Ghost Release: 1.17.2

TL;DR

Ghost 1.17.2 is a maintenance release that fixes several bugs and improves the RSS service architecture. Key improvements include pagination error fixes, access token renewal stability, new subscriber management endpoints, and UI enhancements for featured posts. This release focuses on stability and developer experience rather than introducing major new features.

Highlight of the Release

• Fixed pagination error that affected content browsing
• Resolved concurrent access token renewal issues that could cause token deletion errors
• Added new subscriber management endpoints via email address
• Improved RSS service architecture for better maintainability
• Added 'Featured posts' filter and badge to the stories list

Migration Guide

No migration steps are required for this release. This is a maintenance release that can be installed as a direct upgrade from previous 1.17.x versions.

Upgrade Recommendations

This is a recommended upgrade for all Ghost installations, especially for:

• Sites experiencing pagination issues
• Installations with high traffic that might encounter concurrent access token renewal
• Developers working with the API for subscriber management
• Anyone using Facebook group URLs in their social settings

The release contains important bug fixes and architectural improvements with no breaking changes. You can upgrade directly from any 1.17.x version without any special steps.

Bug Fixes

• Pagination Error: Fixed an issue with pagination that could cause errors due to differences in how SQLite and MySQL handle certain queries

• Access Token Renewal: Resolved an issue where concurrent requests trying to renew access tokens with the same refresh token could result in token deletion errors

  • Added proper locking mechanisms
  • Ensured prevention of deadlocks
  • Thoroughly tested with parallel requests

• Facebook URL Validation: Fixed validation for Facebook group URLs in the admin interface that was incorrectly rejecting valid URLs

• Channel Path: Fixed channel path to work correctly with Ghost-CLI

• Moment.js Warnings: Addressed deprecation warnings in listeners_spec by replacing .offset with .utcOffset

• Error Logging: Improved error logging behavior for i18n.doesTranslationKeyExist to prevent unnecessary errors in server logs

New Features

• Subscriber Management via Email: Added new API endpoints for managing subscribers by email address:

  • GET /subscribers/email/:email/ - Retrieve subscriber information using just their email
  • DELETE /subscribers/email/:email/ - Remove subscribers using just their email
  • Particularly useful for external systems integrating with Ghost's API

• Featured Posts Filter: Added a "Featured posts" filter and badge to the stories list in the admin interface, making it easier to identify and manage featured content

• Helpful Default User Bio: Updated the default Ghost user fixture with a helpful bio that provides guidance on how to delete welcome posts, improving the onboarding experience for new users

Security Updates

No specific security fixes were included in this release.

Performance Improvements

• Resource Locking: Extended the forUpdate locking capability to all models, not just the Post model

  • This allows for more efficient handling of concurrent operations on any resource
  • Prevents race conditions and data inconsistencies
  • Improves overall database operation reliability

• RSS Service Optimization: Consolidated URL generation and data processing in a single place, improving the efficiency of RSS feed generation

Impact Summary

Ghost 1.17.2 is primarily a maintenance and bug fix release that improves stability and developer experience. The architectural improvements to the RSS service and controller structure lay groundwork for better maintainability going forward. The new subscriber management endpoints provide more flexibility for external integrations. For content creators, the featured posts filter adds a useful organizational tool. The fixes for pagination and access token renewal address potential issues that could affect site reliability under certain conditions. Overall, this release represents incremental but important improvements to the Ghost platform without introducing breaking changes.

Full Release Notes