It’s been a few weeks since we announced the deprecation of libolm. Since then, we’ve fielded some questions on the subject and thought it would be helpful to collect this context in a blog post.

First up, a recap. We first introduced the idea that libolm would make way for vodozemac in 2022, following the Gematik sponsored audit from Least Authority.

Since then, various client implementations have migrated to vodozemac. Notably, all versions of Element, Element X, Fractal, iamb and other matrix-rust-sdk based clients and their forks already use vodozemac, and platforms using matrix-js-sdk can also use vodozemac instead of libolm.

In This Week in Matrix 2024-08-02 Matthew formally announced the deprecation of libolm in favour of vodozemac.

Continue reading…

On Monday 3rd July, the Libera.Chat IRC network shared that they would no longer accept portalled rooms over the Matrix.org <> Libera.Chat bridge. This change will come into effect between 25th July and 31st July.

We respect the decision but also recognise that this will be disruptive for matrix.org users accessing IRC over the bridge.

Practically speaking, if you currently use matrix.org as a bouncer into Libera.Chat this will no longer be possible unless the admin of every room you inhabit is willing to reconfigure the room for plumbing.

This post explains the situation as seen from the matrix.org side, what it means for matrix.org users and what to do next.

Continue reading…

Synapse 1.21.1 has landed!

Highlights of 1.21.1 include:-

• Add experimental support for sharding event persister. (#8294, #8387, #8396, #8419)

• Add experimental prometheus metric to track numbers of "large" rooms for state resolutiom. (#8425)

• Add prometheus metrics to track federation delays. (#8430)

• Fix messages not being sent over federation until an event is sent into the same room. (#8230, #8247, #8258, #8272, #8322)

We've also made some improvements to SSO and added new admin APIs.

Get the new releases from any of the usual sources mentioned at https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/blob/master/INSTALL.md. 1.21.1 is on github here

The changelog for 1.21.1 is as follows:

Synapse 1.21.1 (2020-10-13)

This release fixes a regression in v1.21.0 that prevented debian packages from being built.

It is otherwise identical to v1.21.0.

Synapse 1.21.0 (2020-10-12)

No significant changes since v1.21.0rc3.

As noted in v1.20.0, a future release will drop support for accessing Synapse's Admin API under the /_matrix/client/* endpoint prefixes. At that point, the Admin API will only be accessible under /_synapse/admin.

Synapse 1.21.0rc3 (2020-10-08)

Bugfixes

• Fix duplication of events on high traffic servers, caused by PostgreSQL could not serialize access due to concurrent update errors. (#8456)

Internal Changes

• Add Groovy Gorilla to the list of distributions we build .debs for. (#8475)

Synapse 1.21.0rc2 (2020-10-02)

Features

• Convert additional templates from inline HTML to Jinja2 templates. (#8444)

Bugfixes

• Fix a regression in v1.21.0rc1 which broke thumbnails of remote media. (#8438)
• Do not expose the experimental uk.half-shot.msc2778.login.application_service flow in the login API, which caused a compatibility problem with Element iOS. (#8440)
• Fix malformed log line in new federation "catch up" logic. (#8442)
• Fix DB query on startup for negative streams which caused long start up times. Introduced in #8374. (#8447)

Synapse 1.21.0rc1 (2020-10-01)

Features

• Require the user to confirm that their password should be reset after clicking the email confirmation link. (#8004)
• Add an admin API GET /_synapse/admin/v1/event_reports to read entries of table event_reports. Contributed by @dklimpel. (#8217)
• Consolidate the SSO error template across all configuration. (#8248, #8405)
• Add a configuration option to specify a whitelist of domains that a user can be redirected to after validating their email or phone number. (#8275, #8417)
• Add experimental support for sharding event persister. (#8294, #8387, #8396, #8419)
• Add the room topic and avatar to the room details admin API. (#8305)
• Add an admin API for querying rooms where a user is a member. Contributed by @dklimpel. (#8306)
• Add uk.half-shot.msc2778.login.application_service login type to allow appservices to login. (#8320)
• Add a configuration option that allows existing users to log in with OpenID Connect. Contributed by @BBBSnowball and @OmmyZhang. (#8345)
• Add prometheus metrics for replication requests. (#8406)
• Support passing additional single sign-on parameters to the client. (#8413)
• Add experimental reporting of metrics on expensive rooms for state-resolution. (#8420)
• Add experimental prometheus metric to track numbers of "large" rooms for state resolutiom. (#8425)
• Add prometheus metrics to track federation delays. (#8430)

Bugfixes

• Fix a bug in the media repository where remote thumbnails with the same size but different crop methods would overwrite each other. Contributed by @deepbluev7. (#7124)
• Fix inconsistent handling of non-existent push rules, and stop tracking the enabled state of removed push rules. (#7796)
• Fix a longstanding bug when storing a media file with an empty upload_name. (#7905)
• Fix messages not being sent over federation until an event is sent into the same room. (#8230, #8247, #8258, #8272, #8322)
• Fix a longstanding bug where files that could not be thumbnailed would result in an Internal Server Error. (#8236, #8435)
• Upgrade minimum version of canonicaljson to version 1.4.0, to fix an unicode encoding issue. (#8262)
• Fix longstanding bug which could lead to incomplete database upgrades on SQLite. (#8265)
• Fix stack overflow when stderr is redirected to the logging system, and the logging system encounters an error. (#8268)
• Fix a bug which cause the logging system to report errors, if DEBUG was enabled and no context filter was applied. (#8278)
• Fix edge case where push could get delayed for a user until a later event was pushed. (#8287)
• Fix fetching malformed events from remote servers. (#8324)
• Fix UnboundLocalError from occurring when appservices send a malformed register request. (#8329)
• Don't send push notifications to expired user accounts. (#8353)
• Fix a regression in v1.19.0 with reactivating users through the admin API. (#8362)
• Fix a bug where during device registration the length of the device name wasn't limited. (#8364)
• Include guest_access in the fields that are checked for null bytes when updating room_stats_state. Broke in v1.7.2. (#8373)
• Fix theoretical race condition where events are not sent down /sync if the synchrotron worker is restarted without restarting other workers. (#8374)
• Fix a bug which could cause errors in rooms with malformed membership events, on servers using sqlite. (#8385)
• Fix "Re-starting finished log context" warning when receiving an event we already had over federation. (#8398)
• Fix incorrect handling of timeouts on outgoing HTTP requests. (#8400)
• Fix a regression in v1.20.0 in the synapse_port_db script regarding the ui_auth_sessions_ips table. (#8410)
• Remove unnecessary 3PID registration check when resetting password via an email address. Bug introduced in v0.34.0rc2. (#8414)

Improved Documentation

• Add /_synapse/client to the reverse proxy documentation. (#8227)
• Add note to the reverse proxy settings documentation about disabling Apache's mod_security2. Contributed by Julian Fietkau (@jfietkau). (#8375)
• Improve description of server_name config option in homserver.yaml. (#8415)

Deprecations and Removals

• Drop support for prometheus_client older than 0.4.0. (#8426)

Internal Changes

• Fix tests on distros which disable TLSv1.0. Contributed by @danc86. (#8208)
• Simplify the distributor code to avoid unnecessary work. (#8216)
• Remove the populate_stats_process_rooms_2 background job and restore functionality to populate_stats_process_rooms. (#8243)
• Clean up type hints for PaginationConfig. (#8250, #8282)
• Track the latest event for every destination and room for catch-up after federation outage. (#8256)
• Fix non-user visible bug in implementation of MultiWriterIdGenerator.get_current_token_for_writer. (#8257)
• Switch to the JSON implementation from the standard library. (#8259)
• Add type hints to synapse.util.async_helpers. (#8260)
• Simplify tests that mock asynchronous functions. (#8261)
• Add type hints to StreamToken and RoomStreamToken classes. (#8279)
• Change StreamToken.room_key to be a RoomStreamToken instance. (#8281)
• Refactor notifier code to correctly use the max event stream position. (#8288)
• Use slotted classes where possible. (#8296)
• Support testing the local Synapse checkout against the Complement homeserver test suite. (#8317)
• Update outdated usages of metaclass to python 3 syntax. (#8326)
• Move lint-related dependencies to package-extra field, update CONTRIBUTING.md to utilise this. (#8330, #8377)
• Use the admin_patterns helper in additional locations. (#8331)
• Fix test logging to allow braces in log output. (#8335)
• Remove __future__ imports related to Python 2 compatibility. (#8337)
• Simplify super() calls to Python 3 syntax. (#8344)
• Fix bad merge from release-v1.20.0 branch to develop. (#8354)
• Factor out a _send_dummy_event_for_room method. (#8370)
• Improve logging of state resolution. (#8371)
• Add type annotations to SimpleHttpClient. (#8372)
• Refactor ID generators to use async with syntax. (#8383)
• Add EventStreamPosition type. (#8388)
• Create a mechanism for marking tests "logcontext clean". (#8399)
• A pair of tiny cleanups in the federation request code. (#8401)
• Add checks on startup that PostgreSQL sequences are consistent with their associated tables. (#8402)
• Do not include appservice users when calculating the total MAU for a server. (#8404)
• Typing fixes for synapse.handlers.federation. (#8422)
• Various refactors to simplify stream token handling. (#8423)
• Make stream token serializing/deserializing async. (#8427)

Synapse 1.20.0 is here!

Highlights of 1.20.0 include:-

• Shadow ban support.
• Unread message counts in the sync response to help our client developers, this is a precursor to improving notification support.
• No less than 28 async/await PRs, so we can finally share all the hard work.

Also take note that in a future release, we will be dropping support for accessing Synapse's Admin API using the /_matrix/client/* prefixes. More details follow in the changelog.

Get the new releases from any of the usual sources mentioned at https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/blob/master/INSTALL.md. 1.20.0 is on github here, and 1.20.0rc4 is here.

The changelog for 1.20.0 is as follows:

Synapse 1.20.0 (2020-09-22)

No significant changes since v1.20.0rc5.

Removal warning

Historically, the Synapse Admin API has been accessible under the /_matrix/client/api/v1/admin, /_matrix/client/unstable/admin, /_matrix/client/r0/admin and /_synapse/admin prefixes. In a future release, we will be dropping support for accessing Synapse's Admin API using the /_matrix/client/* prefixes. This makes it easier for homeserver admins to lock down external access to the Admin API endpoints.

Synapse 1.20.0rc5 (2020-09-18)

In addition to the below, Synapse 1.20.0rc5 also includes the bug fix that was included in 1.19.3.

Features

• Add flags to the /versions endpoint for whether new rooms default to using E2EE. (#8343)

Bugfixes

• Fix rate limiting of federation /send requests. (#8342)
• Fix a longstanding bug where back pagination over federation could get stuck if it failed to handle a received event. (#8349)

Internal Changes

• Blacklist MSC2753 SyTests until it is implemented. (#8285)

Synapse 1.20.0rc4 (2020-09-16)

Synapse 1.20.0rc4 is identical to 1.20.0rc3, with the addition of the security fix that was included in 1.19.2.

Synapse 1.20.0rc3 (2020-09-11)

Bugfixes

• Fix a bug introduced in v1.20.0rc1 where the wrong exception was raised when invalid JSON data is encountered. (#8291)

Synapse 1.20.0rc2 (2020-09-09)

Bugfixes

• Fix a bug introduced in v1.20.0rc1 causing some features related to notifications to misbehave following the implementation of unread counts. (#8280)

Synapse 1.20.0rc1 (2020-09-08)

Removal warning

Some older clients used a disallowed character (:) in the client_secret parameter of various endpoints. The incorrect behaviour was allowed for backwards compatibility, but is now being removed from Synapse as most users have updated their client. Further context can be found at #6766.

Features

• Add an endpoint to query your shared rooms with another user as an implementation of MSC2666. (#7785)
• Iteratively encode JSON to avoid blocking the reactor. (#8013, #8116)
• Add support for shadow-banning users (ignoring any message send requests). (#8034, #8092, #8095, #8142, #8152, #8157, #8158, #8176)
• Use the default template file when its equivalent is not found in a custom template directory. (#8037, #8107, #8252)
• Add unread messages count to sync responses, as specified in MSC2654. (#8059, #8254, #8270, #8274)
• Optimise /federation/v1/user/devices/ API by only returning devices with encryption keys. (#8198)

Bugfixes

• Fix a memory leak by limiting the length of time that messages will be queued for a remote server that has been unreachable. (#7864)
• Fix Re-starting finished log context PUT-nnnn warning when event persistence failed. (#8081)
• Synapse now correctly enforces the valid characters in the client_secret parameter used in various endpoints. (#8101)
• Fix a bug introduced in v1.7.2 impacting message retention policies that would allow federated homeservers to dictate a retention period that's lower than the configured minimum allowed duration in the configuration file. (#8104)
• Fix a long-standing bug where invalid JSON would be accepted by Synapse. (#8106)
• Fix a bug introduced in Synapse v1.12.0 which could cause /sync requests to fail with a 404 if you had a very old outstanding room invite. (#8110)
• Return a proper error code when the rooms of an invalid group are requested. (#8129)
• Fix a bug which could cause a leaked postgres connection if synapse was set to daemonize. (#8131)
• Clarify the error code if a user tries to register with a numeric ID. This bug was introduced in v1.15.0. (#8135)
• Fix a bug where appservices with ratelimiting disabled would still be ratelimited when joining rooms. This bug was introduced in v1.19.0. (#8139)
• Fix logging in via OpenID Connect with a provider that uses integer user IDs. (#8190)
• Fix a longstanding bug where user directory updates could break when unexpected profile data was included in events. (#8223)
• Fix a longstanding bug where stats updates could break when unexpected profile data was included in events. (#8226)
• Fix slow start times for large servers by removing a table scan of the users table from startup code. (#8271)

Updates to the Docker image

• Fix builds of the Docker image on non-x86 platforms. (#8144)
• Added curl for healthcheck support and readme updates for the change. Contributed by @maquis196. (#8147)

Improved Documentation

• Link to matrix-synapse-rest-password-provider in the password provider documentation. (#8111)
• Updated documentation to note that Synapse does not follow HTTP 308 redirects due to an upstream library not supporting them. Contributed by Ryan Cole. (#8120)
• Explain better what GDPR-erased means when deactivating a user. (#8189)

Internal Changes

• Add filter name to the /users admin API, which filters by user ID or displayname. Contributed by Awesome Technologies Innovationslabor GmbH. (#7377, #8163)
• Reduce run times of some unit tests by advancing the reactor a fewer number of times. (#7757)
• Don't fail /submit_token requests on incorrect session ID if request_token_inhibit_3pid_errors is turned on. (#7991)
• Convert various parts of the codebase to async/await. (#8071, #8072, #8074, #8075, #8076, #8087, #8100, #8119, #8121, #8133, #8156, #8162, #8166, #8168, #8173, #8191, #8192, #8193, #8194, #8195, #8197, #8199, #8200, #8201, #8202, #8207, #8213, #8214)
• Remove some unused database functions. (#8085)
• Add type hints to various parts of the codebase. (#8090, #8127, #8187, #8241, #8140, #8183, #8232, #8235, #8237, #8244)
• Return the previous stream token if a non-member event is a duplicate. (#8093, #8112)
• Separate get_current_token into two since there are two different use cases for it. (#8113)
• Remove ChainedIdGenerator. (#8123)
• Reduce the amount of whitespace in JSON stored and sent in responses. (#8124)
• Update the test federation client to handle streaming responses. (#8130)
• Micro-optimisations to get_auth_chain_ids. (#8132)
• Refactor StreamIdGenerator and MultiWriterIdGenerator to have the same interface. (#8161)
• Add functions to MultiWriterIdGen used by events stream. (#8164, #8179)
• Fix tests that were broken due to the merge of 1.19.1. (#8167)
• Make SlavedIdTracker.advance have the same interface as MultiWriterIDGenerator. (#8171)
• Remove unused is_guest parameter from, and add safeguard to, MessageHandler.get_room_data. (#8174, #8181)
• Standardize the mypy configuration. (#8175)
• Refactor some of LoginRestServlet's helper methods, and move them to AuthHandler for easier reuse. (#8182)
• Fix wait_for_stream_position to allow multiple waiters on same stream ID. (#8196)
• Make MultiWriterIDGenerator work for streams that use negative values. (#8203)
• Refactor queries for device keys and cross-signatures. (#8204, #8205, #8222, #8224, #8225, #8231, #8233, #8234)
• Fix type hints for functions decorated with @cached. (#8240)
• Remove obsolete order field from federation send queues. (#8245)
• Stop sub-classing from object. (#8249)
• Add more logging to debug slow startup. (#8264)
• Do not attempt to upgrade database schema on worker processes. (#8266, #8276)

Synapse 1.19.2 is a security patch. All federating instances should upgrade immediately.

Today we are releasing Synapse 1.19.2, which is a security patch release containing a fix to encountering invalid events over federation. We are also putting out a fourth release candidate for the upcoming Synapse 1.20.0 release with the same fix.

The bug prevents affected Synapse instances from joining rooms with invalid events. Server administrators running federating instances are strongly encouraged to update as soon as possible.

Those on Synapse 1.19.1 or earlier should upgrade to Synapse 1.19.2, while those who are running a release candidate of Synapse 1.20.0 should upgrade to 1.20.0rc4.

Get the new releases from any of the usual sources mentioned at https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/blob/master/INSTALL.md. 1.19.2 is on github here, and 1.20.0rc4 is here.

The changelog for 1.19.2 is as follows:

Synapse 1.19.2 (2020-09-16)

Due to the issue below server admins are encouraged to upgrade as soon as possible. Bugfixes

• Fix joining rooms over federation that include malformed events. (#8324)

Synapse 1.19.0 is here and ready for action.

1.19.0 contains lots of async/await changes, 27 separate PRs to be precise(thanks Patrick). These changes will provide some level of performance improvement, but the real value to us is that it will improve our ability to profile Synapse more effectively.

It also features improved logging performance, this is in part to reduce IO but also to reduce the total amount logged. We’d be really interested to get some feedback on if the changes help. You may also want to take a look at our new logging defaults to see if they would help reduce total disk space usage.

Some admins will rejoice that we have added a /health end point to every configured HTTP listener which should make it easier to monitor multi-worker installs.

Finally 1.19.0 contains improvements to the Admin API allowing the admin to optionally purge rooms on deletion.

Get the new releases from any of the usual sources mentioned at https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/blob/master/INSTALL.md. 1.19.0 is on github here.

Changelog for 1.19.0 follows:

Synapse 1.19.0 (2020-08-17)

No significant changes since 1.19.0rc1.

Removal warning

As outlined in the previous release, we are no longer publishing Docker images with the -py3 tag suffix. On top of that, we have also removed the latest-py3 tag. Please see the announcement in the upgrade notes for 1.18.0.

Synapse 1.19.0rc1 (2020-08-13)

Features

• Add option to allow server admins to join rooms which fail complexity checks. Contributed by @lugino-emeritus. (#7902)
• Add an option to purge room or not with delete room admin endpoint (POST /_synapse/admin/v1/rooms/<room_id>/delete). Contributed by @dklimpel. (#7964)
• Add rate limiting to users joining rooms. (#8008)
• Add a /health endpoint to every configured HTTP listener that can be used as a health check endpoint by load balancers. (#8048)
• Allow login to be blocked based on the values of SAML attributes. (#8052)
• Allow guest access to the GET /_matrix/client/r0/rooms/{room_id}/members endpoint, according to MSC2689. Contributed by Awesome Technologies Innovationslabor GmbH. (#7314)

Bugfixes

• Fix a bug introduced in Synapse v1.7.2 which caused inaccurate membership counts in the room directory. (#7977)
• Fix a long standing bug: 'Duplicate key value violates unique constraint "event_relations_id"' when message retention is configured. (#7978)
• Fix "no create event in auth events" when trying to reject invitation after inviter leaves. Bug introduced in Synapse v1.10.0. (#7980)
• Fix various comments and minor discrepancies in server notices code. (#7996)
• Fix a long standing bug where HTTP HEAD requests resulted in a 400 error. (#7999)
• Fix a long-standing bug which caused two copies of some log lines to be written when synctl was used along with a MemoryHandler logger. (#8011, #8012)

Updates to the Docker image

• We no longer publish Docker images with the -py3 tag suffix, as announced in the upgrade notes. (#8056)

Improved Documentation

• Document how to set up a client .well-known file and fix several pieces of outdated documentation. (#7899)
• Improve workers docs. (#7990, #8000)
• Fix typo in docs/workers.md. (#7992)
• Add documentation for how to undo a room shutdown. (#7998, #8010)

Internal Changes

• Reduce the amount of whitespace in JSON stored and sent in responses. Contributed by David Vo. (#7372)
• Switch to the JSON implementation from the standard library and bump the minimum version of the canonicaljson library to 1.2.0. (#7936, #7979)
• Convert various parts of the codebase to async/await. (#7947, #7948, #7949, #7951, #7963, #7973, #7975, #7976, #7981, #7987, #7989, #8003, #8014, #8016, #8027, #8031, #8032, #8035, #8042, #8044, #8045, #8061, #8062, #8063, #8066, #8069, #8070)
• Move some database-related log lines from the default logger to the database/transaction loggers. (#7952)
• Add a script to detect source code files using non-unix line terminators. (#7965, #7970)
• Log the SAML session ID during creation. (#7971)
• Implement new experimental push rules for some users. (#7997)
• Remove redundant and unreliable signature check for v1 Identity Service lookup responses. (#8001)
• Improve the performance of the register endpoint. (#8009)
• Reduce less useful output in the newsfragment CI step. Add a link to the changelog section of the contributing guide on error. (#8024)
• Rename storage layer objects to be more sensible. (#8033)
• Change the default log config to reduce disk I/O and storage for new servers. (#8040)
• Add an assertion on prev_events in create_new_client_event. (#8041)
• Add a comment to ServerContextFactory about the use of SSLv23_METHOD. (#8043)
• Log OPTIONS requests at DEBUG rather than INFO level to reduce amount logged at INFO. (#8049)
• Reduce amount of outbound request logging at INFO level. (#8050)
• It is no longer necessary to explicitly define filters in the logging configuration. (Continuing to do so is redundant but harmless.) (#8051)
• Add and improve type hints. (#8058, #8064, #8060, #8067)

Synapse 1.18.0 has landed.

The most important thing to know about 1.18.0 is that it contains support for sharding multiple workers. Specifically this means being able to run multiple federation senders, multiple client readers to handle registration and multiple push workers. This will be important for anyone running a large scale install of Synapse. You can read more about how to benefit from these changes in docs/workers.md. In the same spirit we also moved typing notifications from the main process.

Aside from that, we have new admin API support to list the users in a room, support for oEmbed for media previews (you can unfurl tweets again!) and a general slew of federation bug fixes.

Get the new releases from any of the usual sources mentioned at https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/blob/master/INSTALL.md. 1.18.0 is on github here.

Changelog for 1.18.0 follows:

Synapse 1.18.0 (2020-07-30)

Improved Documentation

• Update worker docs with latest enhancements. (#7969)

Synapse 1.18.0rc2 (2020-07-28)

Bugfixes

• Fix an AssertionError exception introduced in v1.18.0rc1. (#7876)
• Fix experimental support for moving typing off master when worker is restarted, which is broken in v1.18.0rc1. (#7967)

Internal Changes

• Further optimise queueing of inbound replication commands. (#7876)

Synapse 1.18.0rc1 (2020-07-27)

Features

• Include room states on invite events that are sent to application services. Contributed by @Sorunome. (#6455)
• Add delete room admin endpoint (POST /_synapse/admin/v1/rooms/<room_id>/delete). Contributed by @dklimpel. (#7613, #7953)
• Add experimental support for running multiple federation sender processes. (#7798)
• Add the option to validate the iss and aud claims for JWT logins. (#7827)
• Add support for handling registration requests across multiple client reader workers. (#7830)
• Add an admin API to list the users in a room. Contributed by Awesome Technologies Innovationslabor GmbH. (#7842)
• Allow email subjects to be customised through Synapse's configuration. (#7846)
• Add the ability to re-activate an account from the admin API. (#7847, #7908)
• Add experimental support for running multiple pusher workers. (#7855)
• Add experimental support for moving typing off master. (#7869, #7959)
• Report CPU metrics to prometheus for time spent processing replication commands. (#7879)
• Support oEmbed for media previews. (#7920)
• Abort federation requests where the client disconnects before the ratelimiter expires. (#7930)
• Cache responses to /_matrix/federation/v1/state_ids to reduce duplicated work. (#7931)

Bugfixes

• Fix detection of out of sync remote device lists when receiving events from remote users. (#7815)
• Fix bug where Synapse fails to process an incoming event over federation if the server is missing too much of the event's auth chain. (#7817)
• Fix a bug causing Synapse to misinterpret the value off for encryption_enabled_by_default_for_room_type in its configuration file(s) if that value isn't surrounded by quotes. This bug was introduced in v1.16.0. (#7822)
• Fix bug where we did not always pass in app_name or server_name to email templates, including e.g. for registration emails. (#7829)
• Errors which occur while using the non-standard JWT login now return the proper error: 403 Forbidden with an error code of M_FORBIDDEN. (#7844)
• Fix "AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'get'" error message when applying per-room message retention policies. The bug was introduced in Synapse 1.7.0. (#7850)
• Fix a bug introduced in Synapse 1.10.0 which could cause a "no create event in auth events" error during room creation. (#7854)
• Fix a bug which allowed empty rooms to be rejoined over federation. (#7859)
• Fix 'Unable to find a suitable guest user ID' error when using multiple client_reader workers. (#7866)
• Fix a long standing bug where the tracing of async functions with opentracing was broken. (#7872, #7961)
• Fix "TypeError in synapse.notifier" exceptions. (#7880)
• Fix deprecation warning due to invalid escape sequences. (#7895)

Updates to the Docker image

• Base docker image on Debian Buster rather than Alpine Linux. Contributed by @maquis196. (#7839)

Improved Documentation

• Provide instructions on using register_new_matrix_user via docker. (#7885)
• Change the sample config postgres user section to use synapse_user instead of synapse to align with the documentation. (#7889)
• Reorder database paragraphs to promote postgres over sqlite. (#7933)
• Update the dates of ACME v1's end of life in ACME.md. (#7934)

Deprecations and Removals

• Remove unused synapse_replication_tcp_resource_invalidate_cache prometheus metric. (#7878)
• Remove Ubuntu Eoan from the list of .deb packages that we build as it is now end-of-life. Contributed by @gary-kim. (#7888)

Internal Changes

• Switch parts of the codebase from simplejson to the standard library json. (#7802)
• Add type hints to the http server code and remove an unused parameter. (#7813)
• Add type hints to synapse.api.errors module. (#7820)
• Ensure that calls to json.dumps are compatible with the standard library json. (#7836)
• Remove redundant retry_on_integrity_error wrapper for event persistence code. (#7848)
• Consistently use db_to_json to convert from database values to JSON objects. (#7849)
• Convert various parts of the codebase to async/await. (#7851, #7860, #7868, #7871, #7873, #7874, #7884, #7912, #7935, #7939, #7942, #7944)
• Add support for handling registration requests across multiple client reader workers. (#7853)
• Small performance improvement in typing processing. (#7856)
• The default value of filter_timeline_limit was changed from -1 (no limit) to 100. (#7858)
• Optimise queueing of inbound replication commands. (#7861)
• Add some type annotations to HomeServer and BaseHandler. (#7870)
• Clean up PreserveLoggingContext. (#7877)
• Change "unknown room version" logging from 'error' to 'warning'. (#7881)
• Stop using device_max_stream_id table and just use device_inbox.stream_id. (#7882)
• Return an empty body for OPTIONS requests. (#7886)
• Fix typo in generated config file. Contributed by @ThiefMaster. (#7890)
• Import ABC from collections.abc for Python 3.10 compatibility. (#7892)
• Remove unused functions time_function, trace_function, get_previous_frames and get_previous_frame from synapse.logging.utils module. (#7897)
• Lint the contrib/ directory in CI and linting scripts, add synctl to the linting script for consistency with CI. (#7914)
• Use Element CSS and logo in notification emails when app name is Element. (#7919)
• Optimisation to /sync handling: skip serializing the response if the client has already disconnected. (#7927)
• When a client disconnects, don't log it as 'Error processing request'. (#7928)
• Add debugging to /sync response generation (disabled by default). (#7929)
• Update comments that refer to Deferreds for async functions. (#7945)
• Simplify error handling in federation handler. (#7950)

Synapse 1.17.0 is here!

Hot on the heels of Synapse 1.16.1, 1.17.0 is a bug fix release most notably containing a fix for 'stuck invites' which happen when we are unable to reject a room invite received over federation.

Get the new releases from any of the usual sources mentioned at https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/blob/master/INSTALL.md. 1.17.0 is on github here.

Changelog for 1.17.0 follows:

Synapse 1.17.0 (2020-07-13)

Synapse 1.17.0 is identical to 1.17.0rc1, with the addition of the fix that was included in 1.16.1.

Synapse 1.17.0rc1 (2020-07-09)

Bugfixes

• Fix inconsistent handling of upper and lower case in email addresses when used as identifiers for login, etc. Contributed by @dklimpel. (#7021)
• Fix "Tried to close a non-active scope!" error messages when opentracing is enabled. (#7732)
• Fix incorrect error message when database CTYPE was set incorrectly. (#7760)
• Fix to not ignore set_tweak actions in Push Rules that have no value, as permitted by the specification. (#7766)
• Fix synctl to handle empty config files correctly. Contributed by @kotovalexarian. (#7779)
• Fixes a long standing bug in worker mode where worker information was saved in the devices table instead of the original IP address and user agent. (#7797)
• Fix 'stuck invites' which happen when we are unable to reject a room invite received over federation. (#7804, #7809, #7810)

Updates to the Docker image

• Include libwebp in the Docker file to properly handle webp image uploads. (#7791)

Improved Documentation

• Improve the documentation of the non-standard JSON web token login type. (#7776)
• Update doc links for caddy. Contributed by Nicolai Søborg. (#7789)

Internal Changes

• Refactor getting replication updates from database. (#7740)
• Send push notifications with a high or low priority depending upon whether they may generate user-observable effects. (#7765)
• Use symbolic names for replication stream names. (#7768)
• Add early returns to _check_for_soft_fail. (#7769)
• Fix up synapse.handlers.federation to pass mypy. (#7770)
• Convert the appserver handler to async/await. (#7775)
• Allow to use higher versions of prometheus_client <0.9.0 which are expected to introduce no breaking changes. Contributed by Oliver Kurz. (#7780)
• Update linting scripts and codebase to be compatible with isort v5. (#7786)
• Stop populating unused table local_invites. (#7793)
• Ensure that strings (not bytes) are passed into JSON serialization. (#7799)
• Switch from simplejson to the standard library json. (#7800)
• Add signing_key property to HomeServer to save code duplication. (#7805)
• Improve stacktraces from exceptions in background processes. (#7808)
• Fix various spelling errors in comments and log lines. (#7811)

Synapse 1.16.0 is here!

Notable additions in 1.16.0 include:-

• An important performance fix to improve room state resolution.
• An option to enable e2e by default for new rooms.
• Ability to run multiple media repo workers side by side.
• Ability to mark specific content as being safe from quarantine.
• Bug fixes to make migrating from SQLite to Postgres more reliable - if you are running sqlite for anything other than evaluation purposes then please migrate!

Note, we have deprecated the m.login.jwt login method in favour of org.matrix.login.jwt see the changelog for more details.

Enjoy!

Get the new releases from any of the usual sources mentioned at https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/blob/master/INSTALL.md. 1.16.0 is on github here.

Changelog for 1.16.0 follows:

Synapse 1.16.0 (2020-07-08)

No significant changes since 1.16.0rc2.

Note that this release deprecates the m.login.jwt login method, renaming it to org.matrix.login.jwt, as m.login.jwt is not part of the Matrix spec. Otherwise the behaviour is identical. Synapse will accept both names for now, but this may change in a future release.

Synapse 1.16.0rc2 (2020-07-02)

Synapse 1.16.0rc2 includes the security fixes released with Synapse 1.15.2. Please see the 1.15.2 release notes for more details.

Improved Documentation

• Update postgres image in example docker-compose.yaml to tag 12-alpine. (#7696)

Internal Changes

• Add some metrics for inbound and outbound federation latencies: synapse_federation_server_pdu_process_time and synapse_event_processing_lag_by_event. (#7771)

Synapse 1.16.0rc1 (2020-07-01)

Features

• Add an option to enable encryption by default for new rooms. (#7639)
• Add support for running multiple media repository workers. See docs/workers.md for instructions. (#7706)
• Media can now be marked as safe from quarantined. (#7718)
• Expand the configuration options for auto-join rooms. (#7763)

Bugfixes

• Remove user_id from the response to GET /_matrix/client/r0/presence/{userId}/status to match the specification. (#7606)
• In worker mode, ensure that replicated data has not already been received. (#7648)
• Fix intermittent exception during startup, introduced in Synapse 1.14.0. (#7663)
• Include a user-agent for federation and well-known requests. (#7677)
• Accept the proper field (phone) for the m.id.phone identifier type. The legacy field of number is still accepted as a fallback. Bug introduced in v0.20.0. (#7687)
• Fix "Starting db txn 'get_completed_ui_auth_stages' from sentinel context" warning. The bug was introduced in 1.13.0. (#7688)
• Compare the URI and method during user interactive authentication (instead of the URI twice). Bug introduced in 1.13.0. (#7689)
• Fix a long standing bug where the response to the GET room_keys/version endpoint had the incorrect type for the etag field. (#7691)
• Fix logged error during device resync in opentracing. Broke in v1.14.0. (#7698)
• Do not break push rule evaluation when receiving an event with a non-string body. This is a long-standing bug. (#7701)
• Fixs a long standing bug which resulted in an exception: "TypeError: argument of type 'ObservableDeferred' is not iterable". (#7708)
• The synapse_port_db script no longer fails when the ui_auth_sessions table is non-empty. This bug has existed since v1.13.0. (#7711)
• Synapse will now fetch media from the proper specified URL (using the r0 prefix instead of the unspecified v1). (#7714)
• Fix the tables ignored by synapse_port_db to be in sync the current database schema. (#7717)
• Fix missing Content-Length on HTTP responses from the metrics handler. (#7730)
• Fix large state resolutions from stalling Synapse for seconds at a time. (#7735, #7746)

Improved Documentation

• Spelling correction in sample_config.yaml. (#7652)
• Added instructions for how to use Keycloak via OpenID Connect to authenticate with Synapse. (#7659)
• Corrected misspelling of PostgreSQL. (#7724)

Deprecations and Removals

• Deprecate m.login.jwt login method in favour of org.matrix.login.jwt, as m.login.jwt is not part of the Matrix spec. (#7675)

Internal Changes

• Refactor getting replication updates from database. (#7636)
• Clean-up the login fallback code. (#7657)
• Increase the default SAML session expiry time to 15 minutes. (#7664)
• Convert the device message and pagination handlers to async/await. (#7678)
• Convert typing handler to async/await. (#7679)
• Require parameterized package version to be at least 0.7.0. (#7680)
• Refactor handling of listeners configuration settings. (#7681)
• Replace uses of six.iterkeys/iteritems/itervalues with keys()/items()/values(). (#7692)
• Add support for using rust-python-jaeger-reporter library to reduce jaeger tracing overhead. (#7697)
• Make Tox actions work on Debian 10. (#7703)
• Replace all remaining uses of six with native Python 3 equivalents. Contributed by @ilmari. (#7704)
• Fix broken link in sample config. (#7712)
• Speed up state res v2 across large state differences. (#7725)
• Convert directory handler to async/await. (#7727)
• Move flake8 to the end of scripts-dev/lint.sh as it takes the longest and could cause the script to exit early. (#7738)
• Explain the "test" conditional requirement for dependencies is not all of the modules necessary to run the unit tests. (#7751)
• Add some metrics for inbound and outbound federation latencies: synapse_federation_server_pdu_process_time and synapse_event_processing_lag_by_event. (#7755)

Synapse 1.15.1 is a bug fix release to fix two bugs introduced in 1.15.0.

The first prevented users of certain clients (including Riot) to add or remove third party identifiers such as email addresses.

The second caused Synapse not to start when configured with certain password auth providers.

Sorry if you have been bitten!

Get 1.15.1 from github or any of the sources mentioned at https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/blob/master/INSTALL.md.

Changelog since v1.15.0

Synapse 1.15.1 (2020-06-16)

Bugfixes

• Fix a bug introduced in v1.15.0 that would crash Synapse on start when using certain password auth providers. (#7684)
• Fix a bug introduced in v1.15.0 which meant that some 3PID management endpoints were not accessible on the correct URL. (#7685)