If you run the WP Rocket caching plugin, make sure you’re on the latest version. A compatibility bug with WordPress 7.1, released yesterday, took sites offline this week.
What happened
Sites running WP Rocket alongside certain other plugins started throwing fatal PHP errors after updating to WordPress 7.1. The crash came from WP Rocket’s Cloudflare module, which runs on every request whether or not the site actually uses Cloudflare. A core change in how WordPress 7.1 generates hook callback IDs triggered a type mismatch in that module, and under PHP 8’s strict type rules, the mismatch crashed the site instead of just logging a warning.
A clean WordPress install with only WP Rocket active didn’t crash. The bug needed a second plugin, such as Elementor Pro or Contact Form 7 Redirection, active at the same time to trigger the fatal error. Anchor Hosting founder Austin Ginder was the first to flag it publicly, reporting that 124 of the 332 WP Rocket sites in his hosting fleet, 37%, went down after the WordPress 7.1 update.
The underlying issue wasn’t new. A WP Rocket user filed a GitHub issue on July 6, 2026, during the WordPress 7.1 beta period, and included a one-line suggested fix. It sat unaddressed until sites started crashing after the WordPress 7.1 release on August 19.
What WP Rocket did
WP Rocket shipped version 3.23.2.2 on August 20, 2026, about a day after the release of WordPress 7.1. According to the plugin’s changelog, the update “fixed the Fatal Type Error appearing after update to WordPress Core 7.1 in some configurations.”
What to do
Update WP Rocket to version 3.23.2.2 or later. If your site went down after updating to WordPress 7.1 and you can’t apply the plugin update right away, deactivating WP Rocket temporarily will bring the site back online until you can update.
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