We are pleased to announce the release of SocialEngine PHP 6.3.0! This maintenance and security release fixes an important security issue, adds improvements, and addresses bugs posted by members of our community and staff. As this includes a jQuery security update, we strongly recommend everyone upgrade. Please read below for our requirements update.

Improvements:

• Security Update – jQuery was updated to address a vulnerability report.
• NEW – MariaDB compatibility! SocialEngine PHP is now compatible with MariaDB 10.6. This is exciting news for those wanting to use MariaDB.
• Improved – YouTube video sharing now does not require the YouTube API key. If no key is entered, videos will still share if you have the video plugin. If you choose to use a YouTube API key, that will also still work.
• Improved – Profile photos now only create four copies, reducing the space used for storing these photos. This was a highly requested improvement.
• Improved – Added missing labels for accessibility for screen readers. This will enhance website accessibility and provide for a much better user experience.
• Improved – Iframely is now optional for link sharing. You can either use the Iframely API (provided from Iframely), or choose to disable Iframely and share links without it. 

Bugs Fixed:

• Fixed – Zend session destroyed, “Failed to decode session object. Session has been destroyed” error message.
• Fixed – Video not displaying in new tab if using S3.
• Fixed – Uploaded videos would not delete on PHP 8.
• Fixed – Video Language file remove sss from end of line 50.
• Fixed – Activity feed privacy selection box does not close when option is selected.
• Fixed – Update tutorial links in admin panel that went to old kb.
• Fixed – Finish removing socialengine warehouse from iframely setting.
• Fixed – Public forums not viewable by the public user group if the default user group is blocked from viewing.
• Fixed – Blog pagination not working.
• Fixed – Null value issue in MySQL won’t allow pages in admin to save.
• Fixed – Videos with italics in title are not showing correctly.
• Fixed – Invite sends friend request when not checked to send.
• Fixed – Searching in plugins was not working for “All Categories” and also was not pulling accurate results.
• Fixed – Inspira banner images slow to load due to opacity.
• Fixed – Inspira dark style login input white on white.
• Fixed – Inspira LinkedIn icon.
• Fixed – Inspira landing page banner strobing effect if no banners selected or if only one banner selected, text strobing effect if only one moving description exists.
• Fixed – Inspira apostrophe breaks text scrolling in banner.
• Fixed – Inspira profile question descriptions squished.
• Fixed – Inspira profile photo distorted in Windows 10.
• Fixed – Vimeo not working for self-hosted Iframely.
• Fixed – Link sharing image issue.
• Fixed – Email privacy to not send notifications not working.
• Fixed – Emails are going to super admin and ignoring the email setting for new registration notifications.
• Fixed – Group discussion losing formatting and getting javascript void.
• Fixed – Cleaned up errors from install.log file.
• Fixed – Cleaned up errors in warnings.log from group event.
• Fixed – Subscription was canceled before the end date if PayPal subscription payment failed.

A complete changelog is available for more details about the changes and fixes implemented in this 6.3.0 release. Please view our demo and explore 6.3.0! 

Clients with v6 access can download version 6.3.0 from our client dashboard.  Clients who do not have access will need to purchase v6 access. 

V6.3 has new requirements and recommendations. Please be sure to read them and have your server updated.

As always we highly encourage all users to do a complete backup of both files and database before performing an upgrade. Please have the backup performed by your host or a developer if you’re not comfortable performing it yourself. 

Important: There are special steps and patches for those upgrading from versions below v6. You will need to follow the special steps in the upgrading documents linked below before upgrading and applying the patches mentioned.

Fresh installs should follow our installation tutorial or you can order an installation and our team will get it installed in no time. To upgrade from a previous version to 6.3.0, please view our upgrade documentation. 

If you find any issues with this release, please let us know by filing a bug report in our Bug Tracker. We’d also like to encourage you to stay connected with the community.

Our community is upgraded to 6.3.0 with no issues.

When I was management at phpFox, we used to do it that way back in v2. We found that we ended up with features that destabilized the script (such as a dislike feature that destabilized the activity feed). We won't be using polls like that as we have such a diverse client base. The most wanted feature for adult sites wouldn't be the most wanted feature for church sites for example. However, we do find that feature requests that get a lot of interest (posting in that request by many clients) can get more attention from us. It's a good idea for you to post your interest in that feature request you mentioned. If it is an accepted feature, we will check to see how much interest is in it and if it'll fit in with development now. There are some feature requests that are accepted but need to wait for bigger database enhancements in order for us to do them. I don't know if that is one of them. 

Thank you for your feedback.For the video issue, I can say that in the extended roadmap, we will be improving all of our plugins quite a lot. Each plugin is mapped for improvements. Our universal s3 feature is almost ready. We tried for 6.3 but we had to get it out for that security issue so we are working on it for 6.4. Maybe that will help. It'll work with BryZar s3 (our recommended host), Wasabi, Digital Ocean, Minio, etc.

BryZar, which I co-own, is DMCA friendly, has high availability set ups for large sites, and many other options. Large clients are already hosting there and some use bare metal as well as BryZar offers it.

For issues not related to the 6.3 release, would you please open a new thread to keep this one on track.Thank you.

Hi Cheryl, 

Please make sure you:

1. Didn't edit the Insignia theme files in the admin panel and instead worked on a clone. If you edited the theme files in admin, it will break the upgrade and the theme won't upgrade. 

2. If you edited the theme files and not a clone, you would need to revert those changes by clicking to do that in the theme editor.

3. Did you download the Inspira 6.3 files and upgrade that?

4. Did you enable development mode and then disable development mode to get the changes?

If you did all of that, then please post new bug reports and we will test again. I have to go upgrade the Inspira demo as I had not done that yet.

It would be best to check with the third party experts as the jquery update might mess with the jquery their plugins use.

Vennerse said:

I found a release announcement for SocialEngine PHP 6.3.0, which seems like a good update to install. It addresses a security issue, improves compatibility with MariaDB, and fixes several bugs reported by the community. They’ve also made some nice improvements like reducing storage space for profile photos and making the platform more to do my case study for me service accessible for screen readers. Overall, sounds like a worthwhile update!

Hello Vennerse,

Thank you for your appreciation. We have release SE v6.5.1 which has many more new features, new plugins and a free theme. Please do checkout here: https://socialengine.com/blog/socialengine-php-6-5-1-release/