Jetpack 4.8.1: PHP Version Incompatibility Fix

Jetpack 4.8 was released yesterday with PHP code that caused fatal errors on sites running PHP versions lower than 5.4. While we do our best to test things prior to release, sometimes things fall through the cracks. We’re sorry for any inconvenience for the errors this code may have caused.

This release fixes that issue, as well as a few other bugs.

PHP Version Incompatibility

The updates to Sitemaps in 4.8 included PHP syntax that is only valid in versions 5.4 and higher. This has been updated to support down to PHP 5.2 and we’ve tightened our automated testing to better help prevent this in the future.

Sitemaps

There was an incompatibility with WP Rocket and our Sitemaps after we updated the feature in 4.8. We worked closely with the WP Rocket team to get this fixed as soon as possible and the fix is in both this Jetpack release and in the latest version of WP Rocket.

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User Interface Fixes

The new Settings interface had a couple of minor bugs that were squashed. Clicking the info icon will no longer jump to the top of the page, and the anti-spam card on the dashboard will no longer display the wrong status.

Note about failed updates

In Jetpack 4.8, we had added a lot of new files, most of which are new translation files for languages that have a considerable percentage of translations completed by our community members. Unfortunately, the extra language files caused updates to not complete properly on sites with limited resources that can’t fully process large zip files or copying lots of files when updating a plugin.

If you’re experiencing errors after updating to Jetpack 4.8 due to an incomplete upload or update:

  1. Using FTP, log into your site and navigate to and delete the /wp-content/plugins/jetpack/ folder.
  2. Download the most recent version of the Jetpack plugin here.
  3. Then, manually install the plugin via FTP/SFTP.

This process will most likely fix this problem for you. If you still have trouble after manually updating over FTP/SFTP, get in touch with Jetpack Support.

Full Changelog and Thanks

As always, read the full changelog to see all the updates please get in touch or leave us a comment on this post if you have feedback.

* Special kudos to these Jetpack users who helped us find and squash these bugs!

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Comments

  1. jensenworks says:

    Could this explain why 3 sites, the only 3 out of 83 I manage, that are all on a different server, ended up turning pure white?

    Like

    • Jeremy says:

      This could indeed be because those 3 sites are running an old version of PHP. Jetpack 4.8.1 should solve your problems on those 3 sites, but it might be worth contacting the host of those 3 sites to see if you can be updated to a more recent version of PHP, like PHP7!

      Like

  2. scifikriss says:

    Yep noticed that when I couldn’t get into my site… luckily I have a great hoster and once told what had happened knew what to do… so went off and changed the htaccess files… 🙂

    Like

  3. Tamio says:

    The basic things seem to work now. But still malfunctional on both of my Blogs. I.e.: I can’t activate / deactivate the gallery media module and the galleries don’t appear. 😦
    BTW: I use PHP 7.

    Like

    • Jeremy says:

      Sorry to hear that! Could you try to go to Jetpack > Settings in your dashboard, and switch the “Speed up images and photos” option off and then back on. If that doesn’t help, could you send us an email with more details about your site and some examples of galleries that don’t work so we can take a closer look?

      Thanks!

      Like

  4. Admin says:

    Markdown is not working in 4.8.1 – module cannot be found.

    Like

    • Jeremy says:

      Thanks for the report! I can’t seem to reproduce the problem on my end, unfortunately. Would you mind contacting us via this contact form, so we can run some more tests with you and get to the bottom of this?

      Thanks!

      Like

  5. bbogadosenaticsgovpy says:

    I can not activate the modules

    Happens with any module that I want to enable or disable

    “Error updating options. Error: markdown: The requested Jetpack module is not available”

    error in console POST /wp-json/jetpack/v4/settings 400 (Bad Request) admin.js?ver=4.8.1:9

    Like

  6. paulinemiller2009 says:

    Go daddy took all my plugins off and told me to activate them all I did that but I cannot get my website working I’ve got another theme page come up with numbers on and I just don’t no how to get my website back hope you can help thanks

    Like

    • Jeremy says:

      Could you contact us via this form and send us more details about the errors and the messages you see when trying to access your site? We’ll help you get this fixed!

      Like

  7. mambro says:

    WP Version 4.7.3
    PHP Version 5.3.2-1ubuntu4.19

    The pag dashboard and settings not working…. reverting to previous version 😦

    /wp-admin/admin.php?page=jetpack#/dashboard —> not working – blank page
    /wp-admin/admin.php?page=jetpack#/settings —-> not working – blank page
    /wp-admin/admin.php?page=stats —-> working
    /wp-admin/admin.php?page=akismet-key-config —-> working

    Like

  8. Dave Z says:

    Should sitemaps display under both http://www.blog.com/sitemap.xml and blog.com/sitemap.xml? I’m only getting one. Not sure if that throws Google off. Thanks!

    Like

    • Jeremy says:

      That will depend on your site’s settings, and how you’ve set up WordPress and your domain on your hosting plan. I would personally recommend that you avoid having your site available at 2 different URLs; instead you could redirect all requests with www. to the version with http://www., or the opposite. Your hosting provider should be able to help you with this!

      Like

  9. Massimo Zanardi says:

    Hi Jeremy.
    On my server I LAMP Apache 2.2.15, PHP 5.3.3 and MySQL 5.1.73. Is ‘recommended to re-install the old version of jetpack 4.7.1 manually, or automatically install the new 4.8.1 version already’ existing in the wordpress repository?
    Thanks in advance for your attention.

    Like

    • Jeremy says:

      I would suggest that you update to Jetpack 4.8.2; it should solve any issue you’re having with Jetpack!

      Like

  10. MakeOnlineShop says:

    Hello, how to disable stats now ? I cannot find the option anymore. Thanks.

    Like

    • Jeremy says:

      You can go to this page to find a list of all Jetpack features, with a link to activate or deactivate each feature:
      http://yousite.com/wp-admin/admin.php?page=jetpack_modules

      Like

      • Pea says:

        Thanks for providing the link `/wp-admin/admin.php?page=jetpack_modules`. But, can you explain why there is no link to get to that page?

        Like

      • Jeremy says:

        You can find a link to get to this page by going to the Jetpack menu in your dashboard, and clicking on the “Debug” link at the bottom of the page. You’ll find a lot of information on that debug page, including a link to the full module list.

        I hope this helps.

        Like

  11. stufffashionlondon says:

    I can no longer see yoast seo or add images to my posts, the site freezes when I try to do various actions and I get error messages. Please can I roll back this and the plug in on 4th.

    Like

    • Jeremy says:

      Could you try to update to the most recent version of Jetpack, 4.8.2? If that doesn’t help, could you try to deactivate each one of your plugins, one at a time, starting with Jetpack, and send us an email once you’ve found the plugin that appears to be creating the conflict?

      Thanks!

      Like

  12. raouldeb says:

    Hello,
    I’m using jetpack forms as a contact form on my website. But since this update the email’s I receive in Gmail are all in plain text with HTML markup. This makes them very chaotic to read. I use Postman SMTP to validate emails for gmail. Any solution for this problem? Thanks 🙂

    Like

  13. Anthony Tornambe says:

    Good news

    Like

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