PHP 8.2 Update Timeline Extended

Recently, the PHP core team voted on several topics, two of which affect our current update timeline:

  1. A unanimous vote to extend release cycles from 3 years to 4 years.
    1. 2 years for bug fixes
    2. 2 years for security support
  2. A unanimous vote to extend release cycles to the end of the calendar year.
    1. Previously, cycles ended in late November.

What does this mean for the VIP PHP 8.2 update timeline?

As a result of this vote, security support for PHP 8.1 has been extended by one year, to December 31, 2025. This means that VIP’s previously communicated timeline to ensure customers are on version 8.2 in November 2024, is no longer being enforced.

While an additional year might be exactly what your team needs right now, VIP strongly encourages those who have planned on updating to 8.2 this year, to keep moving forward. As you can see from the PHP timeline here, after next year’s 8.1 cycle ends, every year following will still require an update, unless you’re a version or two ahead. Staying a version ahead gives your team the flexibility to plan your updates with more buffer and control, and you get to enjoy the benefits of newer versions, earlier.

Should you need assistance as you’re working through the update, our Support team is always available to answer questions. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you need assistance. For future update planning, keep our Upgrade Assurance Service in mind. Instead of the do-it-yourself approach, focus on your key priorities while our experienced staff manage, validate, and implement your PHP update for you with the specific needs of your applications in mind. Reach out to your Support Team if you’re interested in learning more.

*NEW* VIP Timeline for environments not yet on PHP 8.2 (Tentative)

While PHP’s support for version 8.1 is now extended until December 31, 2025, we know that December is both an extremely busy time of year for most customers, as well as a period of code freezes, and time away from work. For these reasons, WordPress VIP is currently targeting the timeline outlined below, avoiding most of December 2025 in our timeline. While these dates are tentative, and will be confirmed by January 2025, they should give you an idea of how far in advance of the December 31 date, we are planning.

Tuesday, November 18, 2025
VIP Updates Non-Production Environments to PHP 8.2
VIP will begin updating all non-production environments that are not yet on PHP 8.2. We are proceeding with non-production environments first to provide customers time to address any issues that arise as a result of the update, before updating production environments.

Tuesday, December 2, 2025
VIP Updates Production Environments to PHP 8.2
VIP will begin updating all production environments that are not yet on PHP 8.2. After this date, working with your teams on post-update issues will be the priority. 

Earlier PHP Version Options Removed
The option to select PHP 8.1 will be removed from the software management tool. 

Wednesday, December 31, 2025
PHP 8.1 End of Life
Security support for PHP 8.1 ends.

Parse.ly Plugin 3.15: New Release and Default Version

We are delighted to announce that the Parse.ly plugin version 3.15 will become available in VIP staging and production environments on Tuesday, May 14, 2024. Before using it in production, we recommend testing the new release in staging.

This release will become the default in production on Tuesday, May 21, 2024, and all non-pinned environments will be auto-upgraded to this version. These changes do not affect customers who don’t use wp-parsely, or use an integration method outside of mu-plugins.

What’s new

  • Smart Linking will retry to get results up to 3 times when certain errors occur. This process is reflected in the UI and can be cancelled at any time.
  • Improved API content and request handling.
  • Numerous bugfixes and code quality improvements, which were the main focus for this release.

Introducing: Updated Support Intake Form

We are pleased to share the first update in a series of improvements to WordPress VIP’s support experience. Our expanded form provides our team with more information about your request, allowing us to respond to tickets more effectively.

Screenshot of the new WordPress VIP support experience

The first thing we’ll ask for is a general category for your request – this gives us a clear idea of what problem you’re trying to solve. Each category has a specific set of questions designed to gather details on the issue, helping our team get started on your request.

You can access this form from your VIP Dashboard by clicking the question mark in the top corner to open the Support menu and select Submit a ticket.

Screenshot of the support help menu in the VIP Admin

This change represents the first step in an ongoing evolution of the WordPress VIP support experience to be more effective and efficient. As you use the new process, please share your feedback or suggestions for improvements. 

WordPress 6.5.3 Maintenance Release

This maintenance release features 12 bug fixes in Core and 9 bug fixes for the block editor. For a full summary of the changes, see the Release Candidate announcement.

WordPress 6.5.3 is a short-cycle release. The next major release will be version 6.6 and is currently planned for 16 July 2024. You can find a roadmap of all the planned features here.

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

Call for Testing: Jetpack 13.4-beta

Jetpack 13.4-beta is available now for testing and the download link is available here

Jetpack 13.4 will be deployed to VIP on Thursday, May 16, 2024*. The upgrade is expected to be performed at 17:00 UTC (1:00PM ET).

*This deployment date and time are subject to change if issues are discovered during testing of the Jetpack release.

A full list of changes is available in the commit log.

What is being added or changed?

Enhancements

  • Paid Content Block: Swap out the login flow.
  • Subscriptions: Manage subscribers in Jetpack Cloud instead of WP.com.
  • Subscription widget: Remove “follow” term from confirmation message
  • WordAds: Ensure that ads.txt works on subdirectory websites.

Improved compatibility

  • Theme tools: Devicepx functionality is deprecated.
  • Theme tools: Site-logo functionality is deprecated in favour of core supported custom-logo.

Bug fixes

  • Sidebar: Fix showing the double arrow on active menu when RTL

What do I need to do?

We recommend the below:

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

As you’re testing, there are a few things to keep in mind:

  • Check your browser’s JavaScript console and see if there are any errors reported by Jetpack there.
  • Use Query Monitor to help make PHP notices and warnings more noticeable and report anything you see.

Questions?

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

Parse.ly Plugin: End of AI features support in versions below 3.14

Summary

If you are using Content Helper AI features and running a wp-parsely version below 3.14, AI features will stop working on June 3 2024. To remediate this, an upgrade to Parse.ly plugin version 3.14 or newer will be needed. All the non-AI features of the plugin will keep working as expected.

Who is affected by this change

Customers who have enrolled to use Content Helper AI features (such as Title Suggestions, Smart Linking, Excerpt Generator) and are running a version of wp-parsely lower than 3.14, whether as part of vip-go-mu-plugins or as a self-managed installation.

What is causing this change

Parse.ly plugin versions below 3.14 use a legacy version of the Parse.ly AI infrastructure that was deployed during the initial testing phases of our AI tooling. The legacy infrastructure is incompatible with the new infrastructure (which is receiving regular updates and improvements) used in wp-parsely version 3.14 and newer. The old infrastructure is being decommissioned on June 3 2024. As such, any implementations that are based on it will become inoperable.

How to fix this

If you are affected, the Parse.ly plugin will need to be updated to version 3.14 or newer to make AI features work again. We always recommend using the latest wp-parsely version provided by vip-go-mu-plugins.

New Feature: Insights & Metrics

In December, we announced the availability of our Insights & Metrics panel. Thanks to your feedback, we have diligently improved the experience and are proud to announce new features and improvements today.

Your site is vital to your business. That’s why you partner with WordPress VIP. Application Insights & Metrics gives you the visibility and tools you need to accurately assess the performance and stability of your applications.

Many of you have used this feature in beta to better understand how your application performs directly from the VIP Dashboard. Here is a short demo of what both new and returning users can expect with the official release of Insights and Metrics.

You may have noticed significant improvements to time selection in the demo. We frequently heard the need for more precise controls, and now you have them–including the ability to share a link to a specific time period for improved collaboration.

There are hundreds of metrics you can look at to access your site. The Insights & Metrics panel is designed by our WordPress experts to put the most important numbers at your fingertips. 

The Insights & Metrics panel shows metrics for:

  • Origin response time – measure how fast your application responds.
  • Origin and Edge response codes – quickly track down any application errors.
  • PHP Process – understand application load.
  • Slow MySQL queries – zero in on queries slowing down your users.
  • Cache hit rate – ensure that your application takes full advantage of the VIP’s edge CDN.

To get started, log in to your account on the VIP Dashboard and select “Performance” then “Insights & Metrics” for any application. 

Read our documentation on the Insights & Metrics panel.

And we aren’t done yet. In the coming weeks, we will begin a closed beta of anomaly detection to highlight when important metrics move beyond historical norms.

Call for Testing: Jetpack 13.3

Jetpack 13.3 is available now for testing and the download link is available here

Jetpack 13.3 will be deployed to VIP on Wednesday, April 17, 2024*. The upgrade is expected to be performed at 17:00 UTC (1:00PM ET).

*This deployment date and time are subject to change if issues are discovered during testing of the Jetpack release.

A full list of changes is available in the commit log.

What is being added or changed?

Enhancements

  • AI Assistant: Provide per-block quick actions to make them more relevant.
  • Blocks: “Earn” category renamed to “Monetize”.
  • General: Only show installation errors on Plugins page.
  • Jetpack AI: When the response includes a title and post title is empty, use provided title as post title.
  • Member login block: Add ability to hide manage subscription link.
  • My Jetpack: Trigger red bubble notification when a broken installation is detected.
  • Newsletters: Display Email settings on Newsletter settings page.
  • Newsletters: Ensure blog stats and top posts blocks do not render in email newsletters.
  • Newsletters: Reorder settings cards to improve hierarchy.
  • Newsletters: Use radio buttons instead of toggles on Email Settings.
  • Sharing: Add a Bluesky sharing button.
  • Sharing: add a Threads sharing button and a Threads sharing button block.
  • Sharing: Add Native (Web Share) button to Sharing Buttons block.
  • Sharing: Remove Like button from master bar.
  • Social: Add support for an SMS button.

Improved compatibility

  • Carousel: disable WordPress’ lightbox option when Jetpack’s Carousel feature is activated.
  • General: Remove methods that were deprecated before the release of Jetpack 10.0, in 2021.
  • SEO Tools: make the feature available on non-connected sites.
  • Subscriptions: Remove subscription settings from reading options page.

Bug fixes

  • Dashboard: Update the sharing button settings to clarify the available options (block or legacy sharing buttons).
  • Enhanced Distribution: begin deprecation process as the Firehose is winding down.
  • Paid Content Block: Fix subscriber view content not rendering in WordPress.com reader.
  • Sharing: avoid PHP warnings when using custom post types.
  • Sharing: fix the display of the sharing block in some classic themes.
  • SSO: Disable WordPress.com invitation functionality for non-connected users.

What do I need to do?

We recommend the below:

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

As you’re testing, there are a few things to keep in mind:

  • Check your browser’s JavaScript console and see if there are any errors reported by Jetpack there.
  • Use Query Monitor to help make PHP notices and warnings more noticeable and report anything you see.

Questions?

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