Drupal Release: 8.5.5

TL;DR

Drupal 8.5.5 is a maintenance release that includes numerous bug fixes, documentation improvements, and minor enhancements. This update focuses on improving multilingual content migration, fixing security issues with user cancellation redirects, enhancing browser compatibility for the Umami theme, and addressing various documentation gaps. While there are no major new features, the release provides important fixes that improve stability, security, and developer experience.

Highlight of the Release

• Fixed security issue with user cancel link not redirecting properly to homepage
• Added Internet Explorer 11 support for the Umami theme
• Enhanced migration support for multilingual content and revisions
• Fixed EntityReferenceFieldItemList::referencedEntities() for computed fields
• Improved documentation across multiple APIs and components

Migration Guide

Upgrading to Drupal 8.5.5

This is a maintenance release with bug fixes and minor improvements. No specific migration steps are required when upgrading from Drupal 8.5.4 to 8.5.5.

If you're migrating content from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8, this release includes several improvements to the migration system, particularly for multilingual content:

1. Enhanced support for migrating multilingual revisions
2. Improved migration of Entity Translation settings
3. Added logging for skipped rows in the static_map plugin

These improvements don't require special migration steps but will make your content migration process more robust.

Upgrade Recommendations

This release contains important bug fixes and documentation improvements. While there are no critical security fixes announced in this release, the improvements to user cancellation redirect handling has security implications.

Recommendation: Site owners currently running Drupal 8.5.4 should upgrade to 8.5.5 at their earliest convenience during a regular maintenance window.

The upgrade process from 8.5.4 to 8.5.5 should be straightforward with minimal risk, as this is a minor maintenance release. As always, it's recommended to:

1. Back up your database and files before upgrading
2. Test the upgrade on a staging environment first
3. Run update.php after deploying the new code
4. Clear caches and test critical site functionality

Bug Fixes

Core Functionality Fixes

• User Cancel Link: Fixed issue where the user cancel link wasn't properly redirecting to the homepage.
• URL Handling: Fixed issue where URLs with trailing spaces (e.g., "/ ") were not being recognized as the front page.
• Activity Tracker: Fixed issue preventing the Activity Tracker from being enabled when unpublished nodes exist.
• Entity References: Fixed EntityReferenceFieldItemList::referencedEntities() to work correctly with computed fields.

Database and Testing Fixes

• SQLite Statements: Fixed risky count() usage in SQLite Statement handling.
• Test Framework:
  • Fixed run-test.sh to work in directories with spaces.
  • Added ltrim($path, '/') in drupalGet method to improve URL handling in tests.
  • Improved test coverage for bulk actions when views have exposed forms using AJAX.
  • Fixed BasicSyntaxTest::testConcatFields for contrib drivers.

Migration System Fixes

• Migration Plugins: Fixed issues with migration plugins and improved their documentation.
• File Migration: Aligned setup() functionality between MigrateFileTest and MigratePrivateFileTest.

New Features

Enhanced Migration Support

• Multilingual Revisions: Added support for migrating multilingual revisions from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8, making content migration more comprehensive.
• Entity Translation Settings: Improved migration of Drupal 7 Entity Translation settings to Drupal 8.
• Migration Logging: Added logging capability to the static_map plugin to track when rows are skipped during migration.

Theme Improvements

• Umami Theme IE11 Support: Added compatibility for Internet Explorer 11 to the Umami demo theme.
• Umami Font Weight Policy: Established consistent font-weight policies in the Umami theme.
• Bartik Documentation: Added README.txt to the Bartik theme to improve developer onboarding.

Security Updates

User Account Security

• User Cancellation Redirect: Fixed a security issue where the user cancel link didn't properly redirect to the homepage (Issue #2855054). This could potentially lead to unintended behavior during the account cancellation process.

Performance Improvements

No significant performance improvements were explicitly mentioned in this release. The changes primarily focus on bug fixes, documentation improvements, and minor enhancements rather than performance optimizations.

Impact Summary

Drupal 8.5.5 is primarily a maintenance release that addresses various bugs and improves documentation across multiple components. The most notable impacts include:

1. Security Enhancement: Fixed an issue with user cancel links not redirecting properly to the homepage, which could have security implications.

2. Browser Compatibility: Added Internet Explorer 11 support for the Umami theme, expanding the theme's usability across more browsers.

3. Migration Improvements: Enhanced support for multilingual content migration, particularly for entity translations and revisions, making it easier to migrate complex multilingual sites from Drupal 7.

4. Developer Experience: Numerous documentation improvements across APIs and components, making the codebase more accessible and understandable for developers.

5. Stability: Fixed several bugs related to entity references, URL handling, and the Activity Tracker module, improving overall platform stability.

While this release doesn't introduce major new features, it strengthens Drupal 8.5.x's reliability and addresses several pain points for site administrators, developers, and content editors working with multilingual sites.