The WordPress error message “Updating failed. Could not update post in the database” appears when the system is unable to save changes to a post or page. This error typically involves a breakdown in communication between WordPress and its underlying database, preventing updates from being committed.

However, if this problem has occurred ‘out of the blue’ and ony affects certain posts or pages, there may be a very simple fix.

How to fix WordPress error “Updating failed. Could not update post in the database”

Check your whole post or page for invalid characters (e.g. Unicode Characters, symbols, emojis, etc.). The contents of the post or page will be added to the database when you hit ‘publish’ but there are some characters which can’t be included – this will return an ‘Updating failed. Could not update post in the database’ error. Here is an example of a post that wouldn’t save until I removed the ‘brain’ and ‘tools’ icons.

This problem with invalid characters most commonly happens when you’re pasting in contents from another website, e.g. ChatGPT

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