XenForo & Add-ons 2.3.0 Release Candidate 5 Released (Unsupported)

Today we are releasing XenForo 2.3.0 Release Candidate 5. While the majority of this release is focusing on bug fixes and stability, there are a few noteworthy changes.

Automatic legacy file clean up​

XenForo installations after upgrading to XenForo 2.3 will have a number of files sitting in the file system which are no longer used. Any XenForo installation that has been around for a while, will to a lesser extent, have a similar issue. These files on their own shouldn't present any issue, but at the same time, keeping them around doesn't make much sense either.

There are three approaches to cleaning up legacy files automatically.

During one-click upgrade​

One-click upgrades now have a special step for removing files that were present in the version you are upgrading from, which are no longer present in the version being installed. We already know we have write access to the files in your file system at this point so there should not be any issue in deleting these files in most cases.

During manual upgrades​

After each upgrade, we also enqueue a job to do a file clean up based on a list of files enumerated from the hashes.json file. Anything in your src/vendor, src/vendor-patch and src/XF directory that is not listed in hashes.json will be removed automatically if possible. If it is not possible, we will log an error in your server error log.

By running a command​

If write access is an issue, you can log in to your server shell/CLI and simply run the following command:

php cmd.php xf:file-clean-up XF

As long as the CLI user has write access to your XenForo directory, the old files will be removed.

Cleaning up files manually​

If all else fails, and you still wish to delete legacy files, we recommend the following approach:

1. Close your forum
2. Delete the contents of the following directories:
   1. src/vendor
   2. src/vendor-patch
   3. src/XF
3. Re-upload the files from your current release

Cleaning up files for official add-ons​

We will automatically attempt to clean up files for official add-ons as well after each upgrade. Again, if we run into write issues during the clean up process, an error log will be logged in your server error log. You can run the same command listed above (with either XFRM, XFES, or XFMG instead of XF as an argument), or follow the manual clean up steps above for the relevant add-on under src/addons.

Cleaning up files for third party add-ons​

Developers who wish to trigger an automatic clean up of their own files, can do so by calling the following from within their add-on Setup class in the postUpgrade method:

$this->enqueuePostUpgradeCleanUp();

Trending content support for add-ons​

Starting with Release Candidate 5, we have added support for trending content to XenForo Resource Manager and Media Gallery.

Persistent file names for attachments​

We have changed the way that file names for attachments are saved on the file system. Each attachment will now get a random file_key value, which is used to determine the file name on the file system. For older attachments this will default to the current file_hash value. The primary driver for making this change is so that the URL or path to specific attachments or thumbnails will no longer change after being optimised (which would change the file_hash value, and therefore the file name).

And that's all for this week. More specific details regarding bugs fixed in this release can be found in the resolved bugs forum.

This is pre-release software. It is not officially supported.
We do not recommend running it in production.

Please remember that this is pre-release software. It contains known bugs and incomplete functionality. We do not recommend running pre-release software in a production environment, and support is limited at this time to questions here on the community forums.

Add-ons and custom styles may be broken after upgrading to 2.3. You must test your add-ons thoroughly or look for updates. Be especially careful with add-ons that cover similar features to ones that are added to 2.3; these may conflict with the core XenForo data. If data conflicts are found, they will need to be resolved in a new add-on release or by removing the add-on before upgrading to 2.3.

If you choose to run pre-release software, it is your responsibility to ensure that you make a backup of your data. We recommend you do this before attempting an upgrade. If in doubt, always do a test upgrade on a copy of your production data.

All customers with active licenses may now download the new version from the customer area.

Download XenForo 2.3.0 Release Candidate 5​

From the licensed customer area​

Alongside the release of XenForo 2.3.0 Release Candidate 5, we are also releasing updated versions of each of our official add-ons:

• XenForo Media Gallery 2.3.0 Release Candidate 5
• XenForo Resource Manager 2.3.0 Release Candidate 5
• XenForo Enhanced Search 2.3.0 Release Candidate 5

Customers with active licenses for these add-ons may download the new versions from their customer area.

Download official add-ons​

From the licensed customer area​

Requirements​

The following are minimum requirements:

• PHP 7.2 or newer
• MySQL 5.7 and newer
• All of the add-ons listed here require XenForo 2.3.
• Enhanced Search requires at least Elasticsearch 7.2

Note: Only the PHP version requirements have changed here. However, even if you're running PHP 7.2 we strongly recommend upgrading to PHP 8.3 at the earliest opportunity for improvements in speed, security and stability. We also recommend MySQL 8.0 (or equivalent).

Installation and upgrade instructions​

Full details for how to install and upgrade XenForo can be found in the XenForo manual. One-click upgrades from XF 2.2 are possible, but you must uncheck the "Only check for stable upgrades" option in Options > Basic board information. Once the XF 2.3 upgrade has been complete, the official add-ons should be upgraded as well.

Please remember that this is pre-release software. It contains known bugs and incomplete functionality. We do not recommend or support running pre-release software in a production environment. Support for pre-releases are limited to questions here on the community forums.