Ghost Release: 5.35.1

TL;DR

Ghost v5.35.1 brings significant improvements to email reliability and analytics

This minor release focuses on enhancing email delivery reliability through a retry mechanism for failed emails and completely reworking the email analytics system. The update introduces sophisticated event fetching algorithms that ensure more accurate tracking of email opens and clicks, with new UI elements to monitor analytics processing status. These improvements are particularly valuable for newsletter publishers and content creators who rely on email delivery and performance metrics.

Highlight of the Release

• Automatic retry mechanism for failed emails (up to 5 attempts)
• Completely reworked email analytics fetching algorithm for improved accuracy
• New UI to monitor email analytics processing status
• Additional fetching loops to ensure no email events are missed

Migration Guide

No migration steps are required for this update. The improvements to email reliability and analytics processing are applied automatically after updating to v5.35.1.

Upgrade Recommendations

This update is recommended for all users, especially those who rely on email newsletters and analytics. The improvements to email delivery reliability and analytics accuracy provide significant benefits with no migration effort required.

To upgrade:

1. Back up your Ghost installation
2. Follow the standard update procedure for your installation method
3. No configuration changes are needed after updating

Bug Fixes

• Re-enabled email error reporting that was previously disabled
• Fixed issues with email analytics processing where events could be missed due to storage delays in the Mailgun API
• Prevented redundant fetching of the same events when no new events are available
• Fixed snapshot tests related to email functionality

New Features

Email Reliability and Analytics Improvements

• Email Sending Retry Mechanism: Implemented automatic retrying for failed emails sent via Mailgun API, with up to 5 retry attempts
• Reworked Analytics Fetching Algorithm: Completely redesigned how email analytics events are processed for better accuracy
• Multiple Fetching Loops:
  • Main loop now continues exactly where it stopped with millisecond precision
  • New "missing events" loop to catch events older than 30 minutes
  • New scheduled fetching loop for processing events between specific dates
• Analytics Monitoring UI: New interface to view the status of analytics processing loops
• New API Endpoints:
  • /analytics-loop-status to check analytics processing status
  • Endpoints to schedule and cancel analytics processing
• Live Data Reload: Analytics debug screen now updates in real-time

Security Updates

No specific security fixes were included in this release.

Performance Improvements

• Optimized Event Processing: Reduced CPU usage when handling large volumes of email events by minimizing merge operations
• Smarter Event Fetching: System now increases the begin timestamp by 1 second when safe to do so, preventing redundant processing of the same events
• Resource Management: Implemented maxEvents support to prevent overloading the system during peak processing times
• Balanced Processing: When the main analytics loop is processing large volumes, the system automatically reduces load on secondary loops

Impact Summary

Ghost v5.35.1 significantly improves the reliability of the email subsystem, which is a critical component for newsletter publishers. The introduction of automatic retries for failed emails reduces the chance of lost communications with subscribers.

The completely reworked email analytics system provides more accurate tracking of opens and clicks through multiple processing loops that ensure no events are missed, even when there are delays in the Mailgun API. This gives publishers more reliable data for measuring newsletter performance.

The new monitoring UI and API endpoints give administrators better visibility into the email analytics processing status, making it easier to troubleshoot any issues that might arise.

These improvements collectively enhance Ghost's capabilities as a newsletter platform without requiring any configuration changes or migration steps from users.

Full Release Notes