Weekly WordPress News: Automatic WordPress Update Blues

Howdy, WordPress friends.

Last week, there was a problem with the WordPress auto-update system, which caused some sites to be mistakenly updated to an alpha version of WordPress 5.5.3 rather than WordPress 5.5.2, as should have been the case.

Beyond that, Wordfence digs into the WordPress 5.5.2 security release that you’ve hopefully already applied.

Let’s get to all of this week’s news…

WORDPRESS NEWS AND ARTICLES

• WordPress Auto-Update System Misfires, Updating Live Sites to an Alpha Release – WP Tavern explains what went wrong.
• Introducing Patterns: Prebuilt Blocks for Beautifully Designed Websites – Automattic released hundreds of block patterns to WordPress.com users.
• Gutenberg 9.3 Provides Indicator of Where Full-Site Editing Is Going, a Future Without Widgets and Customizer Screens – a look at some of the new features.
• Unpacking the WordPress 5.5.2/5.5.3 Security Release – Wordfence digs into the security release from last week.
• I discount, you discount, we both lose – Pixelgrade shares their thoughts on discounts.

TUTORIALS AND HOW-TOS

• Reusing Functionality for WordPress Plugins with Blocks – a tutorial for devs.
• How to Fix the 504 Gateway Timeout Error on Your WordPress Site – as the title says.
• Publish Information Quickly with WordPress – some tips.
• Create and Import a Project Portfolio Using Elementor, Meta Box, and WP All Import – a detailed tutorial from Meta Box.
• How to Create an Excerpt From a Post Without an Excerpt and Limit It by Character Count – a very specific tutorial.

RESOURCES

• Sugar Calendar Review: Lightweight, Extensible WordPress Calendar Plugin – check out our review of this lightweight event plugin.
• Mediabay Review: Add Folders to the WordPress Media Library – use this plugin to add folders to your Media Library.
• Kadence Theme Review: Does it live up to the hype? – check out the new Kadence theme.
• Building a business on Intercom – a new episode of Matt Report.