RSS Feed Errors & Extra <link> Tags After WP 6.8.1 — Failing Validation

[OctoTooT]

Since updating to WordPress 6.8.1, my category feed is throwing validation errors and Mailchimp has stopped accepting it.

These empty <link> tags and the extra <link> entry seem to have appeared after the update. Only my two most recent posts, created since the upgrade, are affected.

⸻

What I’ve tried:

• Site Title and Tagline are set properly in both Customizer and Settings > General
• No changes to functions.php
• Using Code Snippets plugin, but nothing affecting RSS
• Cleared all caches
• Not using any RSS-related or feed-modifying plugins

Is this a known issue in WP 6.8.1 with how <link> elements are generated in RSS feeds?

• Has anyone found a fix, or a way to suppress the extra and empty <link> tags?

[audrasjb]

Hello and thank you for the report,

As we started to work on 6.8.2, I'm moving this ticket to the related milestone, but without any warranty that this ticket is relevant to a change made in 6.8.1 for now.

Could you please share detailed reproduction steps on a fresh WordPress 6.8.1 installation (or if necessary a version 6.8 updated to 6.8.1), without any plugin installed and with a default theme? Thank you!

[rollybueno]

Reproduction Report

Description

This report validates whether the issue described: Category RSS feeds generating empty or duplicate <link> elements, can be reproduced in a clean WordPress 6.8.1 environment.

Environment

• WordPress: 6.8.1
• PHP: 8.3.17
• Server: nginx/1.26.1
• Database: mysqli (Server: 8.0.16 / Client: mysqlnd 8.3.17)
• Browser: Chrome 136.0.0.0
• OS: Linux
• Theme: Twenty Twenty-Five 1.2
• MU Plugins: None activated
• Plugins:
  • Query Monitor 3.18.0
  • Test Reports 1.2.0

Actual Results

1. ✅ Category RSS feed was accessed via /category/uncategorized/feed/ & /category/6.8.1/feed/
2. ✅ Feed was validated using W3C Feed Validator(​https://validator.w3.org/feed/)
3. ✅ No empty <link> tags were found inside any <item>
4. ✅ No duplicate <link> tags appeared per item
5. ✅ Feed passed validation as a valid RSS 2.0 feed

✖️ Error condition did not occur (not reproduced).

Additional Notes

• The feed was generated from a fresh install with 10 published dummy posts assigned to the "Uncategorized" & "6.8.1" category.
• Theme and plugin configurations were default and minimal.
• The issue may be conditional and not reproducible on a clean install.
• W3C Validator only flags interoperability improvement but it's not related in this ticket

Supplemental Artifacts

• W3C Validator Screenshot (valid):

[rollybueno]

Hey @OctoTooT, I just tried reproducing the issue on a clean install of WP 6.8.1 using the default Twenty Twenty-Five theme, but I couldn’t get the same result. It might be coming from one of your plugins.

If you’re comfortable sharing, would you mind dropping the link to your category feed so I can take a quick look?

[zunaid321]

This ticket was brought up in a recent bug scrub.

Here’s the feedback received:

1.⁠ Reporter feedback is required as soon as possible.
2.⁠ ⁠⁠If there’s no feedback, the Team has suggested to close the ticket.
3.⁠ ⁠Suggestions were made either to un-milestone it and leave it unassigned until the reporter appears.

Props to: @rafiq91 & @sirlouen

[rollybueno]

With the 6.8.2 RC coming out on Tuesday next week: ​https://make.wordpress.org/core/2025/06/17/wordpress-6-8-2-release-schedule/, I suggest we move this to 6.9 temporarily.

I'll try to reproduce one more time after the release and see if we should un-milestone or close.

[audrasjb]

Given nobody was able to reproduce the issue and the reporter didn't answer the feedback request, I'm closing this as workforme.
@OctoTooT feel free to reopen this ticket if the issue still occurs on your side.