WooCommerce 3.0.0 RC1

This was quite the week. A few days ago we announced the decision to reversion and release 2.7 as 3.0.0. This was due to finding a critical bug in the way the system handles timestamps, which wasn’t caught sooner, and requests from third-party extension developers for more testing time. At the same time we chose to adopt semantic versioning going forward to make releases clearer.

bionic-butterfly-silhouette

Today, the release candidate for WooCommerce 3.0.0 “Bionic Butterfly” is available!

Shipping a release candidate (RC) means we think we’re done but, with hundreds of thousands of stores and so many plugins and themes, it’s possible we’ve missed something. We hope to ship WooCommerce 3.0.0 on Tuesday, April 4th but we need your help to get there!

To test WooCommerce 3.0.0 RC1, you can use our WooCommerce Beta Tester plugin or you can download the release candidate here (zip).

Since 3.0.0 is now in release candidate stage, only bug fixes will be made. No other changes should take place.

Think you’ve found a bug? Please post in detail to Github.


Since the previous RC we’ve fixed a bunch of minor issues and one critical issue which may require a code change in your 2.7 compatible extensions.

  1. The versioning and @since properties have been updated to 3.0.0.  Themes with 2.7.0 versioned template files may need to update those to 3.0.0 versions to prevent reports of outdated template files, and extensions may need to tweak version_compare statements.
  2. This critical timezone/timestamp issue has been fixed.  The return type of all get_date_x type methods is now a DateTime object instead of an integer timestamp.

Aside from those changes, this RC is very much similar to the 2.7 RC from a few weeks back!


For more information about what’s new in 3.0.0, check out the Beta 1beta 2beta 3 blog posts. We also have some compatibility example posts and posts about our new features:


Developers, please test your plugins and themes against WooCommerce 3.0.0 as soon as possible. If you find compatibility problems, we never want to break things, so please be sure to post to Github so we can figure those out before the final release. You may also be interested in our known-issues wiki article here.

You’ll also find some new docs on things such as the CRUD in the WIKI here.

And if you’re a theme developer and want to enable the new gallery, see here.

Store ownersread this helpful guide on preparing for the update and if you see any deprecation notices after updating don’t be alarmed; read here.

Again, we’re hoping to launch the final version of 3.0.0 on April 4th 2017. Huge props to everyone who has sent feedback about this release so far. Much appreciated!

7 responses to “WooCommerce 3.0.0 RC1”

  1. Mike, I have 2.7 RC 1 and Beta Tester Plugin installed on a staging site. Beta Tester does not recognize 2.7 RC 1 as WooCommerce, instead it recommend me to install it on top of page. On update page in admin there is no update available. Any idea?

    1. It may be our switch of version numbers – I’ll check later. You can install manually for now 🙂

  2. […] 3.0.0 RC2 is available for testing. This fixes a bunch of issues from 3.0.0 RC1 which we’ve spent the last 2 weeks working on. Notable fixes […]

  3. danieladlit Avatar
    danieladlit

    Hello! I’ve installed WooCommerce 3.0 RC and cannot find where the activate the new gallery? I’ve updated my single product template for my custom theme (which I’ve barely changed) and the single product gallery still looks the same. Is the new gallery just not available yet?

  4. Ajay Katware Avatar
    Ajay Katware

    I have upgraded Woocommerce to version 3.0 and I am getting Notice: product_type was called incorrectly. Product properties should not be accessed directly on the shop page.
    How to resolve it?

    1. Update the extension which is calling it directly 🙂 There may be updates already; check that.

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