Call for Testing: AMP 1.4.2 on WordPress.com

AMP 1.4.2 will be deployed across all VIP sites on WordPress.com on Tuesday, February 11, 2020.

(Note: this does not include sites on the VIP Go platform.)

What’s New?

We’re upgrading from v0.6.2 to v1.4.2 and the AMP plugin has seen quite a few changes in between those releases. Here are some highlights:

  • Additional rendering modes beyond the original “Reader” experience. You can now opt-in to render your entire site as “AMP-first” and leverage sanitization, CSS Tree Shaking, and various other features that now ship with the plugin. Or you can slowly and incrementally transition over.
  • Continued rendering and compatibility improvements for Sanitizers, Embeds, and default elements including support for forms and widgets, better fallback support, and updates to match newer releases of the AMP spec.
  • Added support for built-in WordPress.com and Jetpack features like Share buttons and Related Posts.

To learn more, you can browse through the changelog across the various releases.

What do I need to do?

In preparation for the release, we’ve run a series of automated scans and validation checks across VIP sites to verify that AMP pages continue to render as expected and validate correctly. We will be reaching out shortly to individual clients for whom we’ve uncovered potential issues.

To help aid testing in production, you can also load the new version of the AMP plugin for any page on your site by appending ?amp-next=1 to the URL (example). To verify that the new version is loading, you can check the AMP plugin version via the <meta name="generator" tag in the HTML source. You can also append #development=1 to load the browser validator and view validation results via the Developer Console.

We also recommend installing v1.4.2 of the plugin in your local environments and verifying that your AMP pages render as expected. You can use a tool like amphtml-validator to automate some of the testing as well.

If you have questions or run into issues, please open a support ticket with details and we will be happy to assist.

New Release: WordPress 5.3.2

WordPress 5.3.2, a maintenance release, has been rolled out to all VIP sites across WordPress.com and VIP Go.

The release contains fixes for five core bugs including an update to the Date/Time component, which prevents a fatal error in some feeds.

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

Have questions?

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

New Release: WordPress 5.2.4

WordPress 5.2.4, a security release, has been rolled out to all VIP sites across WordPress.com and VIP Go.

The release contains 6 security fixes and enhancements.

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

Have questions?

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

Notice: Change to ASYNC Login behaviour

This notice relates to the following platform: WordPress.com VIP

The default behaviour of the WordPress.com platform can cause a white screen whilst rendering the front-end of a site, as login credentials are verified. To speed this up, we added an asynchronous login feature which, if you wished, you could opt out from.

However, this has caused some technical issues for some clients and, as a result, we have made the decision to make this opt-in. With immediate effect, asynchronous login has therefore been switched off.

What do I need to do?

If you had previously opted-out to asynchronous login with the WPCOM_DISABLE_ASYNC_REMOTE_LOGIN constant, then please remove this as the functionality no longer exists. This is optional, but recommended.

If you experience any issues with render blocking and would like to re-enable asynchronous login then please add the following code to your site…

if ( ! defined( 'WPCOM_ENABLE_ASYNC_REMOTE_LOGIN' ) ) {
    define( 'WPCOM_ENABLE_ASYNC_REMOTE_LOGIN', true );
}

If you have any questions, please open a support ticket and we’ll be happy to assist.

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.

Notice: PHP 7.3 Production Upgrade Complete on VIP Go

We’ve completed upgrading the majority of sites on VIP Go to PHP 7.3, in accordance with our planned schedule.

We’re happy to bring this improved stability and performance to our platform, and we want to thank everyone who worked with us to resolve errors or warnings in preparation for this upgrade.

Should you encounter any issues or have any questions, please feel free to contact the VIP support team.

Notice: PHP 7.3 VIP Go non-production upgrade complete

In preparation for the production upgrade to PHP 7.3 on VIP Go, all VIP Go non-production environments, including develop and preprod environments, have now been upgraded from PHP 7.2 to PHP 7.3.

You can find more details about the upgrade in our PHP 7.3 upgrade overview post. Production environments on VIP Go will be upgraded the week of April 23.

If you have any questions or encounter any issues, please feel free to open a ticket, and we’ll be happy to assist.

Notice: PHP 7.3 Testing in Progress for WordPress.com VIP

We’re beginning testing of PHP 7.3 on the WordPress.com platform in order to improve the stability, security, and performance of your VIP sites. From initial testing, we’re seeing a 5-10 percent reduction in page generation time, combined with a 5-10 percent reduction in CPU load.

As always, we are committed to bringing you these improvements while maintaining the stability and minimizing any potential impact to your live sites. We are scanning your code to identify potential incompatibilities, and we will let you know if we find an issue of concern with your sites.

We are aiming to resolve incompatibilities by April 23, 2019 in order to proceed with the upgrade from PHP 7.2 to 7.3.

What’s New in PHP 7.3?

New language features include a more flexible syntax for heredoc and nowdoc, improved error handling, and a new warning on continue statements that target switch structures. For more, see the full PHP 7.3 migration guide.

How Do I Prepare?

You can start preparing for the upgrade to PHP 7.3 by doing the following:

  1. Upgrade your local development environments to PHP 7.3.
  2. Add the PHPCompatibilityWP ruleset to your PHPCS implementation, and set a testVersion of 7.2-; this will flag any issues related to compatibility with 7.2 or higher. Are you making use of Git submodules? If so, we recommend scanning those as well.
  3. Review and act on any warnings or compatibility issues raised by our team as we proactively review client sites.

Further Questions

Finally, if you have PHP 7.3-incompatible errors in your theme code, you may have already heard from us about it — or you’ll be hearing about it shortly. Please make sure your development team reviews and acts on any PHP 7.3 tickets from VIP. If you have questions, please open a ticket, and we’ll be happy to assist.

For Reference


Notice: PHP 7.3 Coming to VIP Go

After an initial testing period, and the resolution of compatibility issues surfaced during that time, we are proceeding with a planned upgrade to PHP 7.3 on all VIP Go environments during the next few weeks.

Schedule

April 8: Upgrade of all non-production environments on VIP Go
April 23: Upgrade of all production environments on VIP Go

We do plan to upgrade both the VIP Go and WordPress.com platforms to PHP 7.3, so we encourage you to test for compatibility, as well as contact VIP support if you need help resolving issues.

For Reference

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

Notice: PHP 7.3 Release Schedule Delayed

We’re pausing our previously stated timeline for the rollout of PHP 7.3. We have rolled back all non-production environments to PHP 7.2 and will not be upgrading production environments to PHP 7.3 on February 25 as previously stated.

In order to provide the most secure and stable platform experience, WordPress.com VIP team is actively working to ensure our platform’s full compatibility with the latest build of PHP 7.3. Our initial testing uncovered some platform compatibility issues, which we are currently working to resolve.

When we have a new timeline for the release of PHP 7.3 on VIP Go, we’ll publish it here, in the VIP Lobby.

We do plan to upgrade both the VIP Go and WordPress.com platforms to PHP 7.3, so we encourage you to test for compatibility, as well as inform us if you need assistance resolving any issues.

More information

PHP 7.3 Upgrade Overview and Testing Resources

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

Notice: PHP 7.3 non-production upgrade complete

Edit (2019-02-07 1700 UTC): Today, we rolled all the non-production environments back to PHP 7.2. This is a temporary measure while we work to troubleshoot a few issues that were discovered during the upgrade. We will update the Lobby further if our schedule should change. Thanks for your patience as we work to perform this upgrade with minimal disruption.

Edit (2019-02-14 400 UTC): We are continuing to work on resolving the issues surfaced during the first PHP 7.3 rollout, so have not brought PHP 7.3 back to non-production containers. We are in the process of revising the schedule for both the prod and non-prod upgrade and will update the lobby when it is ready.

In preparation for the production upgrade to PHP 7.3, all VIP Go non-production environments, including develop and preprod environments, have now been upgraded to PHP 7.3.

You can find more details about the upgrade in our PHP 7.3 upgrade overview post. Production environments will be upgraded the week of February 25 (no change in schedule) following the revised rollout to non-production environments.

If you have any questions, or encounter any issues, please feel free to open a ticket, and we’ll be happy to assist.