All Versions
13
Latest Version
Avg Release Cycle
92 days
Latest Release
1367 days ago

Changelog History
Page 1

  • v2020.09 Changes

    September 20, 2020

    🛠 We are happy to announce the availability of Friendica 2020.09, wrapping up the work over the summer. It bundles some exciting new features and enhancements with numerous fixes along the way.

    🚀 This release is composed of 230 pull requests to the development branch, that closed 65 numbered tickets and enhanced several aspects of Friendica and the communication with other projects within the Fediverse. For a full reference, please have a look at the CHANGELOG file, some important things are worth highlighting here:

    • 🚀 The speed of the full text search was enhanced significantly. If you had disabled it before, please check it out now and let us know if it works for you as we are considering to remove the option to disable it in a future release.
    • The themes got some updates. Among other things the way how a re-share is displayed. If you like the old display style better you'll find an option in the user settings to switch back.
    • Some time ago we did a user voting about which additional features should be handled in a unified way on all Friendica instances. The last of these items are now reworked. One of these is that all public calendar entries are now available as iCAL file from your profile.
    • 👍 Friendica is now supporting Activity Pub relay server. For more information please have a look at this forum thread

    ➕ Additionally this release contains a fix for a problem that Roger Meyer discovered in the processing of Activity Pub messages. We encourage all Friendica admins to update their nodes to the 2020.09 release to prevent problems arising from this. Thanks to Roger to report the issue!

    If you are using PHP version 7.0 there is currently a problem with one of the dependencies of Friendica. Please see this forum thread for more information.

    ⚡️ How to Update

    ⚡️ Updating from old Friendica versions

    🚀 If you are updating from an older version than the 2020.03 release, please first update your Friendica instance to that version.

    ⚡️ Pre-Update Procedures

    🚀 Ensure that the last backup of your Friendica installation was done recently. We had no problems reported during the upgrade process from 2020.07 to the 2020.09 release candidate, so hopefully you will have a smooth transition.

    ⚡️ Please make sure to use Barracuda as MySQL DB file format for your Friendica database. Change your database settings before you proceed with the Friendica update. This change will take some time depending on the size of your database.

    Using Git

    Important : We are removing the master branch and are using the stable branch instead.

    ⚡️ Updating from the git repositories should only involve a pull from the Friendica core repository and addons repository. Remember to update the dependencies with composer as well.

    cd friendica
git fetch
git checkout BRANCH
bin/composer.phar install --no-dev
cd addon
git fetch
git checkout BRANCH

    ⚡️ Where BRANCH is either the new stable branch or the develop branch, depending which version of Friendica you want to use. The old master branch will not receive any updates and will be removed soon.

    🚀 Pulling in the dependencies with composer will show some deprecation warning, we will be working on that in the upcoming release.

    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-2020.09.tar.gz and friendica-addons 2020.09.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-2020.09 archive), so you don’t have to worry about them.

    ⚡️ Post Update Tasks

    ⚡️ The database update should be applied automatically, but sometimes 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.

    Please note , that some of the changes to the database structure will take some time to be applied, depending on the size of your Friendica database.

    Known Issues

    👀 If you are using lighttpd to serve your Friendica node the boolean AND operator for the full text search seems not to be working at the moment.

    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!

  • v2020.09-1 Changes

    September 24, 2020

    🚑 During the RC phase of the 2020.09 release of Friendica a problem during sending out notification mails was not observed by the testers, but only reported after the release. Therefore we release now the 2020.09-1 hotfix release which will re-enable those mails.

    ⚡️ How to Update

    ⚡️ Updating from old Friendica versions

    🚀 If you are updating from an older version than the 2020.03 release, please first update your Friendica instance to that version.

    ⚡️ Pre-Update Procedures

    🚀 Ensure that the last backup of your Friendica installation was done recently. We had no problems reported during the upgrade process from 2020.07 to the 2020.09 release candidate, so hopefully you will have a smooth transition.

    ⚡️ Please make sure to use Barracuda as MySQL DB file format for your Friendica database. Change your database settings before you proceed with the Friendica update. This change will take some time depending on the size of your database.

    Using Git

    Important : We are removing the master branch and are using the stable branch instead.

    ⚡️ Updating from the git repositories should only involve a pull from the Friendica core repository and addons repository, regardless of the branch (stable or develop) you are using. Remember to update the dependencies with composer as well.

    cd friendica
git fetch
git checkout BRANCH
bin/composer.phar install --no-dev
cd addon
git fetch
git checkout BRANCH

    🚀 Pulling in the dependencies with composer will show some deprecation warning, we will be working on that in the upcoming release.

    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-2020.09-1.tar.gz and friendica-addons 2020.09-1.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-2020.09 archive), so you don’t have to worry about them.

    ⚡️ Post Update Tasks

    ⚡️ The database update should be applied automatically, but sometimes 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.

    Please note , that some of the changes to the database structure will take some time to be applied, depending on the size of your Friendica database.

    Known Issues

    👀 If you are using lighttpd to serve your Friendica node the boolean AND operator for the full text search seems not to be working at the moment.

    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!

  • v2020.07 Changes

    July 12, 2020

    🚀 Friendica "Red Hot Poker" 2020.07 released

    🚀 We are pleased to announce the slightly delayed release of Friendica 2020.07.

    🚀 Thanks to everyone who contributed to make this release! The 2020.07 release is composed from 280 tickets, closing 66 numbered issues and enhanced several aspects of Friendica and the communication with other projects within the Fediverse and the Federation. For a full reference, please have a look at the CHANGELOG file, some important things are worth highlighting them here:

    • Friendica is now using table views for the database which can cause errors from the MySQL database (Prepared statement needs to be re-prepared). If you encounter such, please have a look at this issue in the Friendica tracker and this article at stackoverflow if you are encountering problems in that aspect,
    • In the frio theme we introduced a more... menu at the bottom of postings which contains the not so often used actions (editing, pinning, etc.), Additionally it is now save to hit the ESC key while composing a new posting.
    • 👍 You will now find allow lists, deny lists and block lists instead of their old labels.
    • 🐎 We found some places where we could enhance the performance of Friendica.

    🚀 Not directly linked to this release but worth mentioning is the cleanup-friendica script by ingoj to assist Friendica node admins and help with forgotten or dead accounts.

    If you are using PHP version 7.0 there is currently a problem with one of the dependencies of Friendica. Please see this forum thread for more information.

    ⚡️ How to Update

    ⚡️ Updating from old Friendica versions

    🚀 If you are updating from an older version than the 2020.03 release, please first update your Friendica instance to that version.

    ⚡️ Pre-Update Procedures

    🚀 Ensure that the last backup of your Friendica installation was done recently. We had no problems reported during the upgrade process from 2020.03 to the 2020.06 release candidate, so hopefully you will have a smooth transition.

    ⚡️ Please make sure to use Barracuda as MySQL DB file format for your Friendica database. Change your database settings before you proceed with the Friendica update. This change will take some time depending on the size of your database.

    Using Git

    Important : We are removing the master branch and are using the stable branch instead.

    🚀 Updating from the git repositories of Friendica will be a bit more complicated as you might be used to as we decided to rename the branch for the stable releases to stable. Hence you need to switch the branch you want to use, after pulling the current version of the code from the repositories. As usual, please remember to update the dependencies with composer as well.

    cd friendica
git fetch
git checkout BRANCH
bin/composer.phar install
cd addon
git fetch
git checkout BRANCH

    ⚡️ Where BRANCH is either the new stable branch or the develop branch, depending which version of Friendica you want to use. The old master branch will not receive any updates and will be removed soon.

    🚀 Pulling in the dependencies with composer will show some deprecation warning, we will be working on that in the upcoming release.

    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-2020.07.tar.gz and friendica-addons 2020.07.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-2020.03 archive), so you don’t have to worry about them.

    ⚡️ 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.

    Please note , that some of the changes to the database structure will take some time (days)) to be applied, depending on the size of your Friendica database.

    Known Issues

    After the release it was reported, that one of the dependencies of Friendica is currently not compatible to PHP 7.0 , although claiming otherwise. If you are using this version of PHP and want to install Friendica 2020.07 you have to edit the source code slight.y. For more information, see the forum thread about the problem.

    If you are using MySQL there is an issue under investigation you should be aware of. This issue affects only users of MySQL, users of MariaDB have not reported this issue.

    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!

  • v2020.07-1 Changes

    September 08, 2020

    🚑 Thanks to Roger Meyer who reported a flaw in the administration module of Friendica, we could fix a security vulnerability that could leak sensitive information from the server environment. The hotfix release 2020.07-1 includes the patch for the stable release branch of Friendica. The development and RC branches have been updated as well.

    Affected versions of Friendica

    All versions of Friendica since April 2019 (develop branch) and June 2019 (stable) are affected.

    ⚡️ Through the admin module environment variables of the server system can be read by anyone on the internet. Among other things this may include database passwords for Docker installs and the memcached SASL password. Therefore we recommend all node admins to change their potentially affected passwords after the upgrade to 2020.07-1. Furthermore this fix also prevents anonymous users to update node-wide addon settings.

    ⬆️ How to Upgrade.

    This information only applies to the stable release 2020.07 of Friendica. The patch has separately been added to the develop and 2020.09-rc branch of the repository.

    Using Git

    Important : We are removing the master branch and are using the stable branch instead.

    🚀 Updating from the git repositories of Friendica will be a bit more complicated as you might be used to as we decided to rename the branch for the stable releases to stable. Hence you need to switch the branch you want to use, after pulling the current version of the code from the repositories. As usual, please remember to update the dependencies with composer as well.

    cd friendica
git fetch
git checkout stable
git pull

    🚑 Pulling in the dependencies with composer is not necessary for this hotfix release.

    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-2020.07-1) file and unpack it on your local computer. Compared to the 2020.07 release only a few files were updated and none of the config files are affected. So you can just upload the changed files onto your server.

    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 again Roger Meyer to make us aware of this problem!

  • v2020.03 Changes

    March 30, 2020

    We are happy to announce the avail-ability of Friendica "Red Hot Poker" 2020.03!

    🚀 Thanks to all the helpers during the RC phase to polish some corners of the release. Almost 400 tickets went into this release according to the milestone, closing something around 90 numbered issues and some unnumbered as well. But along all these fixes we also introduced some new features and revamped some aspects of your daily life with Friendica. For a complete list of changes, please have a look into the CHANGELOG, here are some of the highlights:

    • We adopted the "audio" type for ActivityPub postings and are now federating with Funkwhale.
    • 🚚 The multiple profile feature was removed and replaced by free form profile fields that you can present different audiences (unverified visitors of your profile and selected Friendica contact/-groups). The old (additional) profiles are converted automatically for the new format.
    • The hide-wall profile option was replaced by a hopefully more clear option to have your public postings unlisted on the community page of your node.
    • The creation of delegated accounts was made more easy.
    • 🌐 The accessibility of the web-interface was improved.
    • 💻 Admins can now manage the users of their node from the command line.
    • An addon to use Markdown instead of BBCode while composing new postings and comments was added.

    🚀 Thanks to all the people who have made this release possible!

    ⚡️ 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 had some reports about problems with the profile field migration. All of these should be fixed, but better safe than sorry.

    Please make sure to use Barracuda as MySQL DB file format for your Friendica database. Change your database settings before you proceed with the Friendica update. This change will take some time.

    Using Git

    ⚡️ Updating from the git repositories should only involve a pull from the Friendica core repository and addons repository. Remember to update the dependencies with composer as well.

    cd friendica
git pull
bin/composer.phar install
cd addon
git pull

    If you want to switch the branch (e.g. if you helped to test the release candidate) 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-2020.03.tar.gz and friendica-addons-2020.03.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-2020.03 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.

    Please note, that some of the changes to the database structure will take some time (hours)) to be applied, depending on the size of your Friendica database.

    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!

  • v2019.12 Changes

    December 23, 2019

    Wrapping up for the end-of-the-year? We too; and therefore we are happy to announce the release of Friendica "Dalmatian Bellflower" 2019.12.

    🚀 This release bundles up some bug fixes, but mostly enhancements to existing features and adds some new ones as well. For a full list of changes, please have a look at the CHANGELOG file in the repository. For a short summery, the highlights are:

    • 🚀 The ACL dialogue introduced in the 2019.09 release on the new compose page for the frio theme was now adopted to all themes.
    • The handling of reshares was made more native for the federated platforms and federation with Diaspora*, Mastodon, Pixelfed and Peertube was improved.
    • The API was improved and got some new endpoints to improve the experience of using Friendica with mobile apps like Fedilab.
    • 📌 Postings can now be pinned to your profile wall and
    • if you like, you can connect to Discourse forums via email.

    🚀 Thanks to all the people who have made this release possible!

    ⚡️ 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 update the dependencies with composer as well.

    cd friendica
git pull
bin/composer.phar install
cd addon
git pull

    If you want to switch the branch (e.g. if you helped to test the release candidate) 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-2019.12.tar.gz and friendica-addons-2019.12.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-2019.12 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!

  • v2019.09 Changes

    September 29, 2019

    🚀 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. <3

    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!

  • v2019.06 Changes

    June 23, 2019

    🚀 Friendica 2019.06 Released

    🌐 Thanks everyone who contributed, be it directly by committing patches or new features, doing translations or reporting issues.

    The Tazmans Flax-lily in a word cloud from the titles of the commit messages

    And now, we happily announce the availability of Friendica 2019.06. It contains many bug fixes, enhancements of existing functionality and some new features. The most noteworthy changes since the last release in March are:

    • ➕ Added native two-factor authentication
    • ➕ Added reshare counts
    • ➕ Added mascot to error pages (thanks to @lostinlight)
    • 🚚 Moved Friendica private message and contact request to ActivityPub

    You can find a complete overview of the changes in the CHANGELOG file.

    ⚡️ 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 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.

    ⚡️ 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.

    🚀 With this release we raised the hard requirements to PHP 7. If you are still using PHP 5.6+, this version won't work anymore on your system and we urge you to upgrade to PHP 7.1 at least.

    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 (zip or tar.gz) please download the current version of the archive (friendica-full-2019.06.zip and friendica-addons-2019.06.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-2019.06 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!

  • v2019.04 Changes

    April 28, 2019

    🚀 This release fixes a bug allowing unauthorised access to private postings under certain circumstances.

    ⚡️ How to update

    🚀 For this release notes we assume, that you are running Friendica 2019.03 if not, please update to that release before proceeding.

    Using git

    ⚡️ If you have used git for installation, update your system simply by doing a git pull in the core repository of Friendica. The fix is applied to the master and the devel branch of the repository.

    ⚡️ An update of the addons repository is not needed.

    Using the archive files

    🔧 Before uploading the extracted files from the archive please make sure that you have a backup copy of your configuration file (config/local.config.php).

    Please download the archive file frientica-full-2019.04.tar.gz which contains the needed 3rd party dependencies.

    🚀 Compared to the 2019.03 release only four files have changed: CHANGELOG, VERSION, boot.php and mod/display.php.

    Extract the archive and upload the contained files (all or only the four mentioned above) to your server.

    ⬆️ Post upgrade procedure

    🚀 There should be no action necessary after the files are exchanged if you were updating from the 2019.03 release of Friendica.

  • v2019.03 Changes

    March 22, 2019

    🚀 Friendica 2019.03 "Dalmatian Bellflower" Released

    🚀 A year of Friendica with The Tazmans Flax-lily. Thanks everyone who contributed, be it directly by commiting patches or new features, doing translations or reporting issues.

    The Tazmans Flax-lily in a word cloud from the titles of the commit messages

    And now, we happily announce the availability of Friendica 2019.03 "Dalmatian Bellflower". It contains many bug fixes, enhancements of existing functionality and some new features. The most noteworthy changes since the last release in January are:

    • The storage backend for photos and attachments was made plug-able and an experimental file system backend was added.
    • 👍 ActivityPub support was added to the forum functionality, and got some general improvements to smooth out quirks discovered since the initial implementation.
    • 🐎 The performance of the background process was enhanced.

    You can find a complete overview of the changes in the CHANGELOG file.

    ⚡️ How to Update

    ⚡️ Updating from old Friendica versions

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

    ⚡️ 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.

    ⚡️ Pre-Update Procedures

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

    🚀 With this release we raised the requirements to PHP and MySQL to PHP 7.1+, MySQL 5.6+ (or compatible alternatives e.g. MariaDB 10.0.5+). If you are still using PHP 5.6.1 we don't expect problems, but encourage you to upgrade your PHP installation. Please make sure, that your systems meets this new requirement.

    Known Problems

    🐎 The performance of the background process (workers) was improved by removing a bottleneck, As a consequence the worker will consume more system resources. On the plus side, you will most likely not need aas many workers as you needed before to perform the pending jobs.

    👷 During the RC phase several admin reported high system LOADs. As a rule of thumb, you should set the Maximum number of parallel workers (plus an additional fastlane worker) and set the Maximum Load Average to the number of threads your servers CPU cores can perform. These values are not carved into stone, you can most likely further adjust the settings to increase the performance of the system.

    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 last 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 (zip or tar.gz) please download the current version of the archive (friendica-full-2019.03.tar.gz and friendica-addons-2019.03.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 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-2019.03 archive), so you don’t have to worry about them.

    🔧 Please be aware of the changes in the configuration format. 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!