Drupal 11.4.9 Fixes Sidebar Layout Shift and Updates CKEditor

A late-loading navigation sidebar can push Drupal’s main page content sideways. Drupal 11.4.9, released on 9 October 2026, addresses this layout shift. Drupal identifies the update as a production-ready bug-fix release.

The fix changes how the Navigation module works with BigPipe, which streams parts of a page as they become available. The release also lets developers add multiple CKEditor toolbar buttons through a recipe action and updates Drupal’s CKEditor build. These changes matter to site administrators and developers maintaining editor configurations.

The navigation issue explains that an uncached sidebar can be rendered through BigPipe after the main content, pushing that content sideways. The fix excludes the sidebar from BigPipe’s placeholder strategy so it loads with the rest of the page content. BigPipe remains available for other page components.

Maintainers confirmed that the change fixes the sideways movement during testing on the 11.4.x branch. Their discussion also records occasional flicker or vertical movement with the fix applied, so it does not establish that every visual disturbance is resolved. The issue summary notes that rendering the remaining page content could take slightly longer under this approach.

For recipes, the published change record confirms that 11.4.9 introduces support for adding multiple CKEditor toolbar items through addItemToToolbar or its alias, addItemsToToolbar. Its example adds the special characters and code-block buttons to an editor configuration. The change helps site template, recipe and distribution developers configure existing editing tools together.

The CKEditor update issue describes bug fixes supplied by CKSource for its Drupal-specific fork. The linked core commit changes the recorded library version from 47.6.3 to 47.6.3-drupal.1. The release also clarifies documentation for configuration storage return keys and plugin constructor configuration.

Drupal’s Composer update guide documents composer update "drupal/core-*" --with-all-dependencies for projects using drupal/core-recommended. It calls for a backup before updating, followed by database updates and cache rebuilding. Project dependency constraints determine the resulting version; the command does not specifically target 11.4.9. The release notes confirm that Drupal 11.4.x receives security coverage until June 2027.