Friendica 2019.09 released

We are proud to release the new version of Friendica ‘Dalmatian Bellflower‘ 2019.09. As usual this release contains many bug fixes (we closed some 60 issues from the list) and code enhancements alongside of some new features. Some highlights are:

• A Japanese translation was added to the Friendica core and some addons.
• The two factor authorisation got improved. If you are using client apps, those now need a separate password set in the user configuration.
• One can now search for the URL of any public ActivityPub posting to interact with the posting. You need to copy the postings address and paste it into the search field.
• Users of the frio theme can now choose to use a separate compose page instead of the modal dialog.
• Admins can now block servers based on URL patterns and enable a trending tags widget for the community page.

for a complete overview please see the CANGELOG file.

Many thanks to everyone who made this release possible. ❤

A wordcloud generated from the titles of pull requests of Friendica 2019.09. In the background a Dalmatian Bellflower.

Known Issues

One of the bug fixes that was applied in this release will cause old contact requests that were discarded initially to reappear. Users will have to reevaluate the request. We are sorry for the inconvenience this may cause to you and your users.

How to Update

Updating from old Friendica versions

If you are updating from an older version than the 2018.09 release, please first update your Friendica instance to that version as there were several important changes in that version.

Please note, that we moved the shipped .htaccess file to .htaccess-dist in the 2019.01 version. Make sure that you have saved a copy of the file if you made any changes to it, so that you can copy the file from the backup after the upgrade.

Please further note, that since Friendica 3.6 we use Composer for dependency management. If you are updating via git, you have to remember to update the dependencies as well.

Furthermore we raised the minimal requirements with the 2019.06 version to PHP 7. Before updating please ensure that you are using a supported PHP version on your server. We suggest PHP 7.2 or later.

Pre-Update Procedures

Ensure that the last backup of your Friendica installation was done recently. While testing, we did not encounter problems, but better safe than sorry.

Using Git

Updating from the git repositories should only involve a pull from the Friendica core repository and addons repository. Remember to also update the dependencies with composer.
cd friendica
git pull
bin/composer.phar install
cd addon
git pull
If you want to switch the branch (e.g. if you helped testing the RC code) please do so after the pull using git checkout master (or develop).

Be aware that the .htaccess file was removed from the git repository in the 2019.01 version. You might have to restore yours from a backup (if you have done local changes) or from the .htaccess-dist if you had not done it before.

Using the Archive Files

If you had downloaded the source files in an archive file (tar.gz) please download the current version of the archive (friendica-full-2019.09.tar.gz and friendica-addons-2019.09.tar.gz) and unpack it on your local computer.

As many files got deleted or moved around, please upload the unpacked files to a new directory on your server (say friendica_new) and copy over your existing configuration (config/local.config.php and config/addon.config.php) and .htaccess files. Afterwards rename your current Friendica directory (e.g. friendica) to friendica_old and friendica_new to friendica.

The files of the dependencies are included in the archive (make sure you are using the friendica-full-2019.09 archive), so you don’t have to worry about them.

Please be aware of the changes in the configuration format in the 2019.03 version. You should follow the instructions linked from your admin panel as soon as possible to move your configuration to the new location.

Post Update Tasks

The database update should be applied automatically, but maybe it gets stuck. If you encounter this, please initiate the DB update manually from the command line by running the script
bin/console dbstructure update
from the base of your Friendica installation. If the output contains any error message, please let us know using the channels mentioned below.

How to Contribute

If you want to contribute to the project, you don’t need to have coding experience. There are a number of tasks listed in the issue tracker with the label “Junior Jobs” we think are good for new contributors. But you are by no means limited to these – if you find a solution to a problem (even a new one) please make a pull request at github or let us know in the development forum.

Contribution to Friendica is also not limited to coding. Any contribution to the documentation, the translation or advertisement materials is welcome or reporting a problem. You don’t need to deal with Git(Hub) or Transifex if you don’t like to. Just get in touch with us and we will get the materials to the appropriate places.

Thanks everyone who helped making this release possible and have fun!

friendi.ca/2019/09/29/friendic…