Simple Machines Community Forum

Simple Machines is pleased to announce the release of SMF 2.1 RC3. Bugs that were reported after the release of RC2 have been fixed and improvements have been made to security, stability, and performance. The many fixes and improvements include the following:


- Enhanced privacy policy support.
- Several important enhancements to PostgreSQL and MySQL.
- Multiple hooks added for handling data and/or presentation.
- Language files now uses sprintf() whenever possible.
- Theme enhancements/fixes.
- Improvements on Admin session checks.
- Enhancements on security: tokens, hashing cookies and better session handling.
- Multiple calendar fixes/enhancements.
- Better hashing system for the image proxy.
- Bug fixes for alert notifications.
- Added unsubscribe links for announcement emails.
- PHP 7.4 support.
- Several misc bug fixes/improvements. (https://github.com/SimpleMachines/SMF2.1/milestone/9?closed=1)
- Download of posts/PMs/profile for GDPR.


This release is considered to be an RC (Release Candidate), which means that it is sufficiently functional, but that it has known (https://github.com/SimpleMachines/SMF2.1/milestone/8) and unknown bugs. These bugs do not necessarily prevent a release, rather they need to be addressed before the next dev cycle release.

SMF RC3 can be installed as a brand new installation, or an SMF 2.0.x installation can be upgraded to SMF RC3, however, please do note that there are no updates packages (https://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=570377.0) for any RC releases.

We highly encourage testing this version on local or development/QA environments. Testing the release will greatly help us in narrowing down, and focusing on, issues/improvements towards the Final release... However, we do not recommend using an RC package on any live installation and/or production forum due to the very nature of RC packages.


Finally, this announcement topic is not for support. Please use the SMF 2.1 support board (https://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?board=254.0) instead.

A very special thanks goes to our code contributors, Teamies, and non-Teamies whose reports and pull requests have greatly helped us not only to reach our goals, but also to create/grow/improve our development cycle. 

Thank you for using SMF!

Kind regards,
Simple Machines

Thank you for all your hard work!

Congratulations!

Congratulations and a big thank you to everyone who has contributed to making this release possible! :)

Nice to see progress.

Nice!!  Well done :D

Cheers,
Jason

Great!
The end is only for those who do not stop halfway.
Let's move on!

GREAT news, congrats and thank you! My forum shares hosting with a few Wordpress sites, and lately WP has been grumbling about the outdated PHP version that I've kept due to the SMF2.0.17 7.2 limitation. I may soon update to 2.1. My forum is small and very basic, so a hiccup here or there would not be a big problem for us.

Congrats Team on this release!

Congratz :)

Is there a list of features that default 2.1 RC3 have which 2.0.17 doesn't?

Quote from: efk on October 15, 2020, 10:01:42 PM
Congratz :)

Is there a list of features that default 2.1 RC3 have which 2.0.17 doesn't?

You can get a partial list from the Beta 1 release topic at https://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=530233.0

Cool. Now they'll have to start a new ******ing thread down in the dungeon. :D

lol

Congratulations everyone!

Well done!

Edit: Will the Curve2 color changing mod work with RC3?

Congratulations. Great job guys. Keep up the good work. :)

Great news, congratulations!

Yay!!! Thank you for the progress!

Quote from: Antechinus on October 15, 2020, 10:53:59 PM
Cool. Now they'll have to start a new ******ing thread down in the dungeon. :D

That rant topic has been going for awhile now, but contrary to popular belief, it was about communication, and not specifically RC3's release. We all love SMF, and are very happy that progress is being made. :)

Congratulations to all Team.

Congratulations!

 :)

That's how I like to start a weekend! Wonderful news. Thank you so much for your time and dedication to keep SMF alive. Greatly appreciated. I will install it in my site along the weekend. Hopefully everything will go smooth!
Bests,

 :laugh: :P I knew you could do it

but na seriously.... thanks

Congrats

My fingers itch to put this in production.  :o

Quote from: FellippeHeitor on October 16, 2020, 03:06:36 PM
My fingers itch to put this in production.  :o

it's not a good idea to use an rc for production....
I mean unless you want to deal with bugs, patches, and upgrades

it's best to use a stable version for anything other than testing purposes...

Quote from: shadav on October 16, 2020, 03:08:53 PM

Quote from: FellippeHeitor on October 16, 2020, 03:06:36 PM
My fingers itch to put this in production.  :o

it's not a good idea to use an rc for production....
I mean unless you want to deal with bugs, patches, and upgrades

it's best to use a stable version for anything other than testing purposes...

Yeah, I know. Just an itch... but still an itch.  ;D

Congrats!

Will we be seeing 2.0.18 before RC4?

Quote from: MobileCS on October 16, 2020, 03:14:58 PM
Will we be seeing 2.0.18 before RC4?

that depends on a lot of things. As always - we give no promises about release times.

Congrats

Quote from: shadav on October 16, 2020, 03:08:53 PM
it's not a good idea to use an rc for production....
I mean unless you want to deal with bugs, patches, and upgrades

it's best to use a stable version for anything other than testing purposes...

That's true; but sometimes we just gamble and try. 2.1 offers some functions I really needed for my site, so I decided to move on to 2.1 RC2 soon after it was released. And I have been happily using 2.1 RC2 in my site ever since with just some minor glitches here and there. The benefits of 2.1, even in a RC state really counter-weighted those issues; , at least in me case, of course . My forum, by the way has almost 500K posts and over 55K users. As I said, hopefully I will find some time to update to RC3 along the weekend. Finger crossed!Bests,

gz on release

Congratulations!

Thanks to the developers and anyone else involved with the project for your time and hard work.
All people involved are doing a great job.

Don't come around for a day or two and get RC3, great job.

Quote from: AllanD on October 17, 2020, 10:02:42 PM
Don't come around for a day or two and get RC3, great job.

Why would you feel the need to lambaste someone for a thread that is current?

I think that's fair, for people who don't understand how mods work in SMF (that they're developed indepentently, and that updating them can basically only start after the SMF release).

We're saying "Lookie here, you can upgrade!", but in reality, many people still have to wait for all their mods to be updated first. If that comes as a surprise, it'll obviously be a disappointment.

Since many SMF installations rely heavily on mods, we should maybe mention these "upgrade when using mods" basics in the release posts.


Edit: Actually that person might have actually meant it, like "I wasn't here for a couple of days, came back and saw rc3. Nice!"

Quote from: m4z on October 18, 2020, 04:43:45 AM
Edit: Actually that person might have actually meant it, like "I wasn't here for a couple of days, came back and saw rc3. Nice!"

I'm sure that's what he meant.

Quote from: SychO on October 18, 2020, 04:56:23 AM

Quote from: m4z on October 18, 2020, 04:43:45 AM
Edit: Actually that person might have actually meant it, like "I wasn't here for a couple of days, came back and saw rc3. Nice!"

I'm sure that's what he meant.

That's exactly what it was, wasn't bashing anyone, was just happy to see it.

I will continue to use rc2 I think there is nothing worth passing through

Quote from: Replikacep on October 18, 2020, 08:26:17 AM
I will continue to use rc2 I think there is nothing worth passing through

All the bug fixing makes it worth upgrading to rc3 imo.

Only bug fixes and performance fixes (and the new privacy features) and I think a security fix, but no, nothing useful here. Obviously. Next you'll be telling me there is no reason to upgrade to final when it comes out either.

It is obvious what you have done for this system, which is free and tried to be developed as time finds. It is necessary to thank each and every person who contributed. Thank you for your efforts.

I am writing via Google Translate. :) Sorry for typos.

Quote from: Replikacep on October 18, 2020, 08:26:17 AM
I will continue to use rc2 I think there is nothing worth passing through

If you use PHP 7.4.x, using RC3 will fix the error log spam. So far I'm actually seeing less issues with RC3 than I did with RC2, and the large upgrade package made it only take a matter of seconds to update it. (It was probably the quickest and easiest update I've ever done to a forum before).

Very good news. Thanks the team. ;)

Oh I seem to have misunderstood? Ok.

I was glad to see RC3 officially released because although I update every few months from GitHub & adjust a few of my my mods for changes, some my mod testers seem to only use what's released here. I suppose they see it as what most people will be using at the time.

Has anyone set up a demo installation we could check out? Would be nice to see what this actually looks like now.

You could just set a test install up...

Congratulations to all team!!!

Quote from: AllanD on October 18, 2020, 07:35:42 AM

Quote from: SychO on October 18, 2020, 04:56:23 AM

Quote from: m4z on October 18, 2020, 04:43:45 AM
Edit: Actually that person might have actually meant it, like "I wasn't here for a couple of days, came back and saw rc3. Nice!"

I'm sure that's what he meant.

That's exactly what it was, wasn't bashing anyone, was just happy to see it.

Thanks for clarifying, it seems Chen and I misinterpreted your post to mean "The update is here, but I can't use it because I have to wait (for my mods to be updated first; or something similar)? How stupid!".

Congrats! =)

Quote from: Chen Zhen on October 18, 2020, 05:19:34 PM

Oh I seem to have misunderstood? Ok.

I was glad to see RC3 officially released because although I update every few months from GitHub & adjust a few of my my mods for changes, some my mod testers seem to only use what's released here. I suppose they see it as what most people will be using at the time.

The GitHub version is not necessarily one of these releases. It is code that is in active development. If you're worried about compatibility or issues, I would at least wait until new releases are tagged in the repository before upgrading.

Congrats team!!! You rock!

Good news with the RC3 and thanks to all involved.

Quote from: SethStudent on October 15, 2020, 08:02:50 PM
GREAT news, congrats and thank you! My forum shares hosting with a few Wordpress sites, and lately WP has been grumbling about the outdated PHP version that I've kept due to the SMF2.0.17 7.2 limitation. I may soon update to 2.1. My forum is small and very basic, so a hiccup here or there would not be a big problem for us.

Same for me, I decided to take the gamble of running RC 2 in a small live environment. Limited users and post, not many issues reported and will update to RC3 soon.

WOw... thanks a lot guys.  :)

woo hoo ! Thanks all.

We can hear the voice of the narrator:


"Congratulations Level 3 is now complete. You may now proceed to level 4." :-)


Congratulations everyone.
Good luck with the next level.

Oh this is really good congratulations to all!


Regards!

Thank you to everyone involved. I updated my 15 year old live production site today, 2,984,771 Posts in 44,288 Topics - And only issues I've seen so far were fairly trivial (and reported as issues, so perhaps avoidable in the future).
No errors, no problems so far - If I do come up with something, I'll be reporting them. You can be sure of that. :)

Great message. I hope you will release RC4 soon and hope the Final will be released soon. Our forums need freshness, this freshness will be introduced by 2.1

Congrats all!

Well done and thank you very much!
You're rifling through the issues on Github now and it's very much appreciated

Very thanks to still promoting and upgrading this wonderful plataform. Thank you all!

Congratulations! to team cool updates

Thanks!

Congratulations on the release   8)

Any timeline on a final release?

KIDDING! Y'all know I know the rules. :P

Congrats on the current release. :D

No more cookies for you! :P

*pouts*

Tried to upgrade from SMF 2.1 RC2 to RC3. No success, because of this error:

"Field 'id_task' doesn't have a default value."

Windows-host.

1- this thread is not for support
2- that's a problem with a mod table
3- set the default for that table to NULL

Very exciting, congratulations!

Awesome, I decided to create a new forum, I won't test this version yet, but I am using SMF again,  which is going to be a lot of fun!

Anyone know if there's a new features list for SMF 2.1. I'm curious if it may include user tagging.

It includes user mentions

Congratulations! A new step towards success

Thank you for all your hard work!

how safe is it to use this rc now if i may ask? i cant wait for the first stable release

---

Quote from: Kindred on January 17, 2021, 09:50:03 PM
It includes user mentions

i just tried it on my test forum and i cant seem to find anywhere that there is a mentions feature?

It depends what you mean, however, if your question is to whether you should use it on a live site, the answer to that question can be found in the first post of this topic :).

Quote from: fms-er2020 on January 24, 2021, 09:46:36 AM
i just tried it on my test forum and i cant seem to find anywhere that there is a mentions feature?

You need to enable & configure it under Admin | Configuration | Features and Options | Mentions.

I'll preface this by saying this is NOT an "Are we there yet" post. I am NOT asking for dates or timeframes.

The firewall on the computer I mostly use doesn't allow github, so I'm just seeking some clarification please.

I'm led to believe there is an RC4 on github - I'm wondering if that's an RC4 that will see release to us, or if its just a way of the SMF team keeping track of things pending the final release? 

Also I gather that to date most of the RC changes are bug fixes etc(rightly so) but I'm wondering if there has been a scope change with added feature/s, resulting in the RC4?

Thanks.

You'll find the announcement & thinking behind RC4 over here:
https://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=574576.0

Thank you mate.  :)

I've been the primary maintenance person for an SMF 2.0.X forum, and I must confess that my confidence in SMF's future had been low. However, the team's recent progress has compelled me to give SMF 2.1 another look. After taking that second glance and comparing it to other popular free* forum software, I am convinced that SMF still offers a first-rate combination of features and traditional design.

Now that I've been encouraged by the team, I felt it was time to encourage them. Each step forward is a step closer to completing a big comeback. SMF 2.1 looks to be well-worth both the work and the wait!

I would also like to thank the community members and developers who have worked on patching SMF 2.0.x for PHP 7.2+ environments; you bought the needed time for myself and others to wait for 2.1's release.

It's been a difficult journey and a long time coming. But after all your work, the future looks bright for SMF and its many users and supporters!

* I can't fairly compare its features to paid software I've never used, but it's enough to compare the price tags!

Your kind words are appreciated and those involved in the development will be appreciative as well. :)

Is it possible to have a live forum preview of this build without having to install it on my own server? Does someone have it running somewhere as a demo? That would be a very welcome addition to the releases (add a demo link to the announcement post), as it would make it possible to easily have a look at the changes made. Thanks for considering!

In short, no.

It takes 2 minutes to download and upload, then 5 minutes to install on your own server -- where you then have access to test everything, including the admin sections.

If you want us to set up an official test install,  we'd have to do alot of protection and conditional coding, which would take even more time away from actual development and release.


So. No.

Quote from: sharks on January 31, 2021, 09:29:29 AM
Is it possible to have a live forum preview of this build without having to install it on my own server? Does someone have it running somewhere as a demo? That would be a very welcome addition to the releases (add a demo link to the announcement post), as it would make it possible to easily have a look at the changes made. Thanks for considering!

Quote from: Kindred on January 31, 2021, 09:40:57 AM
In short, no.

It takes 2 minutes to download and upload, then 5 minutes to install on your own server -- where you then have access to test everything, including the admin sections.

If you want us to set up an official test install,  we'd have to do alot of protection and conditional coding, which would take even more time away from actual development and release.


So. No.

WAMP or XAMP can be used to be able to run SMF on a local PC that isn't a server

Quote from: sharks on January 31, 2021, 09:29:29 AM
Is it possible to have a live forum preview of this build without having to install it on my own server?

Here's a site running RC3 with tinyportal: https://www.smfhelper.com

Quote from: sharks on January 31, 2021, 09:29:29 AM
Is it possible to have a live forum preview of this build without having to install it on my own server? Does someone have it running somewhere as a demo? That would be a very welcome addition to the releases (add a demo link to the announcement post), as it would make it possible to easily have a look at the changes made. Thanks for considering!

Lots of active sites from all over the world in all languages and all kinds of themes, just google SMF 2.1 RC3.
Of course can't investigate admin section etc, but many open for registration and posting so one can get a good feel of what's going on. Looking great to me, future is bright :O)

Hey what is the minimum PHP version that 2.1 RC3 will run on without issues?

We still test at 5.4. 

Ok. Something must be up with my local then. It's on 7.1.* but nightly build upgrades are still blowing it up. I'll sort out another installation. :)

Wohoo, i havent check the github repo for a while, but today with less than 60 open issues for RC4 is great.
Im not a gamer but according to 9gag it seems like the thrill about Cyberpunk 2077 ;D ;D

Hi

I would be interested when the official version 2.1 comes out. There is a roadmap?

thx

It will be released when it's ready. You can follow the progress over at Github though.
https://github.com/SimpleMachines/SMF2.1

At 120 posts and a member since 2007 you should know better than to ask that question Larry. :P

On Github

   
• RC 4
• The Final
• The Future

What is going on?

What's going on is that they're working on RC4. It'll be released when it's ready.

Quote from: DenDen60 on March 02, 2021, 07:06:21 PM
What is going on?

Well,

According to the Cambridge Dictionary

Quotegoing on
adverb, preposition
UK  /ˈɡəʊ.ɪŋ ˌɒn/ US  /ˈɡoʊ.ɪŋ ˌɑːn/

informal
(UK also going on for)
nearly or almost (a particular number, age, time, or amount):
It was going on midnight when we left the party.
There were going on 200 people at their wedding.

humorous
used for saying that someone behaves like a much older person:
"How old is Brian?" "30 going on 50."

According to Cecilia Krull "My Life is Going On"

According to Marvin Gaye -

Quote
Mother, mother
There's too many of you crying
Brother, brother, brother
There's far too many of you dying
You know we've got to find a way
To bring some lovin' here today, yeah

Father, father
We don't need to escalate
You see, war is not the answer
For only love can conquer hate
You know we've got to find a way
To bring some lovin' here today

Picket lines and picket signs
Don't punish me with brutality
Talk to me
So you can see
Oh, what's going on (What's going on)
What's going on (What's going on)
What's going on (What's going on)
What's going on (What's going on)

Right on, baby
Right on, baby
Right on

Mother, mother
Everybody thinks we're wrong
Oh, but who are they to judge us
Simply 'cause our hair is long
Oh, you know we've got to find a way
To bring some understanding here today
Picket lines and picket signs
Don't punish me with brutality
Come on talk to me
So you can see
What's going on (What's going on)
Yeah, what's going on (What's going on)
Tell me what's going on (What's going on)
I'll tell you, what's going on (What's going on)

Right on, baby, right on
Right on, baby
Right on, baby, right on

I hope that helps :)

Quote from: Steve on March 02, 2021, 08:36:08 PM
What's going on is that they're working on RC4. It'll be released when it's ready.

Think question was perhaps based around reference to the "The Future" milestone. The others are fairly self explanatory and have been there a while.

Quote from: DenDen60 on March 02, 2021, 07:06:21 PM
On Github

   
• RC 4
• The Final
• The Future

What is going on?

Quote from: DenDen60 on March 02, 2021, 07:06:21 PM
On Github

   
• RC 4
• The[sic] Final
• The Future

What is going on?

Issues (bug reports / feature requests) (https://docs.github.com/en/github/managing-your-work-on-github/managing-your-work-with-issues-and-pull-requests) on Github can be put into milestones (https://docs.github.com/en/github/managing-your-work-on-github/tracking-the-progress-of-your-work-with-milestones), to signal when they'll approximately be done. These milestones (in our case) describe the "when".

It's not set in stone yet if we will keep this structure, but the current idea is:

• issues put into the milestone "RC4" will be "in" (released with) version 2.1rc4 of the software (the next pre-release development version)
• issues put into "Final" will be in the "finished", "full" version 2.1
• issues put into "The future" will not be part of 2.1, and will be done later (in 2.2, 3.0, or whenever)

Pretty self-explanatory, no?

Quote from: m4z on March 03, 2021, 02:49:46 PM
Pretty self-explanatory, no?

Of course. ;-) I was just surprise to see this change so close after creating RC4.

stoping here... never update 2.1

https://ibb.co/wJ3gkhX[

Most of the time, that is not an actual error and if you just give it time - it will get past it.

Quote from: Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen on June 13, 2021, 01:14:14 PM
Most of the time, that is not an actual error and if you just give it time - it will get past it.

is that he does not run, he is standing there doing nothing
:o
I working in localhost with xampp

Quote from: gohanjaja on June 13, 2021, 01:51:24 PM

Quote from: Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen on June 13, 2021, 01:14:14 PM
Most of the time, that is not an actual error and if you just give it time - it will get past it.

is that he does not run, he is standing there doing nothing
:o
I working in localhost with xampp

Please open a support a topic at SMF 2.1.x Support (https://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?board=254.0) if the update really is stuck.