Fix “Publishing Failed” in WordPress Gutenberg

I am creating this post using the WordPress Block Editor (Gutenberg). This is a huge step forward as until recently I could only use the Classic Editor. Every time I tried to publish a page or post created using the Block Editor I’d get an Updating Failed or Publishing Failed error message.

I’ve seen various articles providing a workaround; create the Page or Post then publish the Page or Post using WordPress Quick Edit. I frequently amend a Page or Post after publishing and I couldn’t edit the content once published using the workaround. The workaround is therefore not suitable for me.

My WordPress Setup

I have used WordPress for over ten years. I get about 60000 unique visits per month and have over 1000 Posts and Pages combined. My Website (inclusive of Blog) is very important for my Work as a Mailchimp trainer and consultant. Compared to Weebly, Wix, Squarespace and so on the WordPress Classic Editor was outdated a long time back. Gutenberg therefore is critical for me to more easily create modern looking content; not being able to use the Block Editor therefore had me looking to move to different website software.

I have 31 active plugins in my WordPress website (e.g. Jetpack and Gravity Forms) and all are highly rated and have been updated consistently for years. I use a StudioPress Genesis child theme. Hosting is provided by Siteground and I also use Cloudflare.

Resolving the “Updating Failed” and “Publishing Failed” WordPress Problem

Like many people, I have spent countless hours trying to resolve the Updating Failed error. That Cloudflare was the likely culprit came up often however changing Cloudflare settings didn’t fix the problem for me.

Eventually I managed to get Gutenberg working for my website by identifying that it was a Siteground entry in my website .htaccess file causing the problem. Here are the steps I have taken that eliminated the problem:

1. Disable the Enable HTTPS setting in the SG Optimizer plugin settings.
2. Open up your .htaccess file and delete everything between #HTTPS forced by SG-Optimizer and #END HTTPS.
3. Save the changes as made to the .htaccess file.

I am really happy that I’ve managed to find a solution that works for me. Please let me know in the comments if this has or hasn’t worked for you.