WPML 5.0 Beta – A Redesigned Experience and Smarter Automatic Translation
WPML 5.0 is the biggest update we’ve shipped in years.
WordPress 6.9 includes a change that breaks backward compatibility with previous versions of WPML. We just released WPML 4.8.6 so you can update and be fully prepared.
What’s Happening in WordPress 6.9
WordPress is a living project. The core team regularly optimizes performance, stability, and security, which sometimes means changing how things work under the hood.
Occasionally, like with WordPress 6.9, core updates can break backward compatibility in ways that significantly impact multilingual sites.
In this case, WordPress 6.9 changes how certain cache keys are generated. WPML relies on these cache keys to serve the correct language version of your pages. When there’s a mismatch between what WordPress generates and what WPML expects, things stop working correctly.
What Can Happen If You Don’t Update WPML
From our experience, caching issues tend to manifest in surprising ways. With this particular change, if you don’t update to WPML 4.8.6 before updating to WordPress 6.9, you can expect:
- Pages loading in the wrong language
- 404 errors on pages that should exist
- Broken absolute links
- Issues with ACF link fields
- Hierarchical custom post types not working on the frontend
- Incorrect SEO metadata
- Other unexpected behavior
The symptoms may vary depending on your setup, but the root cause is the same.
Updating to WPML 4.8.6
We have released WPML 4.8.6 to all sites, and it can take up to 24 hours for the update to reach yours. Once it does, it will appear as a regular update on the Plugins page in your WordPress admin.
All you have to do is make sure you update WPML to version 4.8.6 before updating WordPress to 6.9.
If you want to manually initiate the update right away, use the following steps:
1
In Your Site’s Admin, Go to Plugins → Add New Plugin and Click the Commercial Tab
2
Click the Check for Updates Button
3
Select WPML 4.8.6 From the List and Click Install
If your site is hosted on WordPress.com, you will not see the Commercial tab in the admin but can still access it by going to the following URL:
- [your site’s URL]/wp-admin/plugin-install.php?tab=commercial
For the exact list of changes in this release, see WPML 4.8.6 changelog.
Keeping WPML Updated Matters
Changes like this are not a one-time event. WordPress will continue evolving, and some of those changes will inevitably affect multilingual functionality. Your theme and other plugins face the same reality as they all need to keep pace with WordPress core.
This is exactly what your active WPML subscription provides:
- All WordPress releases are tested well before they’re public
- Issues like the one in WordPress 6.9 are identified and resolved
- WPML updates ship before WordPress releases a new version
- You don’t need to worry about tracking WordPress development or wondering if something will break — we handle that for you
This is why you can update to WPML 4.8.6 today, and be ready for WordPress 6.9 right away.
