Shortly after Jetpack 4.0 was released yesterday many users reported a fatal error and/or white screen when updating. Developers started warning each other in the Advanced WordPress Facebook group to avoid updating to 4.0, after having received emails from clients with sites that went down. A followup 4.0.2 release was pushed out today for users with the specific configuration that caused the fatal error.
This is the third time in under two months that the Jetpack team has had to send out a followup update on the heels of a release to correct significant problems. Fortunately, the team worked quickly to get a fix out to sites with fatal errors.
The 4.0 milestone brings major UI improvements for on-boarding new users. In previous versions of the plugin, visiting the Jetpack settings page showed a big green button prompting users to connect to WordPress.com.
This release introduces a full page explaining the benefits of Jetpack to encourage users to hook it up. It also displays a picture of the development and support team, an explanation of Photon, and the benefits of the Protect module.
Version 4.0 also adds a new editor view for VideoPress that lets users edit the shortcode in the editor with a new modal options window. This makes it easy to wrangle VideoPress settings directly in the editor
A few other notable enhancements in this release include:
- Tighter WooCommerce Integration: Social sharing icons now appear on WooCommerce single product views
- Widget Visibility for Custom Post Type Archives: Show/hide widgets for CPT single or archive views
- Selective Refresh for Widgets: Widgets now update instantly with live previews in the customizer
- Updated schema.org Microdata for Breadcrumbs: Gives search engines a better understanding of a page’s position in the site hierarchy
Jetpack 4.0 also adds performance enhancements for the Protect module and Contact Forms. The method it uses to clean the database of spam form submission records is now more efficient. Check out the changelog to see a full list of all the enhancements and fixes in this release. It should be safe to update your sites and clients’ sites to 4.0.2 without any ill effects.
JetPack really botched this rollout. It’s a great plug-in for a lot of reasons, but it’s been getting sloppy as of late.
I did what it instructed (thank God it had detailed enough instructions on what to do), but having to go into FTP to clean up someone else’s mess is pretty infuriating.