First time ever, I had a tough time with a WordPress update.
The shortcode being disabled in user-generated content in block themes (shortcode blocks included) in the update caused a lot of pain.
Some of our themes and plugins rely heavily on shortcodes to render content. It allowed fine customizations with freedom of adding content blocks at will.
Yesterday, when the shortcodes were found to be disabled, a lot of websites needed to be fixed quickly. I am still not sure if all sites have been fixed.
I don’t appreciate this sudden decision to disable an important feature — “shortcode” — that has been like forever. It must have created trouble for countless websites.
Instead of disabling shortcodes without notice, there should have been a notification email sent with updates and should have been allowed for at least users with administrator and editor rights.
How did this update affect you?
Edit: If you aren’t sure about the issue, you should check the discussion and WP news.
One in the WP trac here: https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/58333
They weren’t disabled on purpose were they? I highly doubt they’d do that willy nilly in a security update
I only install minor updates on test sites and handful of small sites to see what gets affected before deploying on larger sites. Sometimes things aren’t in notes, sometimes rush updating without reading patch notes due to time/ schedule , etc… so easiest is to test locally, test sites/ small sites where it is easy to reverse changes.
You can also wait a day or two to see what others run into
It works for me and never had issue. It must be your theme your using
It was right up front in the release notes, the very first item listed in the security fixes.
*Block themes parsing shortcodes in user generated data; thanks to Liam Gladdy of WP Engine for reporting this issue*
[https://wordpress.org/news/2023/05/wordpress-6-2-1-maintenance-security-release/](https://wordpress.org/news/2023/05/wordpress-6-2-1-maintenance-security-release/)
This was a security risk as users could enter shortcodes in their data which could cause all sorts of different fun for you to resolve.
How else should they have communicated it, that’s what the release notes are for, it pays to read them first before deploying any update.
No block theme, no problem.