brXM V16.5 Release Notes
Warning: Known Issue
In versions 16.5.0 and 16.5.1, accessing the Experience Manager without the /cms context path (for example, http://cms.example.com instead of http://cms.example.com/cms/) can cause static assets (JS, CSS, fonts) to fail to load and return HTTP 500 errors when using an Apache reverse proxy as documented.
Upgrade to v16.5.2 to resolve this issue.
For questions, contact Bloomreach Support.
Highlights for v16.5
brXM v16.5 introduces new features, technical stack upgrades, and product improvements. This release note summarizes the main updates. For a full overview, see the release notes overview.
All features described here are part of Bloomreach Content unless stated otherwise.
Significant Updates
Modernized Frontend and Improved Performance with Angular
Experience Manager App has completed its migration from AngularJS to Angular. This change addresses security and maintenance risks associated with AngularJS end-of-life. The new Angular-based frontend provides improved security, maintainability, and performance, resulting in faster load times and a more responsive user interface.
CMS Performance Improvements
Versions 16.4.2 and 16.5 include significant CMS UI performance enhancements:
- Faster Content Navigation: The Content perspective folder tree is now more responsive. By storing folder content information on the folder node itself (
hippostd:hasfoldersproperty), expand/collapse actions are approximately three times faster. This reduces unnecessary child node iterations. For details, see Use the Folder Tree Performance Improvement. - Quicker Document Overview Loading: The document overview panel now loads faster, especially for documents with many components. The panel loads only essential information initially, avoiding delays from retrieving all component and sub-node data.
- Optimized Sitemap Generation for Experience Pages: Sitemap tree generation is now faster, especially in environments with many Experience Pages. The process uses a dedicated, impersonated system session to build the sitemap, improving stability and responsiveness.
Expanded AI Content Assistant Capabilities
The AI Content Assistant now supports additional models and image analysis:
- New Model Integrations: Integration with Google's Vertex AI Gemini and Ollama is now available. Both can be configured directly in Essentials.
- Image Support: The AI assistant can analyze images as primary context when viewing or editing images in the CMS.
Image support is available since v16.4.1.
For implementation details, see the AI Content Assistant developer guide.
Checker Repository Maintenance Tool Enhancements
Repository Lucene index management is improved with new features and architectural changes:
- Lucene Index Export: The Checker tool can now export Lucene indexes from the repository. Use cases include:
- Creating repository index backups
- Facilitating index recreation
- Supporting repository maintenance
For usage instructions, see the Repository Checker Tool documentation.
- CMS Architecture Improvements: The
ExternalRepositorySyncRevisionServicehas moved fromorg.onehippo.repository.journaltoorg.apache.jackrabbit.core.query.lucene.export. This consolidates index-related functionality within Jackrabbit core for better maintainability.
Ongoing Enhancements and Fixes
For End Users
- Revision history ribbon terminology is clarified; 'branch' and 'Core' are now more understandable, especially in non-English locales.
- Fixed an error caused by using option groups in dynamic dropdowns (selections plugin).
- Resolved a NullPointerException when using “Publish” or “Show references” on certain documents.
- Improved performance of the "See all" button for pending requests by optimizing the underlying query, reducing CPU usage and improving reliability.
- The deletion dialog for documents and pages now warns: “in the CMS, it is not possible to revert deletions” to prevent accidental data loss.
- Fixed an issue where document site reference locations appeared empty in the References dialog if the document was used in an Experience page component not linked to a menu item.
- Resolved a UI issue where relevance variants created for one component appeared in the dropdown for other components until the side panel was closed and reopened.
- Fixed a display issue where the ‘Save’ button was not fully visible in some non-English languages.
- Addressed missing field properties in the Experience View after upgrading from previous versions.
- The publication/take-offline dialog now closes automatically after successful operations for both the opened document and selected references. The dialog remains open if an error occurs. This is also available in v16.4.1.
- Added a URL rewriter to the "Location" field in Advanced Search. This is also available in v16.4.1.
For Developers
- Addressed an SEO issue where search engines could index internal Delivery API 1.0 references (
$refpaths), especially on sites using frameworks like Next.js with server-side rendering. The prefix for these references is now configurable via a query parameter. The Bloomreach SPA SDK v26.0.1 includes a matching configuration option for compatibility. - Enhanced Essentials security and flexibility by removing the hardcoded admin user and password. Override credentials using the command line parameters:
-Dessentials.userand-Dessentials.password. - Fixed an LDAP sync issue where a broken connection could remove all users from the JCR. The system now retries up to 5 times at 30-second intervals before failing, ensuring data integrity. This is also available in v16.4.1. See LDAP Authentication for details.
- Updated several third-party libraries. For a complete list, see the detailed release documentation.
Bloomreach SPA SDK Updates
- Support for Angular 20 and React 19:
The latest SPA SDK releases add support for Angular 20 and React 19. Updates include conversion of React components to functional components and improved StrictMode compatibility. Note: Only one BrPage component is allowed per route. - Configurable Delivery API Delimiter:
SPA SDK v26.0.1 supports parsing a custom Delivery API delimiter.
For release details, see the SPA SDK releases.
Professional Services Plugin Newsletter
The xm-s3-manager plugin (repository) version 3.1.0 is now available. This version upgrades the AWS SDK from v1 to v2.
Upgrade Assistance from Bloomreach Experts
Bloomreach Professional Services offers upgrade support for Bloomreach Content projects. The team provides an Upgrade Assessment service, delivering a comprehensive evaluation and a detailed report within three days. The report includes:
- Executive summary
- Overview of major changes
- Recommended upgrade procedure
- Comprehensive list of findings
The evaluation fee is fully refundable if you proceed with Professional Services for the upgrade.
To request upgrade assistance, contact your account manager.
Notices
JVM Default Time Zone on Bloomreach Cloud
When running brXM v16.x on Bloomreach Cloud, the JVM default time zone is UTC. Any date/time processing that relies on the JVM default time zone (instead of an explicitly configured one) will use UTC.
Changing the Time Zone Behavior
- CMS UI Time Zone:
Configure the login page time zone dropdown to allow users to select their time zone at login (defaults to browser time zone). You can also configure a single time zone for all users.
See: Configure the CMS login page (time zone selection dropdown) - JVM Default Time Zone:
Set the JVM default time zone explicitly by uploading a properties file (for example,user.timezone=Europe/Amsterdam) and configuring it as a Java System Properties file during deployment.
Minor Release
v16.5 is a minor release and is backward compatible with the previous minor version. Upgrading from the previous minor version requires minimal effort. For upgrade instructions, see the upgrade documentation (login required). An overview of all minor version upgrade instructions is available here.
Supported Technologies
System requirements are listed in the online system requirements, including a detailed table of maintained third-party compatibility.
End-of-Life, Support, and Maintained Code
Nomenclature
Definitions for product lifecycle terms:
Supported Product Version
A supported product version receives helpdesk support as described in your service level agreement (SLA). Several service levels are available.
If a bug is found in a supported but not-maintained version and a fix is required, the fix is only applied to maintained versions. To receive the fix, upgrade to a maintained version.
Maintained Product Version
A maintained product version receives code updates, security patches, and bug fixes. System requirements for third-party libraries and components are kept up to date. Bloomreach supports usage with certified system requirement providers only.
Non-maintained products do not receive updates and may contain unresolved bugs or security vulnerabilities.
End-of-Life Product Version
End-of-life products are neither maintained nor supported. They may be available from archives but can be removed without notice.
Current Release Support Status
This release changes maintenance or support modes. The table below shows support status and planned end dates by version and license level. Versions not listed are not active or supported and are considered end-of-life.
| Version | Planned end date of Standard Support | Planned end date of Premium Plus Support | Original major version release date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12.6 | No Support | No support | July 2017 |
| 13.4 | No Support | No support | January 2019 |
| 14.7 | December 2024 | December 2025 | December 2019 |
| 15.7 | December 2025 | December 2026 | April 2022 |
| 16.5 | December 2026 | December 2027 | June 2024 |
Supported versions may differ depending on contractual agreements. Versions highlighted in orange are actively maintained and receive bug fixes and product improvements.
Security Notes
This release updates third-party dependencies with published vulnerabilities. Keep your systems up to date with announced product releases.
Availability
brXM v16.5 is available as of September 24, 2025. The open source release will be available approximately two years later, following Bloomreach's release policy.