be happy to assist.

Call for Testing: Jetpack 7.1 (Beta)

Jetpack 7.1 will be deployed to VIP Go on Wednesday, March 6, 2019. The upgrade is expected to be performed at 20:00 UTC (15:00 EST). This deployment date and time is subject to change if issues are discovered during testing of the Jetpack release.

The beta is available now, and the download link is at the top of the beta release notice.

What is being added or changed?

This update is mainly focused on the block editor, adding a handful of new blocks and improving some existing ones (video and related posts).

The new blocks include:

• An ads block that allows you to insert ads from our WordAds program.
• A business hours block that allows you to inform your customers of Open Hours.
• A contact info block that provides an address, phone number, and email address for customers and search engines like Google.
• A Mailchimp block that allows you to insert a Mailchimp form anywhere within a post or page.
• A slideshow block to display a slideshow of images within your content.

Not using the Gutenberg / Block Editor yet? Learn more about the new streamlined editorial experience and how you can start leveraging it on your VIP site!

In addition to the block editor updates, Jetpack 7.1 brings Google’s reCAPTCHA feature to contact forms, regardless of whether they’re added through the classic editor or using the contact form block in the block editor.

What should I do?

We recommend:

1. Installing the beta release on your non-production sites using these instructions.
2. Running through the testing flows outlined in the Jetpack Testing Guide.

If you have testing feedback or questions related to this release (or Jetpack in general), please open a support ticket with details and we will be happy to assist.

New Release: WordPress 5.1

WordPress 5.1, named “Betty” in honor of acclaimed jazz vocalist Betty Carter, has been released to all VIP sites.

Following WordPress 5.0 — a major release which introduced the new block editor — 5.1 focuses on polish, in particular by improving the overall performance of the editor. In addition, this release paves the way for a better, faster, and more secure WordPress with some essential tools for site administrators and developers.

The release contains a number of improvements to the block editor introduced in WordPress 5.0 alongside the initial features for Site Health. The release also introduces some developer-oriented updates including general improvements and custom hooks to make the Cron infrastructure even more robust and reliable and a new database table available for multi-sites.

For more details about this release (including specific changes), please see the announcement post and release notes.

Have Questions?

If you have any questions related to this release, please open a support ticket and we will be happy to assist.

WordPress 5.1: Final Deployment Update

WordPress 5.1 continues to be on schedule for release on Thursday, February 21st. With the first release candidate now available, we wanted to issue one last call for testing and provide updates regarding our intended release timelines for both VIP Go and WordPress.com VIP.

WordPress 5.1 Deployment Timeline

We’re still moving forward with our original upgrade timeline, which is platform dependent.

WordPress.com VIP: As with all Core upgrades, we’re pushing updates incrementally leading up to the public release. We pushed the bulk of the 5.1 updates on the WordPress.com VIP platform during the week of February 4th, and we expect to finish the upgrade process early during the week of February 18th.

VIP Go: The release will be deployed to all Go sites on February 21st.

These dates are subject to change if critical issues are discovered during testing or the public release is delayed. We’ll continue to keep you updated through Lobby posts if the dates do change.

Final Call for Testing

With the release of 5.1 quickly approaching, we wanted to issue one final call for testing before we begin updating sites on VIP Go.

For local environments, we highly recommend updating to the beta release using the Beta Tester plugin or updating to track 5.1 (i.e. bleeding edge) via either the Subversion or GitHub repos. (If you’re using VVV, one of the default sites will already be tracking 5.1. For Chassis users, you can switch your install to switch over to a separate checkout.)

WordPress 5.1 is also available for development environments on VIP Go. If you would like to have non-production sites switched to 5.1 for testing purposes, please open a ticket, and we can set that up for you.

How Should I Surface Issues?

If you have any testing feedback or questions related to this release, please open a ticket, and we’ll be happy to assist.

Resolved: VIP Go Availability Issues

On February 12th at 16:35 UTC, a platform-level change introduced an error on the VIP Go platform. This caused availability issues for a small subset of production and non-production sites. The change was reverted at 16:42 UTC, and we’re taking steps to ensure the issue doesn’t happen again.

The issue is now resolved and all sites should be functioning normally. We apologize for the trouble!

If you have any questions or are experiencing any potentially-related issues, please open a support ticket, and we will be happy to assist.

Incident Report

(published February 20, 2019 at 1:00 UTC)

Summary

On February 12, 2019 at 1634 UTC, a deployment introduced fatal errors which caused six minutes of downtime for some applications on the VIP Go platform. The downtime only impacted a small number of environments

Timeline

• 16:34 UTC: VIP Team deploys changeset.
• 16:35 UTC: Monitoring indicates increased error rates. VIP Team begins investigation.
• 16:40 UTC: VIP Team deploys revert.
• 17:02 UTC: VIP Team publishes Lobby post.

Root Cause

The changeset was attempting to change the load order of a globally loaded plugin. A dependency (Jetpack_Photon), that some applications relied on, was not available in the earlier load order, which resulted in the following fatal error:

PHP Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Class 'Jetpack_Photon' not found in /var/www/wp-content/mu-plugins/a8c-files.php:128

Impact

A small number of production environments were impacted. Any uncached requests (i.e. to Origin servers) returned an error page with a 5xx status code (0.89% of all requests for the timespan) and were inaccessible during the outage.

Future Prevention

We’re looking at two areas of improvement:

• Improving our integration and pre-deploy testing to account for this specific use case so that similar issues can be caught earlier in the development process.
• Improving our time-to-revert to reduce impact if similar issues come up again in the future.

WordPress 5.1: Upgrade Timeline and Testing Updates

As development continues with WordPress 5.1, we want to keep you informed of upcoming changes and release dates to provide ample opportunities for testing.

Today, we want to share updates regarding the upgrade timelines and availability of testing environments for both WordPress.com VIP and VIP Go.

WordPress 5.1 Upgrade Timeline Updates

WordPress 5.1 is still set to be released on February 21st. Beta 3 was released on January 31st. We’re still moving forward with our original upgrade timeline, which is platform dependent.

WordPress.com VIP: As with all Core upgrades, we’re going to be pushing incremental updates leading up to the public release. We’ve already begun pushing some smaller updates, and we’ll continue with the bulk of enhancements throughout the week of February 4th.

VIP Go: The release will be deployed to all Go sites on February 21st.

These dates are subject to change if critical issues are discovered during testing or the public release is delayed. We’ll continue to keep you updated through Lobby posts if the dates do change.

How to Test WordPress 5.1

For local environments, we highly recommend updating to the beta release using the Beta Tester plugin or updating to track 5.1 (i.e. bleeding edge) via either the Subversion or GitHub repos. (If you’re using VVV, one of the default sites will already be tracking 5.1. For Chassis users, you can switch your install to switch over to a separate checkout.)

WordPress 5.1 is now also available for development environments on both WordPress.com VIP and VIP Go. If you would like to have non-production sites switched to 5.1 for testing purposes, please open a ticket, and we can set that up for you.

How Should I Surface Issues?

If you have any testing feedback or questions related to this release, please open a ticket, and we’ll be happy to assist.