Yoast SEO 19.5 Update Causes Fatal Errors
WordPress websites report fatal errors after Yoast SEO plugin 19.5 updates
Publishers who upgraded to Yoast 19.5 might have had more success than anticipated. Soon, reports of fatal errors due to the update began to surface. The error seems to be specific and not universal.
Yoast Search Engine Version 19.5
Yoast version 19.5 includes several improvements that improve user experience, fix an issue with Article structured data validation, and address minor bugs.
The Front-end SEO inspector is a notable improvement that gives an overview of posts and various SEO settings such as structured data and meta tags.
A bug in one situation also caused a fatal error.
If there are conflicts between plugins, it can lead to a fatal error.
Yoast Fatal Error
Search marketing expert Eli Schwartz tweeted about a fatal mistake.
It turns out that an update by @yoast broke the system
It is not unusual for plugin conflicts to cause problems. However, this was not a random issue, as other users confirmed the same thing.
There were also fatal errors reported on the Yoast SEO support site at WordPress.org.
One user submitted:
Fatal error
“However, I received a Fatal Error. I can’t access my website through either backend or log in. How do I fix this problem?”
Two other people responded to the same problem, one offering this comment.
“Same here. Both the backend and site can’t log in, and each throws a fatal error.
Yoast auto-updated today, as we saw.
The site has been moved from the plugins directory to a temporary directory.
Another user with the same set-up of the premium and the free version posted :
“Fatal error occurred after updating.” You can also get premium, accessible, and News SEO.
The Yoast official support person was sorry, responding with the following statement.
“We are sorry to hear that you have made a fatal error. Thank you for reporting.
We are investigating. The Premium version has not yet been released. This should not have happened.
The site has been moved from the plugins directory to a temporary directory.
Another user with the same set-up of the premium and the free version posted :
“Fatal error occurred after updating.” You can also get premium, accessible, and News SEO.
The Yoast official support person was sorry, responding with the following statement.
“We are sorry to hear that you have made a fatal error. Thank you for reporting.
We are investigating. The Premium version has not yet been released. This should not have happened.
We are trying to solve this problem as soon as possible by releasing a free patch and Yoast SEO premium as soon as possible.
Either party should fix the fatal error.
Yoast Responses Joost De Valk, a founder of Yoast, offered this feedback:
“The team quickly created a patch, and for most sites, that solved it completely.
Some sites experienced problems with the auto-update mechanism, so they didn’t get fixed automatically.
We’ve been discussing this topic internally as we were unhappy about the fact that it happened and how we dealt with it. It’s an unfortunate event, and we all feel terrible for the broken websites.
Yoast Identifies Problem
The last commenter that noted they had both the premium and free Yoast plugins installed may have provided hints to the cause of the fatal flaw. This was the reason the Fatal Error occurred.
Yoast quickly responded to the problems and released a patch that day, version 19.5.1.
According to the Yoast WordPress Plugin Changelog, which documents what is in each upgrade:
“19.5.1 – Bugfixes:
It has fixed a fatal bug in Yoast SEO 19.5 that was introduced with Yoast SEO Premium.
Version 19.5.1 fixes the problem
Yoast 19.5.1 has solved the problem.
This comment was posted by one user in the Yoast Support Forum:
“Update 19.5.1 has fixed the issue.”
It’s almost certain that there will be very few issues with edge cases, given the millions of plugins available.
One user, for example, describes not being satisfied with the experience of updating from 19.4 to 19.5.1 in a post on the Yoast support forum.
They shared:
“I tried to go from 19.4 to 19.5.1, but it still broke my website. The issue is not solved by.5.1. I have never upgraded to 19.5. I went straight from 19.4 up to 19.5.1
I have Yoast premium and woo. All 3. The first one I tried to update was regular Yoast. I have all other plugins up to date. I hope that this supports you to fix 19.5.1
Autoupdate is not something I trust.
But this one got me.”
Yoast 19.5.1 may be one of these edge cases.
Yoast published an update to Yoast’s free version (19.5) but didn’t simultaneously publish an upgrade to its premium version. This caused conflict between the plugins, leading to a fatal error.
