Ghost Release: 3.7.0

TL;DR

Ghost 3.7.0 Release

What's New: Ghost 3.7.0 brings important fixes for the Members feature, including resolving issues with CSV imports and label management. The update also improves error reporting to Sentry and fixes a middleware issue with serving public images.

Why It Matters: This release addresses critical bugs that were affecting member management workflows and improves the overall stability of the platform.

Who Should Care: Ghost site owners who use the Members feature, particularly those who import members via CSV or organize members with labels.

Highlight of the Release

• Fixed member CSV import subscription settings
• Resolved the 'Unable to update nested relation' error when adding labels to members
• Improved error reporting to Sentry
• Fixed middleware issues when serving public images
• Removed limitations for canceling/renewing 'Complimentary' plan subscriptions

Migration Guide

This release includes a migration to fix the member labels functionality. The migration will:

1. Drop the existing members_label table
2. Recreate it with the correct foreign key constraints

No manual intervention is required as Knex handles the removal and addition of foreign keys during the table drop/create process.

If you've been experiencing issues with adding labels to members, this update should resolve those problems automatically upon installation.

Upgrade Recommendations

We recommend all Ghost users upgrade to version 3.7.0, especially those who:

• Use the Members feature
• Import members via CSV
• Organize members with labels
• Have experienced errors with public image serving

This release contains important bug fixes that improve the stability and functionality of core features. The upgrade process should be straightforward with no breaking changes reported.

Bug Fixes

• Member CSV Import: Fixed an issue where the CSV import was setting the 'subscribed' field to true as default. The import now properly respects explicit false or FALSE values from spreadsheets while maintaining the default for unspecified values.

• Member Labels: Resolved the "Unable to update nested relation" error when adding labels to members. This was caused by incorrect references in the schema.js file for the members_label table added in version 3.6.0. The fix includes a migration to drop and recreate the table with proper foreign key constraints.

• Public Image Serving: Fixed "Cannot set headers after they are sent to the client" error in the servePublicFile middleware. The middleware was erroneously calling next() for successful requests, which triggered the prettyUrls middleware to attempt a redirect. Now next() is only called when an error is present.

• Error Reporting: Fixed issues with error reporting to Sentry where some errors weren't being reported because they were being passed to Sentry before middleware could populate the error information. The Sentry middleware has been repositioned in the processing chain to ensure proper error capture.

New Features

• CODEOWNERS Protection: Added CODEOWNERS file to protect database migrations, requiring review from the devops team before merging these potentially risky changes.
• Enhanced Subscription Management: Removed limitations to cancel/renew "Complimentary" plan subscriptions through the @tryghost/members-api update.

Security Updates

No specific security fixes were included in this release.

Performance Improvements

• Middleware Optimization: The servePublicFile middleware has been optimized to properly handle request completion, preventing unnecessary processing by subsequent middleware for successful requests.

• Error Handling: Improved error handling flow ensures that errors are properly captured and reported, which can lead to faster identification and resolution of issues.

Impact Summary

Ghost 3.7.0 focuses on stabilizing the Members feature with important bug fixes for CSV imports and label management. The release also improves error reporting and fixes middleware issues with serving public images.

For site administrators, this update resolves frustrating issues when managing members, particularly when importing via CSV or organizing with labels. The fixes to the 'Complimentary' plan subscription management also provide more flexibility in handling special member subscriptions.

Developers will benefit from the improved middleware behavior and error reporting, while the new CODEOWNERS protection adds an extra layer of safety for database migrations.

Overall, this is primarily a maintenance release that addresses specific bugs rather than introducing major new features, making it a recommended update for all Ghost users to ensure stable operation of their sites.

Full Release Notes