Drupal Release: 8.1.1

TL;DR

Drupal 8.1.1 is a maintenance release that addresses numerous bugs, improves documentation, and enhances code quality. This update includes important fixes for entity reference fields, form handling, configuration management, and Views functionality. While primarily focused on bug fixes and code improvements, it also contains some performance optimizations and security enhancements that make it a recommended upgrade for all Drupal 8.1.0 sites.

Highlight of the Release

• Fixed anonymous user file upload handling in forms
• Improved entity reference fields to correctly handle anonymous users
• Enhanced configuration management during installation and syncing
• Fixed Views AJAX modals and caching issues
• Improved DateTime field handling and formatting
• Numerous documentation improvements and code quality enhancements

Migration Guide

No specific migration steps are required when upgrading from Drupal 8.1.0 to 8.1.1. This is a maintenance release that focuses on bug fixes and does not introduce any breaking changes or require special migration procedures.

However, if you have custom code that relies on any of the fixed functionality, particularly around:

• Entity queries using allRevisions()
• Views with AJAX modals
• DateTime field handling
• Anonymous user file uploads

You should test your site thoroughly after upgrading to ensure these fixes don't affect your custom implementations.

Upgrade Recommendations

This update is recommended for all Drupal 8.1.0 sites.

Drupal 8.1.1 contains numerous bug fixes that improve stability, particularly for:

• Form handling with file uploads
• Entity reference fields and queries
• Views functionality
• Configuration management
• DateTime field handling

The update process should be straightforward:

1. Back up your database and files
2. Put your site into maintenance mode
3. Update your codebase to Drupal 8.1.1
4. Run database updates (update.php or Drush)
5. Clear caches
6. Take your site out of maintenance mode

As with any update, testing in a development or staging environment before applying to production is strongly recommended.

Bug Fixes

Entity and Field System

• Fixed issue where user reference fields incorrectly included anonymous users when 'include_anonymous' was set to false when using select widget
• Fixed entity queries with allRevisions() that were ignoring non-revisionable fields
• Fixed recursive rendering protection in the 'Rendered entity' formatter
• Fixed DateTime field handling to prevent exceptions with bad dates
• Corrected ISO datetime attribute generation for date-only fields with default formatter

Forms and UI

• Fixed issue where anonymous users submitting forms with un-uploaded files would lose the file on validation errors
• Fixed 'Change the author of content' action that was causing errors
• Fixed links with in-page fragments that were rendering improperly

Views

• Fixed Views row caching that was still caching rows when cache plugin was set to 'none'
• Fixed Views AJAX modals that stopped working in certain scenarios
• Fixed TaxonomyIndexTid Views plugin that was storing selected terms with ID instead of UUID
• Fixed issue with buildRenderable() not working with display plugin embed

Configuration and Installation

• Fixed ConfigInstaller to properly detect syncing state
• Fixed installation failures when a valid config sync directory was defined
• Improved UUID service registration to handle environments with different available functions

Routing and Caching

• Fixed route provider exception handling
• Improved breadcrumb caching by using more appropriate cache contexts
• Disabled placeholdering and BigPipe on unsafe requests to help find forms faster

Other

• Fixed comment bundle label that was incorrect
• Fixed request path condition evaluation when the current path is '/'
• Fixed static map handling in migrations to prevent skipping empty rows
• Set opcache.revalidate_freq when running tests

New Features

No significant new features were added in this maintenance release. Drupal 8.1.1 focuses primarily on bug fixes, documentation improvements, and code quality enhancements to stabilize the 8.1.x branch.

Security Updates

Security Improvements

• Added proper access restriction to the database update route (system.db_update) using the access_check.db_update service
• Improved handling of unsafe requests by disabling placeholdering and BigPipe functionality
• Fixed file upload handling for anonymous users to prevent potential security issues

While these are security improvements, this release does not contain fixes for any critical security vulnerabilities.

Performance Improvements

Performance Enhancements

• Improved caching for breadcrumbs by using more appropriate cache contexts (url.path was unnecessarily granular)
• Optimized form handling by disabling placeholdering and BigPipe on unsafe requests, allowing forms to be found faster
• Improved Drupal.php autoloading by moving from "files" to "classmap" in Composer configuration
• Enhanced Views caching by fixing an issue where rows were still being cached when the cache plugin was set to 'none'

Impact Summary

Drupal 8.1.1 is a maintenance release that focuses on stability and bug fixes rather than introducing new features. The impact is primarily positive, addressing several issues that could affect site functionality and developer experience.

Key impacts include:

• Improved form handling: Fixed issues with file uploads for anonymous users and the 'Change author' action
• Enhanced entity handling: Better support for entity references, revisions, and field formatting
• More reliable Views: Fixed issues with caching, AJAX modals, and taxonomy term handling
• Better configuration management: Improved handling during installation and syncing
• Code quality improvements: Numerous coding standards fixes and documentation enhancements

This release represents an important stabilization of the 8.1.x branch, making sites more reliable without introducing breaking changes. The fixes for anonymous user file uploads and entity reference fields are particularly important for sites with public-facing forms or complex content relationships.