WordPress 5.3 Update Issues

WordPress 5.3 update just recently rolled out and it has caused a lot of problems across the board for many websites. I found out just this week when some customers were having a problem with their websites loading. It was showing a bouncing blue ball instead of loading the website and acting really weird.

I’ve never seen this issue before and was quite surprised to find it. My first initial reaction was thinking that one of the plugins had gone bad. On further inspection, and after deactivating all the plugins and seeing same issue, I realized that there was an update for WordPress available.

After doing the WordPress 5.3 update, the website came right back up with no problems. After I realized that this WordPress 5.3 update caused issues on this website I went to look at some other websites that we manage. All of these websites also had issues, and I realized I had quite a bit of updating in a hurry to get done!

We went through an updated all the websites in our stable, quite a task and made sure all of them were running correctly with the latest version. So if you’ve recently come across some issues with your website and things are not running properly, make sure to update to the latest version of WordPress.

The WordPress 5.3 update also came with a new theme for 2020. What I recommend doing is removing the 2019 theme so that you have just 2020 and the main theme you are using. I recommend removing any other themes that you’re not using that are in there so you should only have one theme for backup which is 2020 and your main theme that you’re using.

The reason why I recommend removing all these other themes is for storage and lightness on the server so that it’s not causing as much drag. It may seem like a little deal but the less themes that you have and less plugins that you have, the tighter ship that you run, the better your WordPress sites are going to run.

So that’s all I have on the WordPress 5.3 update. I hope that you’re website is running smoothly now that you’ve done the update and you’re not having any issues. If you have had some customers complain or some of your staff wondering what’s going on with the website, just explain that this particular WordPress update has caused issues too many different websites.

Obviously this is not common and as the first time I’ve seen a WordPress theme update cause issues for so many websites. Have a question about whether your website is getting updated properly? Get a hold of us!

0 replies

Want to join the discussion?
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Written by: Jophiel Silvestrone

Jophiel Silvestrone has written 326 posts in the Tech Blog.

Jophiel grew up on a ranch in Paradise Valley, Montana near Chico Hot Springs. Working on the ranch instilled work ethic and self motivation. Filled with this drive, Jophiel started mowing the local school's yards twice a month throughout the summers, at the age of 12. He moved to Billings in 2004, where he has been deeply involved in the local business community ever since. A serial entrepreneur, Jophiel has ran multiple businesses in our local community. The first business, a janitorial and carpet cleaning company, founded in 2005, has employed over 50 locals. Moving on to the media industry, Jophiel and several partners founded Green Directory Montana in the spring of 2007. Green Directory's sustainability ranking software awarded points based on sustainable or "green" actions. These points counted towards a business's total "Green Score," which in turn ranked them against other businesses in their category and throughout the entire site. It also featured a limited edition print version distributed annually. A business acquisition allowed Jophiel to focus on new projects, and a few close business colleagues and Jophiel started Rocky Mountain Mr. & Ms. Magazine, a lifestyle publication for men and women in the Magic City. After a year and a half at the helm of RM3 Magazine, the business was purchased. He now runs a web development company SkyPoint Studios and fathers his son Jaoquin, who plays football, basketball, soccer, and is learning snowboarding from his dad. Recently, has expanded to locations in Havasu, Arizona & Vegas. SkyPoint Studios is a market leader in both Billings & Havasu and Jophiel is working on building that same level of market dominance in Vegas. Specialties: Extensive experience in online and offline business. Especially savvy at WordPress, and operate several sites, one example is the blog: skypointwebdesignbillingsmontana.com/tech-blog. Check out skypointwebdesignbillingsmontana.com for the latest projects from SkyPoint Studios.