CiviCRM 5.34 Release

Publicat
2021-02-04 06:00
Written by

CiviCRM version 5.34.0 is now out and ready to download. This is a regular monthly release, and is the last one that will support php 7.1.

Upgrade now for the most stable CiviCRM experience: https://civicrm.org/download

Users of the CiviCRM Extended Security Releases (ESR) do not need to upgrade, as there are no ESR-specific bug-fixes or security issues at the moment. The current version of ESR is CiviCRM 5.33.x.

Important announcements and reminders:

  • As of CiviCRM 5.34, PHP 7.1 is end of life. The next version (5.35) will require PHP 7.2. If you are unable to upgrade off php 7.1 in the short-term we recommend you consider switching to the ESR rather than upgrading to 5.34 to ensure you can get security updates
  • As of CiviCRM 5.33, new CiviCRM installs will use the utf8mb4 database encoding by default (dev/core#339: 18960).
  • As of CiviCRM 5.31, installations on Drupal 8 requires a minimum of Drupal 8.5. Drupal 9 is kind of supported but you may want to keep an eye on the CiviCRM/Drupal issues.
  • As of CiviCRM 5.28, the minimum MySQL supported version is 5.6. MySQL 5.7 and MariaDB up to 10.4 are well tested. MySQL 8 works well too and has test coverage (related issue). More information in the official documentation about system requirements. CiviCRM 5.34 will require a minimum of MySQL 5.7 or MariaDB 10.0.2.

What's new in CiviCRM 5.34

This version changes the database schema, has changes to the API, as well as the usual bugfixes and minor feature improvements.

  • Re-Thinking our Crypto implementation (dev/core#2258: 19236, 19251, 19239, 19349, 237, 57, 125, 635, and 57) This adds a new framework for encrypting setting values that are stored in the database. An encryption key is defined upon installation, and the key can be rotated using APIv4. Keys can also be managed with a new hook_civicrm_crypto. The system allows for old keys to be retained for decrypting old values even as a new key is used for encrypting new ones.
  • Cancel first contribution associated to membership, cancels the membership (Work Towards dev/core#927: 19019) Completes moving the logic for the contribution statuses "Cancel" and "Fail" from core to the contributioncancelactions extension.
  • Major cleanup: Move financial acl warning from FinancialType BAO to extension. (19283) Moves more code from core to the financial acls extension. Aims to facilitate code cleanups.
  • WordPress: Enhance CiviCRM's integration in WordPress (231) Improves user experience by introducing sub menu items to the WordPress SideBar "CiviCRM" Menu item including: Integration Page, Settings Page.
  • Improve PHP 7.4 compatibility (19355, 19350, 19331, 19353 and 19354)
  • APIv4 - Add "Permission.get" for listing available permissions (19115), Support relative date range input (19181), Add ContributionSoft v4 api (19083), Add v4 api for financial type, financial account (19282)

This is only a short overview. You can read the full release notes here (it includes all Gitlab and Github references, with much more information). Big thanks to Andrew Hunt and Alice Frumin from AGH Strategies for putting up together release notes.

This release was developed by the following code authors:

AGH Strategies - Alice Frumin, Andrew Hunt; Agileware - Francis Whittle; Bluehorn Digital - Matt Glaman; CEDC - Laryn Kragt Bakker; Christian Wach; CiviCRM - Coleman Watts, Tim Otten; CiviDesk - Sunil Pawar, Yashodha Chaku; CompuCorp - Ahed; Coop SymbioTIC - Mathieu Lutfy; Dave D; Fuzion - Jitendra Purohit; iXiam - César Ramos, Vangelis Pantazis; Jarek; JMA Consulting - Monish Deb, Seamus Lee; lucky091588; maynardsmith; Megaphone Technology Consulting - Jon Goldberg; MJCO - Mikey O'Toole; MJW Consulting - Matthew Wire; Nishant Bhorodia; Tadpole Collective - Kevin Cristiano; Wikimedia Foundation - Eileen McNaughton.

Most authors also reviewed code for this release; in addition, the following reviewers contributed their comments:

Agileware - Justin Freeman; Artful Robot - Rich Lott; iXiam - Luciano Spiegel; JMA Consulting - Joe Murray; Joinery - Allen Shaw; Nicol Wistreich; Semper IT - Karin Gerritsen; Third Sector Design - Michael McAndrew.

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