WordPress 6.9 is released on December 2nd and there are already numerous widespread problems.
If you haven’t updated yet, DO NOT UPDATE until you read this.
Major Plugins Affected:
WooCommerce - Checkout issues, broken cart functionality. Emergency patch already released.
Yoast SEO - Fatal errors with Site Kit integration, broken Elementor compatibility. Versions 26.4 & 26.5 pushed as emergency fixes.
Elementor - Template layouts breaking on frontend, CSS not loading properly. Templates look fine in editor but distorted when inserted into pages. Downgrading to 6.8 fixes it.
WPML - Cache key generation changes breaking multilingual sites, wrong language versions displaying. WPML 4.8.6 fixes it.
StoreFront - Product pagination completely broken.
Common Issues Being Reported:
- Block alignment broken
- Image backgrounds with single quotes breaking
- Fatal PHP errors flooding error logs
- Template layouts distorting on frontend
- Unbearably long backend load times
- CSS loading failures
The Real Problem:
WordPress.org support forums are lighting up. The cache key generation change (WP_Query caching) is causing cascading issues across plugins that rely on those keys. This wasn’t properly communicated in the Field Guide, and plugin devs had to struggle.
What To Do RIGHT NOW:
If you haven’t updated:
- Don’t. Wait at least a week.
- Test on staging first (seriously, if you don’t have staging, get it)
- Update your plugins BEFORE WordPress core
If you already updated and broke:
- Update WooCommerce, Yoast, Elementor, WPML IMMEDIATELY
- Check Elementor settings: Set CSS loading to “Internal Embedding”
- Clear all caches (site, server, CDN)
- If still broken, downgrade to 6.8 via WP Rollback plugin
If you’re a plugin developer:
- Check if you’re caching WP_Query results - the cache key format changed
- Test against 6.9 NOW if you haven’t already
- The Abilities API is cool, but the cache changes are breaking production sites
Is your site experiencing issues? What problems are you encountering? Share your experiences below.
