MusicBrainz Server hotfix, 2024-04-30

A lack of robustness in MusicBrainz Server’s usage of Postgres indexes, combined with a malicious trend of jamming music databases, ended up with [MBS-13536] blocking the replication for mirrors having legacy indexes and [MBS-13555] blocking the creation of new mirrors. Additionally, a patch for [MBS-7646] showing aliases in more places, currently deployed in beta, needed to be partly deployed on the main servers to ensure cache consistency. Those are the reasons for this hotfix ahead of the upcoming schema change release.

While the issues [MBS-13536] and [MBS-13555] have been affecting mirrors, preventing these from happening again is done through [MBS-13562] only on the side of our main servers, thus no MusicBrainz Docker release is needed.

Thanks to derat for continuously contributing to the MusicBrainz Server code. Thanks to chaban, lotooo, Matthieu42, and nohattila for having reported those bugs. And thanks to all others who keep translating and testing the beta version!

The git tag is v-2024-04-30-hotfix.

Continue reading “MusicBrainz Server hotfix, 2024-04-30”

MusicBrainz Server update, 2024-04-09

This release includes a rewrite of the artist credit editor, which should make it more reliable and also allows undoing row removals, the bane of the too-quick-for-their-own-good editor! It also includes a lot of other small fixes and improvements.

A new release of MusicBrainz Docker is also available that matches this update of MusicBrainz Server. See the release notes for update instructions.


In case your mirror is older than Postgres 12 migration in 2020, if some update scripts didn’t work for some reason back in that time, you might have the following error in the file mirror.log or mirror.log.1 since yesterday:

ERROR:  index row requires xxxxx bytes, maximum size is 8191

Then open a PostgreSQL invite, for example as follows:

admin/psql

Finally, run the following SQL instructions:

SET search_path = musicbrainz, public;
DROP INDEX IF EXISTS track_idx_musicbrainz_collate;
DROP INDEX IF EXISTS track_idx_name;
DROP INDEX IF EXISTS track_idx_txt;

See MBS-13536 for more info.


Thanks to HibiscusKazeneko, kellnerd, lotooo, mr_maxis, sammyrayy and yindesu for having reported bugs and suggested improvements. Thanks to BestSteve, brtc, Leonie2, salo.rock, Vac31, wileyfoxyx and ypkim for updating the translations. And thanks to all others who tested the beta version!

The git tag is v-2024-04-09.

Continue reading “MusicBrainz Server update, 2024-04-09”

Supporting upstream open source projects

For many years the MetaBrainz Foundation has wanted to directly support some of the upstream open source projects we use for development. These upstream projects are used behind the scenes by one or more MetaBrainz projects. They often don’t have individual users, and many lack the visibility for getting other funding.

We are starting with a small donation of $1,001, annually. These will be one-time donations to 13 projects, $77 each. The total amount and the list of projects (see below) will be revised every year.

Continue reading “Supporting upstream open source projects”

MusicBrainz Server update, 2024-02-16

This Friday’s server update mainly features performance improvements related to how data is cached internally. It is conveyed with a fair number of other improvements and bugfixes.

A new release of MusicBrainz Docker is also available that matches this update of MusicBrainz Server. See the release notes for update instructions.

Thanks to julian45 for having contributed with code to better handle OTOTOY links. Thanks to chaban, Cyberskull, fabe56, Freso, HibiscusKazeneko, kellnerd, ms0010, yindesu for having reported bugs and suggested improvements. Thanks to akaN@NAME, Fjuro, GABG, hashflu, Hossein.income, kellnerd, mfmeulenbelt, Philipp Wolfer, salo.rock, and Vac31 for updating the translations. And thanks to all others who tested the beta version!

The git tag is v-2024-02-16.

Continue reading “MusicBrainz Server update, 2024-02-16”

MusicBrainz Server update, 2024-01-08

Happy New Year 2024! We hope that you enjoyed your Year in Music 2023. Here is a quite small but rapid release as we are returning to a normal rhythm of server updates.

A new release of MusicBrainz Docker is also available that matches this update of MusicBrainz Server. See the release notes for update instructions.

Thanks to derat for having contributed to the code. Thanks to chaban, jesus2099, and yindesu for having reported bugs and suggested improvements. Thanks to 0x1026, ApeKattQuest, ChurruKa, danBLOO, DyingSlacker, kellnerd, larsimore, Markus O, mfmeulenbelt, outsidecontext, salo.rock, Vac31, wileyfoxyx, xuanqidongjim, yyb987, and zemeles for updating the translations. And thanks to all others who tested the beta version!

The git tag is v-2024-01-08.

Continue reading “MusicBrainz Server update, 2024-01-08”

MusicBrainz Server update, 2023-12-20

Winter release is coming, with a lot of refactoring behind the scenes. In particular, we fixed a lot of text in the website user interface, to more closely follow the design guidelines concocted by Aerozol for a long time. See the below list of tickets for more functional changes.

A new release of MusicBrainz Docker is also available that matches this update of MusicBrainz Server. See the release notes for update instructions.

Thanks to derat and jesus2099 for having contributed patches. Thanks to ApeKattQuest, chaban, chancey, lotheric, and mr_maxis for having reported bugs and suggested improvements. Thanks to goliv, kellnerd, mfmeulenbelt, outsidecontext, salo.rock, Vac31, and yangmouren for updating the translations. And thanks to all others who tested the beta version!

The git tag is v-2023-12-20.

Continue reading “MusicBrainz Server update, 2023-12-20”

MusicBrainz Server update, 2023-11-27

For your Cyber Monday here is a free release of convenient improvements and bugfixes. It adds www.metalmusicarchives.com to the allowed other databases. It also paves the way for improvements in instrument search.

A new release of MusicBrainz Docker is also available that matches this update of MusicBrainz Server. See the release notes for update instructions.

Thanks to derat and Maxr1998 for having contributed patches. Thanks to Brian Cassidy, chaban, Gal Lalouche and HibiscusKazeneko for having reported bugs and suggested improvements. Thanks to Early6431, itodouble, kellnerd, salo.rock, and Vac31 for updating the translations. And thanks to all others who tested the beta version!

The git tag is v-2023-11-27.

Continue reading “MusicBrainz Server update, 2023-11-27”

MusicBrainz Server update, 2023-11-13

As announced two months ago to mirrors’ administrators, MusicBrainz Server is now requiring Node.js 20.

As part of that move, we’ve also upgraded our required version of Yarn (used to install JavaScript dependencies from npm) to v4. Unless you’re using musicbrainz-docker, which manages Yarn for you, the Yarn upgrade will require some manual steps. These are to be executed from the musicbrainz-server directory:

sudo corepack enable # Installs yarn to /usr/local/bin
rm -rf node_modules
./script/compile_resources.sh

For more information about corepack, see INSTALL.md.

Also as promised two weeks ago to the same people, it is now possible to rebuild indexes using ICU collations by running:

admin/RebuildIndexesUsingCollations.pl

It has to be run whenever the versions of libc/icu have changed on your system. Auto-detecting this situation will also be implemented soon.

For editors, the most important fixed bug is likely the search for edit by relationship type that was timing out. There is otherwise a fair amount of fixed bugs, improvements, strengthened security, and small new features.

A new release of MusicBrainz Docker is also available that matches this update of MusicBrainz Server. See the release notes for update instructions.

Thanks to derat for the couple of UI/UX improvements he coded. Thanks to BestSteve, chaban, DontMindMe, Freso, jesus2099, sammyrayy, and yindesu for having reported bugs and suggested improvements. Thanks to bbiirrdd, claybiockiller, Jaken264, joysriram.sarkar.56, julian45, kellnerd, outsidecontext, portik, reosarevok, salo.rock, SoundwaveUwU, suming, Vac31, wileyfoxyx, yurirhsilva, and Водка665 for updating the translations. And thanks to all others who tested the beta version!

The git tag is v-2023-11-13.

Continue reading “MusicBrainz Server update, 2023-11-13”

CritiqueBrainz update, 2023-10-31

This is a maintenance-only release of the CritiqueBrainz server. It fixes a potential security vulnerability (unexploited so far) and tests. It also updates a bunch of important dependencies to their latest version (Node.js…).

From the users’ point of view, it fixes the preview feature of the text editor in the critique submission form, thanks to the new Markdown text editor, EasyMDE, an actively maintained fork of the abandoned SimpleMDE.

The git tag is v-2023-10-31.0.

This update is delivered to you by ansh, lucifer, and monkey, to keep CritiqueBrainz alive. As a reminder, this project has currently no dedicated developer. Code contributions, even small ones, would be more than welcome!

Continue reading “CritiqueBrainz update, 2023-10-31”

MusicBrainz Server update, 2023-10-02

At the dawn of the Summit 23, here is a comfort release with some improvements, a few bugfixes, and even some small new features.

A new release of MusicBrainz Docker is also available that matches this update of MusicBrainz Server. See the release notes for update instructions.

Thanks to CatQuest, chaban, HibiscusKazeneko, Kurumi, Mark Bakker, Q_FDB, and yindesu for having reported bugs and suggested improvements. Thanks to emiguel1960, salo.rock, Vac31, and Yllelder for updating the translations. And thanks to all others who tested the beta version!

The git tag is v-2023-10-02.

Continue reading “MusicBrainz Server update, 2023-10-02”