Ghost Release: 5.52.2

TL;DR

Ghost v5.52.2 fixes a critical bug in post scheduling for sites with transferred ownership

This patch release addresses an important issue where scheduled posts would fail to publish on Ghost sites where ownership had been transferred from the original admin. The bug occurred because the post scheduler was attempting to run operations as user_id = 1 (the original owner), which could cause database foreign key constraint failures if that user no longer existed. This fix ensures scheduled posts will publish correctly regardless of site ownership changes.

Highlight of the Release

• Fixed critical bug preventing scheduled posts from publishing on sites with transferred ownership
• Resolved database foreign key constraint failures in the post_revisions table
• Improved system resilience when the original site owner (user_id = 1) no longer exists

Migration Guide

No migration steps are required for this patch release. The fix is automatically applied when updating to v5.52.2.

Upgrade Recommendations

This patch release is highly recommended for all Ghost sites where:

• Site ownership has been transferred from the original admin
• You use scheduled posts as part of your publishing workflow

The update is a standard patch release with minimal risk. We recommend all Ghost installations update to v5.52.2 to ensure reliable operation of the post scheduling system.

Bug Fixes

Post Scheduling Fix for Transferred Ownership

This release fixes a critical bug in the post scheduling system that affected sites where ownership had been transferred from the original admin:

• Fixed an issue where the post scheduler would fail when trying to publish scheduled posts on sites with transferred ownership
• Resolved database foreign key constraint failures in the post_revisions table that occurred when the scheduler tried to update posts using user_id = 1 (the original owner) who may no longer exist
• Added logic to check if the context user exists, and if not, replace it with the current site owner
• Ensures scheduled posts will now publish correctly regardless of site ownership history

This fix addresses Ghost issue #3494.

New Features

No new features were added in this patch release.

Security Updates

No security fixes were included in this patch release.

Performance Improvements

No specific performance improvements were included in this patch release.

Impact Summary

This patch release fixes a specific but critical bug in Ghost's post scheduling system that affected sites with transferred ownership. The impact is significant for sites that have changed ownership from the original admin (user_id = 1) and rely on scheduled posts.

Before this fix, scheduled posts would fail to publish on affected sites due to database foreign key constraint failures. This occurred because the scheduler was attempting to run as the original owner who might no longer exist in the system.

The fix ensures that the post scheduler will always use a valid user context, falling back to the current site owner if needed. This makes the scheduling system more resilient to administrative changes and ensures content publishing workflows remain reliable regardless of site ownership history.

This update requires no configuration changes or migration steps and should be applied to all Ghost installations to ensure proper functionality of the scheduling system.

Full Release Notes