Drupal Release: 8.6.3

TL;DR

Drupal 8.6.3 is a maintenance release that addresses numerous bugs, improves the Umami demo profile, enhances accessibility, and fixes several critical issues. This update includes important fixes for workspaces, layout builder, multilingual functionality, and migration tools. It also improves test coverage by converting many tests to PHPUnit and BrowserTestBase. This release is recommended for all Drupal 8.6.x sites to ensure stability and security.

Highlight of the Release

• Fixed critical issue where workspaces broke AJAX functionality on entity forms
• Improved Layout Builder stability with fixes for reverting layouts and managing display modes
• Enhanced multilingual support with fixes for user language preferences and migration tools
• Updated CKEditor library to version 4.10.1
• Improved accessibility of the Umami demo profile with better color contrast and screen reader support
• Fixed Quick Edit functionality for deleting images
• Improved error handling for malformed module.info.yml files
• Fixed issues with plugin managers to prevent fatal errors

Migration Guide

No significant migration steps are required for this maintenance release. This is primarily a bugfix release that addresses various issues without introducing breaking changes.

However, if you're using any of the following features, you should be aware of these changes:

Layout Builder

If you're using Layout Builder, this release fixes several critical issues:

• Fixed an issue where adding a block then reverting the layout didn't properly revert
• Fixed an issue where adding a display mode to a content type using layout and disabling layout on that new display mode removed the layout_builder__layout field

Workspaces

If you're using the experimental Workspaces module:

• Fixed an issue where workspaces broke all AJAX interaction on entity forms
• The workspace toolbar item has been updated to meet WCAG color contrast requirements

Multilingual Sites

Several fixes for multilingual functionality have been included:

• Fixed user's language preference not being applied
• Fixed issues with migrating Drupal 6 and 7 multilingual content

Plugin Developers

If you're developing plugins:

• The getInstance() method on plugin managers has been fixed to prevent fatal errors
• EntityReferenceTestTrait has been deprecated

Upgrade Recommendations

This is a maintenance release containing bug fixes and minor improvements without introducing new features or breaking changes. It is recommended for all sites running Drupal 8.6.x to upgrade to this version to ensure stability and security.

Priority: Medium

The upgrade to Drupal 8.6.3 is particularly important if you are:

1. Using the Layout Builder module
2. Using the experimental Workspaces module
3. Running a multilingual site
4. Experiencing any of the specific issues fixed in this release

Upgrade Steps:

1. Back up your database and code before upgrading
2. Update using Composer (recommended):

   composer update drupal/core --with-dependencies
   

3. Or update manually by downloading the release and following the standard update procedure
4. Run database updates:

   drush updatedb
   

5. Clear caches:

   drush cache:rebuild
   

No special migration steps are required for this maintenance release.

Bug Fixes

Critical Bug Fixes

• Fixed issue where workspaces broke all AJAX interaction on entity forms
• Fixed Layout Builder issues where adding a block then reverting the layout didn't properly revert
• Fixed issue where not properly clearing EntityFieldManager's fieldMap led to fatal errors
• Fixed issue where adding a display mode to a content type using layout and disabling layout on that new display mode removed the layout_builder__layout field
• Fixed issue where formatter settings were lost when moving fields between regions in 'Manage display'

Multilingual Fixes

• Fixed user's language preference not being applied
• Fixed issues with migrating Drupal 6 and 7 multilingual content
• Fixed comment migration corruption with multilingual sites
• Fixed migration of Drupal 7 taxonomy term entity translations
• Fixed migration of Drupal 7 comment entity translations

Other Bug Fixes

• Fixed Quick Edit functionality for deleting images
• Fixed telephone link field formatter InvalidArgumentException with 5 digits or fewer in the number
• Fixed breadcrumbs disappearing when starting with front-page after cache rebuild for anonymous users
• Fixed LocalTaskDefault/LocalActionDefault ignoring parameters when raw parameters are not present
• Fixed issue where menu_ui_form_node_form_alter() loaded all menus unnecessarily
• Fixed issue where orphan term hierarchy records caused taxonomy_update_8502 to enter an infinite loop
• Fixed issue where relative URLs in emails weren't converted to absolute ones
• Fixed issue where contextual links did not respect pathPrefix
• Fixed issue where media translations couldn't be deleted

New Features

Umami Demo Profile Improvements

• Added a favicon to the Umami theme
• Added a README.txt file to the Umami theme
• Improved description for the Recipe Category vocabulary
• Fixed horizontal scrolling issues at 960px screen width
• Corrected grammar and spelling errors in content files
• Removed field_author from the Recipe content type
• Fixed accessibility issues with the search icon on the landing page

CKEditor Updates

• Updated CKEditor library to version 4.10.1
• Extended CKEditor integration tests for DrupalImage and DrupalImageCaption

Workspaces Improvements

• Fixed WCAG color contrast issues with the workspace toolbar item at narrow breakpoints
• Updated the Workspaces module description for clarity
• Fixed issues where workspaces broke AJAX functionality on entity forms

Security Updates

Security Improvements

• Fixed issue with PrivateTempStore->getOwner attempting to access possibly unset Request Session, which could lead to potential security vulnerabilities
• Improved URL handling in ContentTranslationRouteSubscriber and ContentTranslationController to prevent potential security issues with manually constructed URLs
• Fixed issue where relative URLs in emails weren't converted to absolute ones, which could potentially lead to phishing vulnerabilities

Performance Improvements

Performance Enhancements

• Fixed issue where menu_ui_form_node_form_alter() loaded all menus, improving performance when editing nodes
• Fixed UnroutedUrlAssembler sorting query params in buildExternalUrl()
• Improved caching for "Local actions" block to take route access information into account
• Fixed breadcrumbs disappearing when starting with front-page after cache rebuild for anonymous users, which improves page load performance

Query Optimization

• Fixed complex cloned query dependent on __toString() call, improving database query performance
• Improved handling of EntityFieldManager's fieldMap to prevent unnecessary rebuilds

Impact Summary

Drupal 8.6.3 is a maintenance release that addresses numerous bugs and makes incremental improvements across the platform. The most significant impacts are in four key areas:

1. Layout Builder and Workspaces Stability: Critical fixes for the Layout Builder and experimental Workspaces modules ensure they function correctly, particularly addressing issues with AJAX functionality, reverting layouts, and managing display modes.

2. Multilingual Improvements: Several fixes for multilingual functionality, including user language preferences and migration tools for multilingual content from Drupal 6 and 7, make this release particularly valuable for multilingual sites.

3. Umami Demo Profile Enhancements: The Umami demo profile received numerous improvements to accessibility, content, and user experience, making it a better demonstration tool and reference implementation.

4. Developer Experience: Significant improvements to the testing infrastructure with many tests converted to PHPUnit and BrowserTestBase, along with better error handling and documentation for various APIs, enhance the developer experience.

This release doesn't introduce new features or breaking changes, making it a straightforward upgrade that improves stability and fixes bugs across the platform. Site administrators, content editors, developers, and multilingual site managers will all benefit from these improvements.