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Magento 2.4.6 Release

Magento 2.4.6 is one of the biggest recent releases for the eCommerce platform.

What’s new in Magento 2.4.6

The stand-out improvement is support for the latest PHP 8.2.
There are also a host of features providing significant performance and scalability improvements.

Magento 2.4.6 also contains over 300 quality fixes and enhancements.
These include upgraded core composer dependencies and third-party libraries.

Before this let us look at Magento Open Source Community Prioritisation Process

Magento Open Source Community Prioritisation Project

Magento Open Source Community Prioritisation Project is partially responsible in bringing some of these updates to market.

Magento Open Source Community Prioritisation Project was started in October 2022. The goal was to give the Open Source Community a say in which items are included in the core code.
Individual developers voted on issues to help determine what needed working on and at what priority.

A Prioritisation Backlog was created from the results of everything the community wanted from most popular to least problematic.

So far 10 of these items have been included in Magento 2.4.6.

This is a fantastic step forward.
It both enhances the communities involvement in Magento and gives those who work daily with Magento a voice.

We also have a video short on the Community Project here.

Magento 2.4.6 was released March 14th, 2023.
Let us have a look at what Magento 2.4.6 update offers.

Magento 2.4.6 release: everything you need to know

This release is a major update both in performance and security.

  • Eight security fixes & platform security improvements. Read more at Adobe Security Bulletin.
  • Fixed issue regarding reCAPTCHA validation failure at unexpected error during payment processing.
  • Fixed issues related to the incorrect total number of records in the staging dashboard.
  • Added a drag-and-drop feature to the page builder for importing images in bulk. You can now bulk import images into the gallery using Page Builders drag-and-drop.

Platform enhancements

From PHP 8.2, OpenSearch and MariaDB updates

  • PHP 8.2 is supported and PHP 8.1 will continue to work*
  • Composer 2.2.x and ElasticSearch 8.x are supported
  • Redis 7.0.x is supported—Redis 6.2 remains compatible but will reach end of service in April 2024
  • OpenSearch becomes the default search engine for Adobe Commerce on-premise and cloud installations; it is supported as an independent search engine for Magento Open Source
  • Support for MariaDB (LTS version) remains, but upgrading to MariaDB 10.6 is recommended
  • The DHL scheme is migrated from v6.2 to v10.0
  • Outdated JavaScript libraries are updated to the latest versions and outdated dependencies are removed—they remain backward compatible

Magento 2.4.6 PHP 8.1 / 8.2

Is is worth pointing out the change in PHP versions.
Magento 2.4.6 only supports PHP 8.1 and 8.2.
This is not a Magento restriction.
PHP 8.1 and up are the only PHP versions that are now supported.
All previous PHP 7.* versions are now deprecated and at risk.
It is now time to update.
If you haven’t yet updated there is an excellent Magento 2 PHP 8.x Compatibility Checker available on GitHub.
This will show you which modules are compatable and more importantly which modules are not,

Performance and scalability

  • Configure setting to improve the performance of operations involving 100+ customer segments. To do this the Real-time Check if Customer is Matched by Segment setting is disabled
  • Improved product grid performance by limiting the number of products displayed in the product grid.
  • Import performance improved allowing imports of up to 100,000 records per minute.
  • Improved order processing through load balancing for Adobe Commerce 2.4.6.

New B2B feature

  • The Purchase Order for Companies feature is made available via the GraphQL API
  • Multiple bug fixes

Accessibility updates

  • The storefront experience on Venia (PWA) is made “more perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust”
  • Descriptive accessible names are added to all buttons on the storefront
  • All storefront functionality is made accessible to keyboard-only users

Braintree Payment Method

The following Braintree enhancements have been added Magento 2.4.6

  • Enabled the Braintree Pay Later button & messages for Italy and Spain.
  • Enabled the PayLater messaging with PayPal Vault.
  • The Braintree payment method now comes with Fraud Protection and ACH webhooks.

Page Builder compatibility

  • Page Builder v.1.7.3 is supported in Magento 2.4.6

PWA Studio compatibility

  • PWA Studio v.13.0.x is supported in Magento 2.4.6

GraphQL performance enhancements

  • GraphQL Performance Enhancements
  • GraphQL is a query language used for the Magento 2 APIs. Adobe is introducing many improvements in the latest release to improve the Magento GraphQL performance.
  • Magento 2 APIs related to querying products in categories with category permissions saw improvements to their response times.
  • Category tree rendering performance in GraphQL has been improved.
  • Response time of the bulk cart operations through GraphQL has been improved.

Magento 2.4.6 release fixed issues

The following are just an sample of the 100’s of fixed in Magento 2.4.6

  • Compare Products list feature not working correctly in a multi-website installation
  • Screen readers’ failure to read the correct image description on the order history page
  • Error when Quick Order is used to add products and available inventory is less than the quantity indicated
  • Proceed to Checkout, Review Order, and Place Order buttons at checkout not working
  • Overriding other store views’ data when updating bundle products via API for a specific store view
  • JavaScript console error when product quantity is more than the configured limit during a multi-shipping checkout—an informative error message is displayed instead
  • Static content deployment timeout error during standard or compact deployments with different websites and locales
  • Composer 1 removed and updated to version 2

SMPT: You’ve got Mail

After many years of asking Magento 2.4.6 has introduced the ability to specify a custom external SMTP.
No more third party modules required as covered here.

So is this a good time to update?

Should you upgrade to Magento 2.4.6?

Magento 2.4.6 release sees improvements in performance and security.
Its advanced features and updates help create a site that is both more secure, and faster while allowing for a more efficient store.

Please note this advice to update comes with one caviat.

You must check for any compatibility issues as Magento 2.4.6 only runs on PHP 8.1 or 8.2.
The backwards compatibility of previous versions of Magento are not, and cannot, be present in this release.

Any third party modules should be of particular concern and compatibility must be checked.

Always run checks on a dev site prior to going live.

Please find the official Magento 2.4.6 release notes here

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