WordPress 3.5 Borked Admin Area? This Might Fix it

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If you run a WordPress blog and you have some security features, for example, Jeff Starr’s .htaccess firewall or BulletProof Security plugin, you may find that after upgrading to WordPress 3.5, your admin area has some of the below issues:

1. Admin menu flyouts not working
2. Can’t add media in pages/posts/or in the media area
3. Twenty Twelve theme did not load fully on first upgrade

As it turns out, this is due to the .htaccess security feature that blocks WordPress from loading jQuery. Going forward, WordPress will load its jQuery in the backend as followed:

http://example.com/wp-admin/load-scripts.php?c=0&load[]=jquery,utils,json2&ver=3.5

You notice the squared brackets in the request URL? That’s what’s causing the problem. If you disable your BPS plugin, or remove the following line in your .htaccess file, things should return to normal:

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} \[ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} \] [NC]

It looks like WordPress developers have decided to load the script dynamically, so the request URL might be here to stay. If you have any questions, feel free to drop a line below.

Update: I also noticed that the default oEmbed media size is no longer available in Settings >> Media Settings. It looks like if your theme doesn’t set the default $content_width, WordPress will use 500px. Here’s where to modify the code in your function.php (edit the $content_width variable)

function my_content_width() {
	global $content_width;
	$content_width = xxx;
}
add_action( 'template_redirect', 'my_content_width' );

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