OH - MY - GOD!

What on earth happened to MU?

First let me say if you have not upgraded your WPMU install from 1.3.3 yet - DON'T!

Almost every page of the admin area conflicted with one plugin or another. My login and Pass deleted themselves. And I think I actually have a rash from banging my head against the computer screen.

For those of you who don't know, WPMU is loosely based on WP v2.5.1. I say loosely because doncha_ has tried to do the best he can with the tools available to him. They really need to give that guy a raise, or more staff, or both.

What really surprises me however is that Wordpress.com, the main site which is based on WPMU, DOESN'T have ANY of the problems that arose in this latest release.

Automatic seems to be holding back on the good code, and mealing out what didn't work the first time round with WP 2.5

Chief complaint - xmlrpc.php doesn't work any more… why not? It worked fine in WPMU 1.3.3 and it works ok in WP2.5.1 … what happened? Those of us who run multiple blogs on multiple sites and use xmlrpc compliant blog tools (like Ecto for Mac) for composing and editing blog entries offline have just been cut off at the knees.

Secondary complaint - (and it's only secondary because I should have expected this) most WPMU 1.3.3 plugins AND most WP 2.5.1 plugins are NOT compatable with WPMU 1.5.1!… This leaves us with only a hand full of really simple, generic plugins to help us modify our already plugin limited sites.

GOOD NEWS - Andy's “Admin Menus (Advanced)” and “Simple:Press Forum” are BOTH in that handful of compatable plugins.

I'm keeping WPMU 1.5.1 online for now on one of my sites for further testing but my main sites are sticking to 1.3.3.

For now WPMU 1.5.1 is NOT recommended for use with SPF, simply because there are SO MANY conflicts inside the core code, that any errors with the plugin can not effectively be diagnosed. Use the wordpress trac and download the wpmu 1.3.3 tagged version, you will be much better off.

More Doom and Drudgery:

Well I've managed to kill all of my plugins with WPMU 1.5.1.

Each of the plugins I have used in the past to add functionality to my sites, such as Universal Page Footers, Universal Tags and Catagories, any type of Podcasting, Voice Comments, RSS enhancements, etc has been shot down as incompatable with WPMU 1.5.1 (even though most of the plugins used are either WPMU 1.3.3 or WP 2.5.1 compatable)

Simple:Press Forum still works as advertised, in a few instances even better, but that single plugin alone isn't enough to justify maintaining a WPMU 1.5.1 site.

Returning to WPMU 1.3.3 meant giving up the cool media interface, but it also meant my xmlrpc media tools work again. Add to that the ability to have myphpadmin, and database management tools back in the dashboard where they can be accessed easily, and you'll start to see how much we depend on plugin compatability.

I have returned my test bed to WPMU 1.3.3 and can honestly say, when it comes to SPF; WPMU 1.5.1 is NOT supported… Oh, It will work just fine if you decide to use it, but if issues arise, look to the WPMU forums before asking here for help. You will find me on the WPMU forums as well, watching, waiting, praying for new releases or bug fixes or a plethora of other miracles to be brought forth, but for now, my WPMU sites are on 1.3.3.

Ever hit a bee hive with a cricket bat?