Category Archives: Upgrade

Upgrade to WordPress 5.5 October 16, 2020.

On Friday, October 16 from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m., we will be upgrading blog.ryerson.ca to a new version. During this time, blog creators and visitors may experience a brief outage.

WordPress 5.5 “Eckstine”

This upgrade introduces lazy image loading, and improvements to the block editor, including accessibility enhancements and new block patterns.


How will my blog be impacted?

As always, a broad range of tests will be conducted to ensure the upgrade doesn’t negatively impact the blogs on blog.ryerson.ca.

Unfortunately, not all combinations of plugins, themes and content types can be tested in advance of the upgrade. If any issues related to the upgrade come to light, they will be added to the bottom of this post.

After the upgrade is complete, please contact us if you have any issues with areas of your site that worked prior to the update.


Known issues after this WordPress upgrade

No issues specific to this upgrade have been found yet.


If you have any questions or concerns, please submit an inquiry to the online form found on the Contact Us page.

Upgrade to WordPress 5.4 May 29, 2020.

On Friday, May 29 from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m., we will be upgrading blog.ryerson.ca to a new version. During this time, blog creators and visitors may experience a brief outage.

WordPress 5.4 “Adderley”

This upgrade includes improvements to the block editor, including accessibility enhancements and two new blocks for adding social icons and buttons.


How will my blog be impacted?

As always, a broad range of tests will be conducted to ensure the upgrade doesn’t negatively impact the blogs on blog.ryerson.ca.

Unfortunately, not all combinations of plugins, themes and content types can be tested in advance of the upgrade. If any issues related to the upgrade come to light, they will be added to the bottom of this post.

After the upgrade is complete, please contact us if you have any issues with areas of your site that worked prior to the update.


Known issues after the WordPress 5.4 upgrade

No issues specific to this upgrade have been found yet.


If you have any questions or concerns, please submit an inquiry to the online form found on the Contact Us page.

Upgrade to WordPress 5.3 January 31, 2020.

On Friday, January 31 from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m., we will be upgrading blog.ryerson.ca to a new version. During this time, blog creators and visitors may experience a brief outage.

WordPress 5.3 “Kirk”

This upgrade includes improvements to the block editor, including accessibility enhancements and a new “group” block for combining blocks into their own unit.

In addition, the new Twenty Twenty theme will come with this upgrade.


How will my blog be impacted?

As always, a broad range of tests will be conducted to ensure the upgrade doesn’t negatively impact the blogs on blog.ryerson.ca.

Unfortunately, not all combinations of plugins, themes and content types can be tested in advance of the upgrade. If any issues related to the upgrade come to light, they will be added to the bottom of this post.

After the upgrade is complete, please contact us if you have any issues with areas of your site that worked prior to the update.


Known issues after the WordPress 5.3 upgrade

No issues specific to this upgrade have been found yet.


If you have any questions or concerns, please submit an inquiry to the online form found on the Contact Us page.

Upgrade to WordPress 5.2.2 August 09, 2019

On Friday, August 9 from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m., we will be upgrading blog.ryerson.ca to version 5.2.2, “Jaco”. During this time, blog creators and visitors may experience a brief outage.

WordPress 5.2.2 “Jaco”

This upgrade doesn’t introduce many visible changes, instead focusing on improvements to the behind-the-scenes site health features for the network administrator, accessibility and bug fixes.


How will my blog be impacted?

As always, we are conducting a broad range of tests to ensure the upgrade doesn’t negatively impact our network of sites. Unfortunately, we cannot test all combinations of plugins, themes and content types. If we find any issues related to the upgrade, I will add them to the bottom of this post.

After the upgrade is complete, please contact us if you have any issues with areas of your site that worked prior to the update.


Known issues after the WordPress 5.2.2 upgrade

No issues specific to this upgrade have been found yet.


Upgrade to WordPress 5.1 March 22, 2019

On Friday, March 22 from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m., we will be upgrading blog.ryerson.ca to version 5.1, “Betty”. During this time, blog creators and visitors may experience a brief outage.

WordPress 5.1 “Betty”

This upgrade doesn’t introduce many visible changes, instead focusing on improvements to the post/page editor, as well as some behind-the-scenes site health features for the network administrator.


How will my blog be impacted?

As always, we are conducting a broad range of tests to ensure the upgrade doesn’t negatively impact our network of sites. Unfortunately, we cannot test all combinations of plugins, themes and content types. If we find any issues related to the upgrade, I will add them to the bottom of this post.

After the upgrade is complete, please contact us if you have any issues with areas of your site that worked prior to the update.


Known issues after the WordPress 5.1 upgrade

No issues specific to this upgrade have been found yet.


Gutenberg – the new post editor for WordPress

WordPress was recently upgraded to version 5.0.3 on blog.ryerson.ca. With this upgrade came a new editor for posts and pages, known as ‘Gutenberg’.

Since August, blog administrators have been able to activate a Gutenberg plugin for their blog, to give them a preview of what was coming.

Gutenberg

In this post, we will cover some of the Gutenberg basics, and let you know how this change may impact your blog.


Continue reading Gutenberg – the new post editor for WordPress

Upgrade to WordPress 5.0 February 15, 2019

On Friday, February 15 from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m., we will be upgrading blog.ryerson.ca to version 5.0, “Bebo”. During this time, the system will not be available.

Welcome to ‘Gutenberg’

Last year, we announced that a new way of editing posts – a block editor called ‘Gutenberg’ – would be coming soon. WordPress 5.0 includes Gutenberg as the default content editor.

This may present a bit of a learning curve for some. It would be ideal if everyone could take some time to become familiar with this new editor, but we understand that not everyone has extra time. As such, there will be a new plugin called “Classic Editor” that each blog administrator can choose to enable if they would prefer to stick with the “old” post editor for the remainder of the term.

For details on the coming upgrade, please see the WordPress release notes: WordPress 5.0 “Bebo”.


How will my blog be impacted?

As always, we are conducting a broad range of tests to ensure the upgrade doesn’t negatively impact our network of sites. Unfortunately, we cannot test all combinations of plugins, themes and content types. If we find any issues related to the upgrade, I will update this post (see the list below).

After the upgrade is complete, please contact us if you have any issues with areas of your site that worked prior to the update.


Known issues with WordPress (v 5.0x)

Impacted areaDescriptionStatus
Categories – when assigned in Post Editor screen.Some users receive an error message when attempting to save/publish a post with certain categories selected.

Workaround:
In the list of posts, use the ‘Quick Edit’ feature to assign categories after the post has been completed and published.

Known issues with Gutenberg

Impacted areaDescriptionStatus
Audio/video playlists – no blockThere is no audio/video playlist block at this time.

Workaround:
Use the “Shortcode” Gutenberg block, with the playlist shortcode. Details can be found on the WordPress codex.
Button block doesn’t respect colour selections when using Twenty fourteen theme.
Despite selecting foreground and backgroundcolours, the button background appears bright green (from the Twenty Fourteen theme)Workaround: Instead of selecting one of the colour options you see, click the multicoloured wheel and select a ‘custom’ colour. These seem to work as expected.
Add block option (“+”) does not always display between blocks.When you hover on the borders in between, above and below blocks, the + icon should appear to add a block in that space. Sometimes the one above the currently selected block does not appear.Workaround: Try selecting another block, to shift the focus OR save your post as a draft and reload the post editor.

blog.ryerson.ca: Outage December 18

On Tuesday, December 18 from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m., we will be upgrading the version of PHP that runs on blog.ryerson.ca. During this time, the system will not be available.

UPDATE December 5: Please note that this upgrade will not include an update to WordPress 5.0. This will be scheduled for the new year.

Recommendation for Fall 2018 course blogs

As this upgrade may impact the way that some of the blogs run, we strongly recommend that the grading of all Fall 2018 blogs be completed prior to the December 18 update.

An email has been sent out to all instructors who have course blogs running this term.


How will my blog.ryerson.ca blog be impacted?

Our initial tests have not shown much impact to specific blog functionality, however, we cannot test all combinations of plugins, themes and content types. If we find any issues related to the upgrade, I will update this post (see the list below).

After the upgrade is complete, please contact us if you have any issues with areas of your site that worked prior to the update.


Known issues after the PHP 7.1 upgrade

Impacted areaDescription
Theme: Under the influenceBroken after PHP 7.1 upgrade.
Few blogs are using this theme, and owners have been contacted. As this theme is no longer being developed, it will be removed from blog.ryerson.ca.

Upgrade to blog.ryerson.ca on Friday, December 01, 2017 – WordPress 4.9, ‘Tipton’

blog.ryerson.ca will be upgraded to WordPress 4.9 on Friday, December 01, 2017 between 6:00am and 8:00am.

blog.ryerson.ca users, and visitors to your sites, may experience a brief outage during this time.

This upgrade includes some feature changes, security fixes and performance updates.
For more information, see:
https://wordpress.org/news/2017/11/tipton/.

Please report any problems you may experience post-upgrade via the form linked on our Contact Us page.

What’s New in “Tipton”?

  • A new widget for easily adding a gallery.
  • An improved text widget, adding the ability to embed media.
  • Customizer updates that allow you to save changes as ‘draft’ or schedule them to release at a later date.

Upgrade on Friday, July 14, 2017 – blog.ryerson.ca to upgrade to WordPress 4.8, ‘Evans’

blog.ryerson.ca will be upgraded to WordPress 4.8 on Friday, July 14, 2017 between 8:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m.

blog.ryerson.ca users, and visitors to your sites, may experience a brief outage during this time.

This upgrade includes some feature changes, security fixes and performance updates.
Details can be found here.

Please report any problems you may experience post-upgrade via the form linked on our Contact Us page.

What’s New in “Evans”?

  • A few new media widgets, including widgets for easily adding images, video cliips, and audio.
  • A an improved text widget, adding Rich Text functionality for easy styling of text.