Anyone who upgraded their version of WordPress to 2.9 just before Christmas may have received a nasty surprise when they came back from the Christmas and New Year break. Those smart enough to have scheduled their content across Christmas and New Year could have found that none of their posts went live, thanks to a bug in WordPress 2.9.
The chaps at WordPress have fixed this in their hurriedly released WordPress 2.9.1 (2.9 didn’t last long) but the damage for many will have already been done. Content is vitally important for SEO and websites need to stay refreshed over inactive periods such as the Christmas and New Year break. Scheduling content is one of the best ways of ensuring this happens, but for WordPress to fail at this oh so simple task would be a mighty pain.
WordPress had this to say about the ‘glitch’:
After over a million downloads of WordPress 2.9 and lots of feedback from all of you, we’re releasing WordPress 2.9.1. This release addresses a handful of minor issues as well as a rather annoying problem where scheduled posts and pingbacks are not processed correctly due to incompatibilities with some hosts. If any of these issues affect you, give 2.9.1 a try. Download 2.9.1 or upgrade automatically from the Tools->Upgrade menu in your blog’s admin area.
Shame they couldn’t have tested that before releasing a new version that can cause posts to display that dreaded ‘missed schedule’ label in the dashboard – right before most businesses disappear for two weeks.
