Server – MetaBrainz Blog

MusicBrainz Server update, 2023-06-07

We have a small release this time, slightly delayed because of maintenance work on our servers for the last couple days. The most noticeable changes are probably 68 new locales available for aliases (for example, we can now specify an alias is in Latin language), and a fix to a bug where a small amount of tracks would not be shown in their release’s relationship editor and as such couldn’t have relationships added from that page.

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 salo.rock, UltimateRiff and yyoung for having reported bugs and suggested improvements. Thanks to salo.rock for updating the translations. And thanks to all others who tested the beta version!

The git tag is v-2023-06-07.

MusicBrainz Server update, 2023-05-22

As announced for our schema change release, after a week of beta testing, the ability to modify or remove edit notes is fully delivered in today’s release! A few other unrelated but small improvements and fixes are included too.

As an editor, you are now able to modify or remove your own edit notes if they’re not older than 24 hours and nobody else has replied; you can see the full set of conditions in our edit note documentation. Admins are allowed to modify or remove any edit note from anyone at any time, and have already been using this to remove some spam and inappropriate comments during the beta period.

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 ShivamAwasthi for contributing code and to kellnerd for helping with code review. Thanks to chaban, Cyberskull, jesus2099 q_fdb and yurim for having reported bugs and suggested improvements. Thanks to salo.rock for updating the translations. And thanks to all others who tested the beta version!

The git tag is v-2023-05-22.

MusicBrainz schema change release, 2023-05-15 (with upgrade instructions)

We’re happy to announce the release of our May 2023 schema change today! Thanks to all who were patient during today’s downtime as we released everything to our production servers, and thanks to CatQuest, jesus2099, and yindesu for creating tickets.

This is a fairly small schema change release which mostly removes unused code and improves things behind the scenes. Of the schema change tickets, there are only two that will directly affect users as they browse and edit in MusicBrainz.

The first (MBS-12800) makes it so that cancelled releases are ignored when calculating the first release dates for recordings and release groups; since something that was cancelled was by definition not released, it should not be used as a first release date.

The second (MBS-11312) lays the foundation for a new feature (MBS-4685) that will allow users to edit or delete their edit notes, as long as a set of conditions are met (see the edit note docs for details). Admins will be able to edit or delete any edit notes at any time (MBS-13084), mostly to get rid of spam or offensive content, but also to help any editor who cannot change their note anymore but has an important reason why they need to do so. This feature will be available for testing in our beta server on Tuesday and we expect to release it next week, assuming our beta testers don’t find any too big issue with it by then.

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

MusicBrainz Server update, 2023-05-02

In our last version before the May 15 schema change release, we are mostly releasing a fair amount of React conversion work for smaller pages. We’ve also tried to make some error messages more clear and helpful and made a few improvements to ETI guess case, alongside other small bits and pieces.

The most significant change for editors is the standardization of all auto-deletion waiting periods to 48 hours. Until now, most entities would be removed when empty for 24 hours, while unused artist credits would take a full week to go away. This meant removing the last artist credit usage for an otherwise empty artist would lead to an eight days wait for that artist to be automatically deleted; now it will be four. As a reminder, 48 hours is also the minimum time needed for a merge edit to pass. As such, it’s not always faster anymore to let an entity be removed automatically rather than merging – hopefully this will encourage more autoeditors to merge rather than delete!

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, jesus2099, Lotheric, and rdswift for having reported bugs and suggested improvements. Thanks to okaits#7534 and salo.rock for updating the translations. And thanks to all others who tested the beta version!

The git tag is v-2023-05-02.

MusicBrainz Server update, 2023-04-17

Here is a tiny spring cleaning release that features small bugfixes and, behind the scenes, a larger refactoring of code in preparation for the database schema change.

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 Maxr1998 for his patch of Genie. Thanks to chaban, jesus2099, mr_maxis and yindesu for having reported bugs and suggested improvements. Thanks to salo.rock for updating the translations. And thanks to all others who tested the beta version!

The git tag is v-2023-04-17.

MusicBrainz Server update, 2023-03-20

We’re hopefully back to a normal schedule after the crazy relationship editor testing period! That means we have the usual small amount of bug fixes and improvements this time, including a couple further fixes for small issues of said relationship editor which were not found during beta testing. We also have a text version of the list of historical MusicBrainz events that could only be seen before as bars on our timeline – which hopefully will help remind us to actually update that with new events on a regular basis.

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, mr_maxis, satanisch_opium, sound.and.vision and yyoung for having reported bugs and suggested improvements. Thanks to salo.rock and an anonymous Albanian translator for updating the translations. And thanks to all others who tested the beta version!

The git tag is v-2023-03-21-hotfix.

MusicBrainz Server update, 2023-02-28

After about three years of development and almost six months of beta testing, here is the new implementation in React of all the relationship editors, including the release relationship editor. During the beta period, a hundred more smaller changes have accumulated; mostly bugfixes, but also some URL handling improvements and a fair number of other pages converted to React.

This is a major step forward in development as it makes the project more open to JavaScript contributors and allows for implementing more refinements.

From an editor point of view, the relationship editing dialog slightly changed visually, but overall the page offers the same features, fixes a large amount of bugs, and has some additional improvements:

Better handling of very big releases by not loading all tracks at once
Added ability to edit batch-created works before they’re submitted
“+” icons to quickly add additional relationships of the same type are now also available on the release relationship editor
Now remembering which entity type was selected last in the relationship dialog
New type-to-search functionality for the relationship type selector
Better internationalization as the layout ordering of fields is based on their dependencies rather than on the English grammar of link phrases.
Better seeding of data: easier to script, more reliable, and more available fields
Recording-work relationships can now be reordered straight from the release relationship editor
Reordering relationships can now also be done by entering the order number rather than using up and down arrows
A preview of the relationship (and any changes) is now shown in the add/edit relationship popup

During the beta period, another hundred tickets or so relating to the new editors were reported and addressed. There still are a few tickets reported during the beta that have not yet been resolved, but their drawbacks are outweighed by the benefits of this server update. They are still tracked and will be addressed later on.

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 jesus2099, julian45, and Maxr1998 for having contributed some code. Thanks to kellnerd for working with us to make sure his data seeding scripts worked in the new editors and through that helping us improve script and seeding support. Special thanks to chaban for his thorough dedication at identifying/reporting/detailing issues during these months. Thanks to Admiy, CatQuest, cherryblossom000, chiark, Cyberskull, drsaunde, Eincrou, Griomo, HibiscusKazeneko, johnnyjd, mcboing, mfmeulenbelt, Midness, MXS, otringal, outsidecontext, sound.and.vision, timmart.in, UltimateRiff, vzell, withered.silence, yindesu and zos18 for having reported bugs and suggested improvements. Thanks to 3Johnny, Blu777, dongrimaldo42, homersimpsons, perea and salo.rock for updating the translations. And thanks to all the many others who tested the beta version!

Edit: The changes for MBS-10614 accidentally allowed editors without a confirmed email to vote for a while – this has now been hotfixed.

The git tag is v-2023-03-03-hotfixes.

MusicBrainz Server hotfix, 2023-01-10

A spam technique has been discovered that consisted in creating an account with a malicious URL in the username and the email of the intended victim, so that the victim would receive a verification email with the malicious URL inside it. It was most often combined with control characters to make the malicious URL even more visible.

Thanks to Devin McGovern from the Cyber Security Operations Department at Hyatt who responsibly disclosed this issue to the team.

To deal with the issue:

Creating new such accounts has been blocked; See MBS-12827.
Existing such accounts, around 40,000, have been removed (since new verification emails could still be requested); See MBBE-68.

It doesn’t affect mirrors so there is no update for MusicBrainz Docker.

The git tag is v-2023-01-10-hotfixes.

MusicBrainz Server update, 2022-09-06

This release mostly consists of small bug fixes and improvements. One bigger bug fix (MBS-12497) involves an issue where it was impossible to apply any edit which would cause an artist credit with any redirects pointing to it to be removed. Sorry about your stuck edits, people! They should now pass.

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 chaban, HibiscusKazeneko, jesus2099, Mineo and sammyrayy for having reported bugs and suggested improvements. Thanks to ikerm2003 and salo.rock for updating the translations. And thanks to all others who tested the beta version!

The git tag is v-2022-09-06.

MusicBrainz Server update, 2022-08-22

It’s time for more fixed bugs and refactoring/maintenance tasks.

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 and otringal for having reported bugs and suggested improvements. Thanks to hamaryns, ikerm2003 and salo.rock for updating the translations. And thanks to all others who tested the beta version!

The git tag is v-2022-08-25-hotfixes.

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