Automatic update emails have HTML entities in plugin/theme names

[paulschreiber]

Automatic update emails have HTML entities in plugin/theme names.

Example:

These plugins are now up to date:
- Health Check & Troubleshooting (from version 1.5.0 to 1.5.1)
- WP Super Cache (from version 1.9 to 1.9.1)

[paulschreiber]

update email screen shot

[audrasjb]

Thanks for spotting this!

Moving for 6.1.1 consideration.
If we have a patch quickly, I think we could even move it to the next minor.

[benjgrolleau]

Hello there !
Maybe a simple html_entity_decode can do the job ?

If it's the right way to fix it, I can do it this PM.

Have a great day !

[audrasjb]

Hey @benjgrolleau, sorry for the delay!
html_entity_decode may do the job, let's put together a patch and test it :)

[sanketchodavadiya]

Added html_entity_decode() to all required places where plugin/theme name is used for email.

[robinwpdeveloper]

In wordpress-develop/src/wp-admin/includes/class-wp-automatic-updater.php
Found few functions containing mail feature:

• send_debug_email
• send_plugin_theme_email

If we consider send_plugin_theme_email only for this ticket then:
✅ all occurrences (plugin and theme name) are addressed properly with html_entity_decode.

Note: I couldn't test the email.

[paulamit]

I have searched with Plugin name and found 5 occurrences. 4 of them are in the send_plugin_theme_email method.

I have searched with Theme name and found 5 occurrences. 4 of them are in the send_plugin_theme_email method.

✅ After applying the patch all 4 occurrences are addressed.

I couldn’t test the auto-generated email.

[audrasjb]

Thanks for the testing reports, but we still need to ensure the actual email is ok.

[audrasjb]

After patch: emails are correctly encoded

[audrasjb]

I tested the patch on a live website, and it worked on my side.

Self assigning for commit.

[audrasjb]

In 55411:

Mail: Fix character encoding issues in Plugin/Theme background update emails.

This changeset fixes encoding issues in background update emails by applying html_entity_decode() on Plugin/Theme names in send_plugin_theme_email().

Props paulschreiber, audrasjb, benjgrolleau, sanketchodavadiya, robinwpdeveloper, paulamit.
Fixes #56964.